Expand & Contract: Acknowledging the cycles of change
In what ways do we expand and contract our views of ourselves and the world around us as we make way for change?
Hi there!
Grabe, Q2 na. How was the first quarter of the year for you?
There’s been a lot happening in my life in the past few months, particularly since our release of Ugnayan Cards1 four months ago, in December 2023. There’s also been a lot of discovery in other areas of my life, which have also led me to reacquaint myself with spaces I knew from my days with Muni, along with insights from my MSc dissertation on motivations of sustainability leaders2.
There are parts of yourself that you forget, intentionally or unintentionally, when you’re exploring ways to evolve or reinvent yourself, as I’ve tried to do in the past few years. And yet, your curiosity to explore things you didn’t let yourself explore before (e.g. dance, martial arts, music for me), as well as the call to revisit parts of yourself that were so central to your being before (e.g. my sustainability community and my research on motivation and values) become so strong that they become hard to ignore.
With all the rave for essentialism3, intentional and mindful living, or being purposeful with our pursuits, it can feel like an aberration to just allow yourself to follow your curiosity even if it doesn’t seem to connect with any “practical” purpose in your life. “Kalat” is a word that comes to mind. But also, “bukas” is another word that comes to mind. And the mindset we choose to accompany us in our explorations matters.
There are moments for expansion (curiosity and exploration) and contraction (strengthening and deepening) in our lives. We see this in our bodies, in the natural world, in chemistry, and even in technology. I invite you to break it down with me, and reflect on the ways we cycle through these phases in our lives as we go through change and transformation.
Expansion: Pagiging bukas
To expand is to become larger or more extensive.
To me, this means creating a greater container for possibility.
The first quarter of the year has been so expansive and generative for me. There’s not necessarily a monumental or magical moment in each day, but there’s definitely been a greater than average number of instances where I learned something new about myself, others or the world around me simply by being open and curious to new experiences.
I share some of those experiences in this Substack post4, and others in the below Instagram posts.
When I think of expansion, I think of the increased capacity of our lungs on our inhales. I think of the energy of air molecules spreading out and up in a hot air balloon. The things in themselves do not change form, they simply expand our human capacity to dive greater depths, or fly greater heights.
I stretched in new and uncomfortable ways. I stayed open to uncomfortable feelings. There was a rewiring of neural connections. There was soreness in previously unused muscles. There was talk about death. There was holding my breath. I did writer-ly things and painter-ly things. I shared “art” with others.
In the expansion from my usual repertoire of experiences, I also found an expansion of my ability, my identity, my generosity.
Because I opened myself up to the discomfort of being bad at new things, I was not pressured to be “good”. Because I opened myself up to other undiscovered dimensions of myself — things I normally wouldn’t associate or identify myself with, and maybe even possibly felt cringy about other people finding out (i.e. dance), I’ve unlocked a Jen Horn expansion pack. I even expanded to previous version or editions of myself — a Jen I knew and missed. The artist Jen. The adventurer Jen. The advocate Jen. The community gatherer Jen.
Looking back on the journey of just these past few months, I feel like the questions below helped get me to where I am now, and allowed me to re-explore myself and who I could be.
What are past versions of yourself that you’d like to get reacquainted with and embrace?
What are previous conceptions of yourself that you’d like to shatter?
What (new) meaning would you like your life to take, moving forward?
Sometimes we need to go through a process of breaking patterns — shattering our biases (to ourselves and others) and collecting new experiences — in order to feel whole and authentic once again.
Contraction: Pagpapalakas at Pagpapalalim
To contract is to decrease in size, number or range.
To me, this means committing to a greater practice of intentionality and mastery.
I went down a Google rabbit hole on expansion and contraction as I do when I’m writing about something, and I found it interesting to learn about the Expand and Contract Pattern, otherwise known as Parallel Change, in the software development space.5 It provides a way to implement changes to a system in a safe manner — a manner that doesn’t break any codes or cause any downtime. *Stay with me.*
The pattern first expands an interface by introducing a new structure without breaking the old one, slowly rolling it out to new users — maintaining both the old and new systems until everything and everyone has been fully migrated. Once all users have been integrated in the new system, and the old system is no longer needed, it can be safely removed. The system is then contracted.
I feel like that’s a really interesting metaphor or analogy when we introduce changes in our lives and in organizations.
We need the space to explore and expand, and the time to acclimate to changes, before we contract and do away with old systems. When we contract, we can then strengthen and deepen our relationship with the new system, which isn’t always entirely new.
I’m currently in a period of expansion in my life, but at the same time, I also look at how I might revisit values that are constant to me, and be guided by them in the face of change. How I might continue to strengthen and deepen my values in Jen Horn version x.0?
What values stay constant for you amidst the changes in your life?
What form might your values take shape (or what might they look like in practice) in the new systems or new chapter of your life?
What does it look like to strengthen or deepen these values now?
What “reps” are you willing to put in?
After a lot of work on values and purpose over the years, I feel like I’ve managed to distill my values to two constants: connection and wholeness. They’ve been so clear to me in my life, such that I’ve names some of my “babies” after them (i.e. Ugnayan and Pagbubuo). Having those anchor values have given me space to explore and redefine them through expanded experiences, while at the same time keeping me grounded on what brings me meaning and value.
Will spare you further verbose thoughts at this point, but I hope my reflections and questions have also prompted you to think about the cycles of expansion (exploration) and contraction (strengthening and deepening) in your own life.
‘Til next time, thanks for reading and reflecting with me.
Jen
Learn more and get your own deck of Ugnayan Cards here: bit.ly/ugnayancards.
See a friendly summary of my dissertation research here:
Essentialism, as in “the disciplined pursuit of less”, as popularized by author Greg McKeown in his book of the same title.
I share the value of connection, in my head and in my heart in the post below.
If you really wanted to, you can learn a bit more about the Expand and Contract pattern in the programming or software development space from this article.