73: Growth Feels Like Quicksand

Growth is supposed to feel empowering, so why does it sometimes feel like you are sinking? Tajuana jumps on the mic solo to name a feeling many of us have but rarely say out loud: you can be doing everything “right” and still feel stuck. When a hard conversation blows up or a familiar pattern shows up again, it is easy to decide none of the therapy, boundaries, or healing work is working. We slow that moment down and look at what progress actually looks like when there are no fireworks. 

We get real about how self-awareness often arrives before your behaviour changes, and why that lag can be painful. Tajuana connects the dots with ADHD experiences like procrastination and chasing quick dopamine, then reframes growth as a series of tiny building blocks: the pause before you react, the shorter recovery after a bad day, the small boundary you finally hold, the habit shift you repeat until it becomes autopilot. 

We also talk about the toughest part of personal growth and emotional healing: life does not pause. You are still working, parenting, paying bills, and dealing with people who may never notice how hard you are trying. This conversation is a reminder that your growth is your business, small wins count, and the “tests” along the way can be proof you are changing.

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Transcript

Welcome And Solo Update

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Subscribe your favorite drink, put the kids to bed, lift up your space, do whatever you need to do and join us. We can't wait to connect with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Turn the Page Podcast. This is one of your co-hosts, Tawana Page. This is another solo. So Shri and I have been doing solos recently, just because that's where life is right now. But we do have some episodes where we're obviously back together, the gang's back together. But today, this

Why Growth Feels Like Quicksand

SPEAKER_02 1:05

just came on the top of my head, and I wanted to record before it left me. ADHD brain. So I recorded a recent episode. When this one drops, that one would have dropped already as well. About my recent late diagnosis of ADHD. I was diagnosed at 39, but somehow I feel like I've known all along that something was just not off, but things just worked a little bit differently for me now, and I was just fighting it. But that's not what today's episode is about. Today's episode is about essentially why growth and doing the work can feel like quicksand. It's like you feel like you're doing the work and you're not making any progress. You just feel like you're stuck because you're not seeing any evidence of the progress. And you know, with quicksand, like you can't move. It's like you just feel like your body's heavy, or like metaphorically speaking, like your mind just feels heavy. It just feels like you're going nowhere when you know gosh darn well that you have done all of the work and you continue to do all of the work. And that it's just frustrating because it's like you're reading all the books, you're listening to all the podcasts, you're going to therapy, you're setting boundaries, you're healing, you're growing, you're doing all the things. And then it literally feels like you look back and you're like, I feel like I haven't moved. I feel like I haven't made progress. And that's how I feel every time something like blows up in my face, or I have like a miscommunication with somebody because I'm like, I thought that I had approached this differently. I know that I had approached this differently. And I go back to, is it me that did something in the conversation or is it the other person? And I just like want to scream into a pillow about this because it is so frustrating. Because we assume that when you start going to therapy, when you start applying things you've learned in therapy to your life, when you start setting boundaries, when you start like pulling from your toolbox of coping mechanisms, when you start, you know, releasing the chains that have held you down and in place for so long, you just feel like these big breakthroughs are gonna happen. Like, like we're gonna see fireworks, and just like there's gonna be everyone cheering for you, and just like immediate results, and the other people that you communicate with or that like you do life with are immediately and automatically gonna like understand yes, that was growth. She didn't react the way that she used to some moment where everything just feels like it clicks, and unfortunately, it doesn't feel like that because with growth, you're like, you know, you're going up a mountain, you're taking stuff off each time you each like elevation you go up because it's like you're unpacking things, and you have a destination to be like your best self, and then yeah, that's not my experience. I feel like I've taken like 10 steps forward and like 20 steps back in some situations. I feel like I'm trying to just like rectify everything in my life at one time, and that could be a reason as well. I just feel like I've gotten so much better at reacting to certain things, certain situations, certain people, and then like you have a miss a mishap or like a miscommunication, and they feel like I personally feel like I'm back at square one. It's just super frustrating. I did two weeks ago, and I just did this morning before getting on here to record a brain dump. So I feel like when my brain gets so foggy with things, I need to get everything out and cleared away so that I can think better. I mean, I've seen some situation, seen me in some situations where I'm reacting way differently than I would have like months ago. So I'm proud of myself for that. But also, this is the piece that like is really painful for growth if you're a human, is that the awareness of all of the things that you need to change arrives like before the change actually happens, and it

