Our Inner Expansion – Why Do We Long to Become More Than We Are?

What is it that drives us — from our very first breath until our last?

Why do we humans carry a deep, instinctive longing for growth, evolution, and a life filled with meaning?

In this article, we explore the concept of inner expansion — the universal call to grow, create, learn, and continuously become more than we are today. We travel across time and existence itself: from the birth of the universe, through the vast terrain of evolution, and all the way into the heart of the soul.

We ask:

What happens when this longing is expressed in a healthy, constructive way?

And what happens when it is suppressed — pushed down, ignored, or forced into hibernation?

Why do so many people experience illness, emptiness, or stagnation when this inner force is blocked or silenced?

And perhaps the most important question of all:

How can we recognize, embrace, and harness this inner power as a guiding force on the path toward a more meaningful, vibrant, and fulfilling life?

Human beings are unlike any other creature on this planet for one extraordinary reason: we have free will.

We can choose.

We can dream.

We can redirect the course of our lives — consciously, intentionally, at any moment we decide.

When we look at the vast diversity of nature, from the humble earthworm to the wise and emotionally rich elephant, we see one common pattern:

Every creature lives fully and completely in alignment with its nature.

They simply do what they are designed to do — without questioning their worth, their purpose, or their path.

Only we humans can pull the emergency brake and say:

“Enough. I’m done growing. I don’t want to follow my inner drive anymore. I’ll just hold on until retirement.”

And likewise, only we can swing to the opposite extreme and believe:

“If I just work harder… if I just acquire more — even though I can’t take any of it with me when this life ends — then I will finally feel fulfilled.”

We are the only beings who can consciously choose to halt our natural expansion,

or spend an entire lifetime chasing things that have no true meaning for the soul or our deepest existence.

This ability to choose is humanity’s greatest strength…

and also our greatest challenge.

Inner Expansion – Our Fundamental Nature

To understand what drives you — from your very first breath to your last — you must look at both sides of your existence: the material and the metaphysical. They are inseparable, equally essential, and together they form the engine that continually moves you forward, often without your conscious awareness.

This inner force is not something you invented.

It has always been there.

It is woven into your very nature — into your body, your energy, your soul.

Everything that makes up your physical form began with the birth of the universe itself. According to the Big Bang theory, the cosmos erupted from an infinitely small point of concentrated energy around 14 billion years ago. In the beginning, everything existed as gas — primarily hydrogen and helium. Over billions of years, gravity, pressure, and unimaginable heat sculpted this gas into stars, planets, and galaxies.

The heavier elements — the ones that form worlds, oceans, mountains, and living beings — were forged in the hearts of stars and later scattered across the cosmos through cosmic explosions. Over time, they became part of new solar systems, new planets… and eventually, part of you.

You are, quite literally, made of stardust.

And when you truly take this in, something becomes beautifully clear:

The very elements that form your body were created through explosion, heat, pressure, motion, and endless expansion. They were born from a cosmic impulse that seeks to grow, evolve, and become ever more complex.

In other words:

Expansion is part of your nature.

The longing to grow is embedded in the very substances you are made of.

Deep within you lives an innate force that constantly stretches forward — toward learning, toward evolution, toward becoming more than you were yesterday. It is the movement of the universe itself, still expressing and expanding through you.

What Caused the Big Bang?

Perhaps you’ve asked yourself the question:

What actually triggered the Big Bang — and why?

It is one of the greatest mysteries humanity has ever tried to unravel. To grasp the intention behind the force that set everything into motion — space, time, matter, energy, and the very possibility of life — is nearly impossible with the limits of the human mind.

Whether we call this force a creator, universal intelligence, God, Source or something entirely different, its purpose, its reason, its deeper motivation remains beyond what our logic can truly comprehend.

It lies outside the reach of thought.

And yet… we can sense something.

Even if we cannot fully understand it, we can observe.

We can look at nature.

At the sun and the stars.

At Earth’s rhythms, life’s cycles, and our own inner drive.

We can watch how everything in the universe moves, grows, expands — continually seeking new forms, new expressions, new possibilities.

By observing what exists around us — and within us — we begin to glimpse something larger:

A force that longs to create.

A force that seeks continual evolution.

A force that expresses itself endlessly through new shapes and new life.

We won’t go deeper into the philosophical and spiritual depths of this mystery here, but by paying attention to the world and the universe as they are, we can begin to see the outlines of what this creative force might truly be.

Evolution

Earth formed around 4.6 billion years ago, and it took nearly another 600 million years before the basic conditions for life — atmosphere and water — finally emerged. From that moment, a slow but astonishing journey began. It took evolution 3.6 billion years just to create the first multicellular organism… and then everything accelerated at a pace almost beyond imagination.

Here are a few milestones in that vast stretch of time:

• The dinosaurs walked the Earth around 250 million years ago.
• The first mammals appeared roughly 65 million years ago.
• Our early human ancestors emerged about 4 million years ago.
• And according to modern science, the first anatomically modern humans have existed for only about 40,000 years — a “truth” that needs to be challenged, which I’ll return to in a later article.

