When we had our first baby, we explored a vast array of suggested activities, processes, protocols, groups, and different ways to be a parent. Many came and went fairly quickly, but one guidance tool that was suggested to us was an app called “The Wonder Weeks.” It was an app designed around information and guidance on the growth pattern for babies, the relevant emotional fluctuations, periods of developmental activity, and an assortment of valuable information to help new parents understand a bit of the ins and outs of the new journey, how to traverse these periods, and what can be expected, etc. It was a fantastic app and one that I think really helped us during those first few months.

As I’m nearing the end of my search for happiness journey, I have started to reflect and notice a few key themes. One of which is the periods of “wonder weeks”, periods of growth, development, and retraction. There are periods of momentum, periods of nothingness, and sometimes periods of complete reversal, or what may seem to be a reversal anyhow.

Within all facets of our lives, we traverse through a range of emotional processes, experiences, and situations that help meld us into who we are, aid in our development into the people we wish to become, or simply reiterate and reinforce momentum, or the lack of it, in our lives. I’ve learned that throughout any endeavour, or simply in day-to-day life itself, we are constantly in a state of progressive recycling - a process in which we seek, learn, grow, retract, and hopefully, the growth we have attained will help us navigate the period of retraction or the period of testing that will propel us to the next level of our journey.

Understanding our own individual progressive recycling is a challenging and observational process. It requires us to take a step back or, more precisely, to develop a mirrored, live assessment of ourselves and evaluate what our phases look like, at what stages we are navigating through our wonder weeks, and what each of these weeks entails. When we can identify where we are within our own cycle, we can better develop the systems required to help us all traverse, become better equipped, and subsequently happier in our existence.

Thanks,

Dean