Awareness Arrives Before Behavior Changes

SPEAKER_02 5:12

sucks. So, for example, like before my ADHD diagnosis, I procrastinated. I mean, I still do, I'm still procrastinating, but now it's like okay, I'm procrastinating because XYZ, whether I'm overwhelmed, struggling with a task, like initiating it, avoiding a transition or hyper-focusing on something. And now I'm like having an outer body experience, watching myself do it. It's like I'm being I'm able to like pick up on all the things that are like the reasons why I was doing procrastination. So it's like the next step is okay, I'm aware of this, but then it's like the behavior hasn't changed. Like I still procrastinate, but the awareness of me doing that, I feel like that's growth. And growth, I feel like is like just putting little pieces together, but I'm expecting like those big, like I said, fireworks. And it sucks because for me, I will put in work for like a week and be like, okay, where's the change? Like this person's still being like this when I'm acting like this, they should see that I'm changing. It's just frustrating. And also, I started medicine like a couple days ago. Obviously, it's not a miracle worker, but I'm really hoping that this medicine helps me better able to manage my ADHD symptoms so I can like perform better in life and just I don't know, just walk through life differently. But I also feel like for growth, it's like it's a solo journey. Like you're gonna lose people on the midst of this journey because not everybody is where you are and they won't ever be where you are, and that's fine, it's no judgment. We all have our own journeys, but like I'm at the point of growth where like it's uncomfortable and it's like lonely because it's like I'm attempting to fix things that I didn't love before, and now I'm trying to, you know, use the tools to fix them and like try to communicate better or try to do whatever better. And there, you know, maybe some people who don't know this part of me and necessarily don't love this version of me, and that's fine showing up differently and just you know, trying to do better, just trying to do a lot better. And also with growth, like life, there's no pause button for when you're growing, like you just you have to grow while you're

Growing Without A Pause Button

SPEAKER_02 7:35

still living life, which is the other sucky thing about growing as a human. It's like you don't get to be like, hey, I'm gonna pause my life for like three months while I go heal. I mean, some people maybe take like some time off to like, you know, come back to themselves, but not everybody has that luxury to do that. And oftentimes it's you're healing and growing whilst also going through the daily, mundane things of life, dealing with the people that you may be healing from or like healing from what they've done or whatever. Like you just can't remove yourself from the situation a lot of the times for most of us, and that's the hard part because you're literally sometimes growing in environments that caused you pain, and that almost seems impossible. But like key factor to that is like reacting to the environment differently than you were before, because they always say, you know, you can't feel in the environment that hurt you. While that is true, that is not always like the case in most of our lives. Like maybe you are in like a situation, like a work situation or like a relationship situation, and you are able to like remove yourself from those environments, which is great, because then you can start healing. But a lot of the times you may not be able to, and that's the hard part as well, because it's like I don't want to keep seeing this reminder of this thing that like hurt me. I'm trying to heal from it. But the whole point of the growth in that is to go to therapy and find new ways to, you know, look at the situation. Like, oh, this person was hurt or they were dealing with this. It doesn't excuse their behavior whatsoever, but it gives a reason for their behavior, and that almost allows you to accept that more and then like continue on your growth journey while not excusing their behavior and realizing that everyone's on their own journey. Um, some people just feel like they have nothing to heal or grow from, and that's fine, that's their business. It's like we all do things differently, but yeah, like if life had like a pause button for most of us and think, hold on, I'm gonna pause this for three months while I go heal, but no, that's not the case. Most of us are still parenting, working, paying bills, running errands, managing relationships. A lot of them we're managing are the ones that we're literally trying to grow from, taking care of everyone else, and starting trying to take care of ourselves. It's just, it's wild. For me, that's working full-time, raising my kids, running a podcast, writing a blog, trying to take care of myself, trying to remember where I put my phone again, and then just like trying to study for this upcoming exam that I'm gonna be taking soon. All of like growth is happening in the middle of all of this chaos because there is no perfect time for it. There's no pause button for me. It's just it's fascinating.

