For many an expression of changing oneself sounds like breaking oneself or betraying oneself. How about evolution?

Living things evolve, if they don’t evolve they die, go extinct.

Psychologically speaking evolving is about becoming truly yourself so that you can live fully.

What does it mean to become truly yourself?

It is about spring-cleaning, decluttering your mental and psychological home.

It is about getting rid of what doesn’t serve you anymore (even if it served before) such as destructive beliefs, fantasies, illusions or ideals.

The key for self-evolution and individuation is evolving out of free will, which requires a certain level of maturity, taking responsibility for yourself, for self-creation.

Many of us know people who stopped evolving. What is common for those people? In my experience, stopping evolution leads to psychological and physical regression, stagnation and decay.

Many say that maturity, evolution or growth only comes from drama or grief. I disagree.

Yes, some of us are able to learn lessons, extract wisdom from challenging life situations, and some don’t, some keep stepping on the same rake over and over.

Creating challenging projects or taking trips to new places can be a healthy way to see your new facets of self, of developing new skills, getting new insights about self and the world. It can be a healthy productive creative way of evolving.

Many say say that maturity comes with time, age and that time cures. I disagree again. So many people stay stuck for decades ruminating about same thing over and over.

As Edith Eva Eger put it: “Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with the time. Healing is possible when we choose to take responsibility when we choose to take risks, and finally when we choose to release the wound, to let go of the past or the grief.”

Taking responsibility for psychological spring-cleaning is key to smooth evolution and to becoming authentic self.