The Ripple Effect
Make a ring and widen, widen . . . Everything
Will be encircled in your spell if you but widen.
- Genevieve Taggard
A part of me loves sharing client testimonials (“Look! This stuff works!”) and another part of me thinks it’s low rent (poor form, déclassé, whatever you want to call it.) I have a whole section on my website for client testimonials, so guess which side usually wins out!
Anyway, this week I had to share this portion of an email I got from a client. Her name is Sophy and she was noticing how, as she continues emotional health coaching with me, it’s changing her relationships—with her work, her family, and friends—for the better. In the email, she called it a ripple effect.
And it got me thinking about the ripple effects in my life, how my healing and growth have affected everyone around me. Three important implications popped out for me:
We are parts of our own social ecosystems, so our healing and growth changes those around us. There will be some people who are attracted and energized by your healing and growth, and others who are threatened and angry at the changing dynamics. When you’re part of an ecosystem, you can’t change without affecting the whole. The shifts inside you will shift things around you.
Although healing and growth happens individually within our own internal systems, eventually we all heal and grow through our relationships, within our larger social ecosystem. If our healing and growth are not connecting us more honestly and deeply with others in our lives, then our healing and growth has halted. If you feel increasingly isolated as you do inner work, then check on the parts of you carrying judgment and criticism. Those parts are a sign that self-acceptance/compassion is the next milestone on your journey. And once you’re able to compassionately accept all your parts, compassionately accepting others in your life will come easily.
The ripple effect happens in all directions, so we need to be open to others’ healing and growth. Most of us have inner parts that feel pride in our healing and growth and like to see the ripple effect as only moving outward from us to others. What might it be like to open up to the healing and growth of others’ in our lives?
The next level realization for me is that these three implications are true of our inner system as well. Healing one inner part opens up more space for healing other inner parts. Ultimately, all our parts want to be in harmonious relationship with each other; in other words, they need to heal and grow in relationship just like we do. And finally, the healing of different parts goes in all directions in our system. No one part is responsible for this healing; they all make more space for each other.
Ripple effects are reminders that no inner part is alone and I’m not alone. I’m a system of relationships embedded in relationships. I’m curious what happens when we let this reminder sink in. What does this reminder call us into?