Measuring Progress Through Small Wins

SPEAKER_02 10:23

As you do the work and as you grow, you start to think about how you measure growth and how you measure what it looks like for you. It's like the smallest things that add up to the big things, and one day you are just a completely different person. It could be like if you have a bad day, maybe before you start doing the work, it took you maybe like the whole week to recover from like that bad day. Like you were still pissed about it. But now, as you're doing the work and you're healing, it may take you like half the time. It may take you three days now to heal from that bad day, as opposed to like seven or six. And that's growth right there because over time your reaction to the bad day will get smaller and smaller, and eventually, like you'll be able to bounce back within like an hour or so. I mean, that takes time, but you know, it's possible. Setting a boundary, especially if you didn't grow up knowing what boundaries are, and now you're learning how to set boundaries and enforce them, and the ones with yourself are very hard. And also obviously setting boundaries with people that you never set boundaries with before are difficult. Recognizing a toxic pattern and pointing it out and be like, hmm, I noticed that I always react this way in this situation with this person or when this comes up. So the self-awareness in that piece, that's growth, pausing for a second, like taking a beat before you react to certain things, giving yourself grace in situations that you never would have before. They're not like big motion picture like milestones, like, yeah, you didn't react the same way that you would have three months ago. No, it's like little by little, and it's almost like building blocks. But those little moments, like I think people who go on this journey of healing and growing, they are expecting like huge leaps, leaps and bounds. But it's literally just like little pieces that we are putting together to make it to like a better version of ourselves. But it's like those little pieces, those little consistent habits that you do every day. So eventually you're doing things on autopilot, which if it's a good thing, that's great. But like maybe you have a bad habit you want to break and you've been doing an autopilot, it's the little things, like little by little. Maybe you want to break the habit of like using your phone at night or using it in the morning when you're getting ready. So little by little you notice that you have put your phone down when you're getting ready. You put your phone down right before you go to sleep. And like over time you build on those habits to eventually you don't even feel the need to reach for your phone the minute you wake up or when you go to bed. But it like those little building blocks are where is what the growth is. Like I feel like the growth isn't the destination, like it's the journey. And I feel like that's where I get confused a lot, where it's like I'm trying to get to the final destination of growth. But no, girl, like your growth is the daily, everyday, like little changes that you make. It can sometimes look like this huge fog of like chaos and a mess, and you're like, wait a second, what's going on? And there will be times where you react the same way that you did three months ago and you're trying not to. And you know what? That's gonna happen as part of growth because you know what? We're human and we make mistakes and no one's perfect. But each time you maybe have that reaction where you didn't want to, each time that happens, you give yourself grace to the point where like you give yourself so much grace that when it happens again, you're like, my bad. Like, let me just try that again. It's just way hard for me because I'm I told you, like, I talked about it on the me unpacking my ADHD diagnosis.

Dopamine Versus Slow Boring Growth

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Um, I love a dopamine hit. Like your girl like loves a dopamine hit. Like, I will chase it, I'll chase a high with like going down rabbit holes. Like, I love a dopamine hit so much. But like, that's my problem. Well, no, it's not a problem. That's one of my like challenges I'm working through. Because for me, dopamine hits, I'm like, oh yeah, like this is great, and that's what I want to chase the next one or the next one. But growth is not sexy at all. They're like, there's dopamine hits, but they're they're not sexy. The dopamine hits could be like, yeah, like I didn't eat that cupcake when I wanted to. Or like I, you know, say for I don't eat cupcakes every day, but say for example, like I eat a cupcake every day after dinner, where it's like one day I started not eating one, like that's eventually that'll be the dopamine hit where it's like eventually I no longer want a cupcake after dinner. That's just an example. Or it's like you start walking now after dinner. It's like maybe you've never done that before. And you just start like, you know, walking a few feet, a few, maybe like a block around your neighborhood. And eventually that adds up, and you're walking like two to three miles after dinner, you're like, that's the dopamine hit. That's the hit where it's like you don't even think about it. You just lace up your shoe, your shoes after dinner, after, you know, maybe the kids come with you or whatever, and you just like before you know it, you're lacking three miles after dinner. And like that's the hit right there. That's the dopamine hit where it's like little by little. My dopamine hits are like mine have to be, well, for me, has to be like instant, but I'm learning to challenge that challenge and be like, what if it's not instant? What if it happens over time? What if you find yourself, you know, loving to take walks after dinner and you don't even think about it, it's just part of your routine. Like, that's the dopamine hit. The dopamine hit from that is obviously endorphins are released when you work out. You feel better. There's the hit right there. It's like that natural high of like endorphins and working out and moving your body and feeling good. So it's just an example, but it's like it could be anything for everyone's different. But and also it's frustrating when like you're obviously still still dealing with people, like you're not like

