Growth Cycles

The wellness wheel illustrates many aspects of the cycles in nature, including the cycles of natural growth. This includes the growth cycles within us humans.

This natural growth unfolds as wellness needs are attended and relieved. As one's personal ego needs are resolved they naturally become empowered to give more attention to their social needs. Resolving social needs in turns fuels one's ego needs, which in turn supports one's social needs, in a perpetual homeostatic cycle.

Focus hemispheres

Growth Cycle Hemispheres

The northern and southern hemispheres of the growth cycle represent the two primary areas of focus in our lives: inward to ourselves and outward to others. The northern hemisphere of this cycle represents an inward individuality emphasis, the ego needs. The southern hemisphere represents an outward socialization emphasis, the social needs. How we are socialized (i.e., taught by others we trusted) shapes how we view our inward selves. These views in turn affect how we interact with others. At any given time these two aspects may appear distinct with little change, but there is movement between the two, as expressed in the eastern and western hemisphers of this growth cycle.

Movement hemispheres

The eastern hemisphere of this cycle represents that phase where we draw closer to others, and let others draw closer to ourselves. The western cycle represents the phase where we drift apart from one another. Drawing together begins as we struggle with loneliness and a yearning for love from others. Drifting apart naturally emerges when facing ourselves honestly and yearning to be free with our new sense of self, to stand responsibility on our own. These dynamic halves tie together the northern and southern hemispheres, to integrate our inward ego needs with our outward social needs. In this way we naturally attend to our own needs in a way that respects the needs of others. It is a natural way of balance, depending upon the quality of our growth cycles.

Growth Cycle Quality

With this sunwise (i.e., clockwise) movement around the wheel, each growth season triggers attention to its peculiar set of wellness needs. Needs will ideally be communicated and then addressed together, so that together these needs can be resolved. With each turn of resolved needs come awareness to deeper growth needs, so the cycle continues. This growth cycle will continue whether one is resolving needs adequately or not.

Cycle with needs met

A foundational interdependency need (Spring) is 'trust.' Through negotiating trust we discern how trustworthy others are to our needs, and others discern how sensitive we are to theirs. Trust serves as a basis for addressing together our dependency needs (Summer). Through affirmation of one another and mutual intimacy we experience mutual natural growth. Like an autumn harvest, we experience our counterdependency needs when reaping personal benefits from our interpersonal relationships. What we expected, or trusted, from one another charges up our personal resources, which we then integrate into our personal autonomy. This ignites our independency needs (Winter), to be empowered with liberating response-ability. With renewed responsibility we are then more empowered to give more fully of ourselves. This energizes us to reinvest in our relationships, as we turn back to spring discovering fresh needs to be addressed with the help of others.

Cycle with needs frustrated

Of course, life is rarely this rosy. The quality of our growth around this cycle depends on how effectively we communicate our needs. The more my needs are miscommunicated the more my social needs tend to get neglected. This weakens the quality of my commitments. Instead of faithfully helping one another resolve needs we experience one another violating our social spaces. We suffer a kind of unspoken violence turned inward upon ourselves. Desperate for relief, we tend to resort to manipulation and other coping tactics. We increasingly become aware of our neglected ego needs, perhaps ready to blame one another for the pain we now suffer. Our unresolved needs distort our expectations of one another; there is little if any harvest from all the trust we had sewn. We are increasingly annoyed and want to pull away from each other, but feel trapped. We snipe at each other now, ready to lash out violently in subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) ways. We are not empowered so we do not feel liberated. We are less aware of our many needs, and continue in the familiar pattern of miscommunicating our needs and enduring our poor commitments. “For most of us, the pain we feel is preferable to the pain we fear” (Paul & Paul, 1983, p. 49).

A breakthrough could happen and growth could be restored. Or this pattern of quiet desperation could continue for may cycles to come. Yes, it could possibly get even worse.

Few needs met; “offense cycle”

What if essential needs are not communicated at all? Social needs would be severely neglected. Any commitment to one another would be based on false pretenses. It would be virtually impossible to help one another relieve needs, yet the expectation would remain to provide each other with some kind of relief from the mounting strain from unresolved needs. Manipulation likely characterizes the relationship. This goes hand in hand with the false expectations of one another for all the unresolved needs. The pain from unresolved needs grows intolerable, while desperation for relief prompts extreme measures. Some temporary relief comes from frequent and yet fleeting pleasurable activities. Outbursts of anger grow in frequency and intensity, but to little avail. There is no ability to respond adequately to mounting needs and all the unresolved pain. This is often followed by a kind of extreme irresponsibility that explodes as a frantic act of violence—a desperate attempt to release the mounting pressure.

When this cycle ends with an explosion of violence it becomes known as an “offense cycle.” The act of violence is often followed by embarrassment, guilt and apologies. With little if any self-awareness into the unmet needs behind the outburst, the apology tends to be relatively shallow. From this low self-awareness one’s social needs continue to be severely neglected and mostly uncommunicated. This is the “let down” phase of the offense cycle, the time when the domestic violence offender convinces the victim that from now one everything will be better. This is a prelude to the offender’s “pretend normal” phase. While appearing to be okay the offender is actually repressing urges that are trying to express unmet needs. As these needs continue unresolved the offender grows increasingly agitated. The calm veneer of the pretend normal phase gives way to the “build up” phase. Politeness gives way to increasing outbursts of anger, as the offender begins to lose the struggle to hold down these impulses to deal with unresolved pain from unmet needs. At some point the tension is to great to hold back any further. The offender “acts out” again in an act of violence. This can be outward at an object, but typically targeted at a person. It can be more damaging than the previous cycle’s act of violence, especially when suffering from an increasing amount of pent up pain. It can also be aimed at oneself or one’s own property.

At the root of this offense cycle is unresolved needs. Nature’s way of reporting urgent needs is through pain. Avoidance of pain is itself a need, and if the root of this pain is not being redressed then attention is apt to turn to ways to avoid the pain then to get to the root of it. This is also true for anyone, not merely the criminal offender. We all are subject to this process, of either promptly redressing our needs or suffering a buildup of need strain that potentially leads to some kind of outburst for instant relief. Pain is nature’s most unappreciated gift to us, the alarm system for urgent needs. Responding responsibly to such needs with the resources of nature is our gift to one another, to ourselves, and to nature.

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Jordan Paul and Margaret Paul (1983). Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You? Minneapolis: CompCare Publishers.