When Others Miss Your Progress

SPEAKER_02 16:12

by yourself. You're still dealing with people at work, at home, or like even out in the store, whatever. It's like they even the people closest to you, they may know you're going on this like growth and healing journey, but like they're not in your mind, they're not in your head, they're not with you every second of every day. They don't know how much work you put in or are putting in, and how maybe like it's taken everything in you not to react a certain way. And sometimes people don't see that, and I get that's the thing I get pissed about the most where I'm like, you have no idea how much work I've been putting in. But then I'm trying to change that narrative and be like, they wouldn't know how much work I'm putting in because they're not me. From the outside looking in, it looks like I've done no work because I reacted the same way. But you know, I paused before I reacted, so that's growth. But to them, they're not paying attention to that. I think that's where I get pissed the most from like you have no idea how much work I've been putting in. I've been doing going to therapy, I've been taking my meds, like whatever it is. And all you see is like me having a bad day or like something. And that's, I think for me, what I get pissed about so much. But then I have to change and be like, nope, Tawana, like they're not here to see your growth. It's not their business, it's yours. They're on their own journey. And also that's not your business either for someone else being on their journey. Like, that's their own journey, their own growth. People are gonna see and proceed things the way they want. Um, and also a lot of times when you're growing, like I said, people see a version of you they're not used to and they don't always love it and they react to that. And it's just something you have to deal with. I mean, over time you just get used to it, you just let it kind of like roll off your shoulder. But everyone's journey is their own business, and everyone's growth is their own business. So when people react to my growth and my healing, I have to look at it as yeah, not your business, and your reaction is not my business. Like this is my business, my journey, my growth, and my healing. So say what you want. Like, this is just this is what I'm into right now. Not even right now, but like this is what I'm doing. This is where we're going, this is where I'm going. So that's my biggest challenge right now is just other people like intercepting and intercepting on my growth and healing journey. But that's fine, because it's

The Universe Tests Your Healing

SPEAKER_02 18:30

always gonna be that. That's the another point of growth. Like the universe is like, oh, I heard you want to grow and heal. Let me put some things in your way to see if you really want to grow and heal. Because it's like if you are able to get through those challenges, then you have successfully grown and healed. Like the universe is like, hey, let me put people in your life, let me keep people in your life that piss you off, that used to piss you off. And you say you want to heal and grow, let me see how you deal with them on a daily basis still. And it takes time, but eventually you just don't let them bother you. So that's the growth piece, too. It's like the universe heard growth, you're gonna get some growth, honey. You are, you're gonna get it. But just know that if you're growing, you should be so proud of yourself. If you didn't react a certain way that you used to, just look out for the little things, and that's for you to be proud about nobody else, because it's not their journey, it's yours. And even if it's like again, I didn't eat that cupcake after dinner, like that's huge to you. It might not be huge to someone else, but it's huge to them. Maybe for someone else, it's like I didn't watch TV in the morning while getting ready. That's huge to them. And it's like that's something for them to celebrate. So even if it's like the smallest little things, I want you to celebrate that because that's growth as well, especially if you're not used to celebrating yourself. Celebrate yourself and know that that is part of growth. Just another stepping stone and building block block. Wow, building block in the atmosphere of growth. And I just want you to know that I see you, all the people who are doing the work and healing and growing. It's not sexy, it's most of the time it sucks. But the other side, a better version of yourself, is so much better. So just keep going, keep growing. And what's the saying? Like, grow through what you go through. It's like, we got this. We got this. Remember, if you're doing the work and you're growing, that's you should be proud of that in general, just by stepping up and doing that. Because a lot of people won't face themselves. And facing yourselves is the most growth thing ever. But yeah, I just wanted to drop in and record this

Celebrate Yourself And Closing CTA

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for you guys. I hope you guys have a good rest of the day. And just know that if you're doing the work, you rock. And I see you, and we got this, and I'll talk to you soon, guys. Bye. And don't forget to like, listen, subscribe, and review.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Love you. Bye. All right, everyone. This was another episode of Turn the Page Podcast. Thanks for hanging out.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Don't forget to like, listen, and subscribe. And also don't forget to leave a review, please, and let us know what you thought about today's episode and all the other episodes. Thanks, guys. Talk to you soon. Bye.