When we look at evolution from a bird’s-eye view, one pattern becomes unmistakably clear:

Everything is moving toward expansion.

Life is not designed to remain static.

It pushes.

It explores.

It transforms.

It grows into new shapes, new abilities, new expressions of itself.

And this doesn’t apply only to species, ecosystems or the universe as a whole — it applies to us humans as well.

Built into our very nature is a deep, irrepressible drive:

a longing to learn, to grow, to understand, to express more of who we are and who we can become.

To think that humans are the final product of evolution’s long journey is likely a misunderstanding. If evolution continues — and everything in nature suggests that it does — the future will probably give rise to beings who are wiser, more mature and more balanced than we are today.

And perhaps it is this same expansive movement — the one evolution has followed for billions of years — that awakens our own inner drive to grow, to develop, and to become more than we are right now.

The Creative Force Behind Our Existence

If we try to make a thoughtful — yet humble — guess based on everything we can observe in nature, in the universe, and within ourselves, one truth rises to the surface:

Everything in existence seems to be driven by an impulse toward expansion.

If this creative force — whatever name we choose to give it — indeed has a motivation or purpose behind the material world and our existence, it seems likely that this purpose is deeply intertwined with one simple principle:

a continuous unfolding, evolution and expansion of all that is.

And if that is true, then our own fundamental nature — from the smallest cell to the deepest layer of the soul — carries this same impulse within it.

We are born from expansion.

We are shaped by evolution.

We live in a universe that stretches outward in every direction with every passing microsecond.

Is it any wonder, then, that we feel this longing too?

The longing to grow.

The desire to learn more, understand more, become more.

The inner movement that urges us to expand who we are — in consciousness, in compassion, in insight and in lived experience.

When we look at it this way, something essential becomes clear:

The desire to become more than we are today is not a flaw — it is the very core of our existence.

It is nature’s rhythm pulsing through us.

It is the creative force expressing itself through our choices, our dreams and our lives.

Destructive Expansion

The deep inner longing for “something more” is a natural part of being human — a powerful force meant to guide us toward growth, meaning, and genuine evolution. But in our modern world, this innate drive is often redirected into paths that slowly make us sick.

Instead of expanding as human beings, many expand only the outer shell:

more material wealth, higher status, bigger careers, increased recognition, an endless stream of achievements.

The issue isn’t our desire for stability, comfort, or good material conditions.

The problem appears when these things become the goal itself — when the pursuit of them comes at the expense of the body, the soul, our relationships, and our joy.

We are living in the wealthiest era in human history, and yet society is flooded with burnout, depression, anxiety, and chronic illness. This tidal wave of suffering is closely linked to a lifestyle that has drifted far away from the natural rhythms that shaped us over millions of years of evolution.

(I explore this in depth in the article “The Art of Living According to Nature’s Healthy Rhythms!”)

Many of the people who come to me for help out of burnout are caught in a painful combination of workaholism, perfectionism, and poor boundaries. Most of this happens unconsciously. On autopilot, they use their inner expansion-force in a way that burns the candle from both ends — until the flame finally goes out.

The inner power that could have created vitality, joy, and deep fulfillment instead becomes a force that slowly wears us down.

A force that once had the potential to help us flourish becomes, when misdirected, the very thing that makes us ill.

Suppressing the Expansion-Force

Just as harmful as misusing our inner expansion-force is suppressing it.

When we put a lid on the natural longing to grow, explore, and become more than we currently are, something quiet — yet profoundly significant — begins to shift inside us.

The spark starts to fade.

This often shows up as a subtle sense of emptiness, numbness, or lack of motivation. For some, it becomes sadness or depression. For others, it emerges as a constant, low-grade frustration — the sense that life is “standing still,” or that something essential is missing… without any clear understanding of what that missing piece is.

This feeling is especially common in life phases where expansion naturally slows down or stalls:

when moving from a busy work life into retirement, losing a job, living with long-term illness, or simply slipping into a routine where everything runs on autopilot and nothing stimulates growth, learning, or inner development.

When we ignore our inner expansion-force, we are not just avoiding change.

We are closing the door to vitality, meaning, and the hope of a fuller future.

The Key to Healthy Expansion

We human beings are the only creatures on this planet who do not naturally live out our innate expansion-force — the inner drive that, by nature, was meant to guide us from birth to death.

Unlike animals, we possess free will, and with that gift comes something paradoxical: the ability to choose against our own nature.

When we look at traditional indigenous cultures, such as the Aboriginal peoples before modern civilization reshaped their world, we find something extraordinary:

For them, it was unthinkable not to live in full connection with their nature.

They lived in deep resonance with the earth’s rhythms, cycles, and pulse of life.

In such cultures, concepts like emptiness, numbness, depression, anxiety, or chronic illness were virtually nonexistent — simply because they did not experience life that way.

For us modern humans, the key becomes unmistakably clear:

We must consciously use our free will to channel this inner expansion-force in a healthy direction — one that leads to satisfaction, joy, vitality, meaning, and genuine well-being.

This does not happen automatically.

It requires effort.

It requires cultivation.

It requires a deliberate choice to live closer to our true nature.

And the first step is to begin reconnecting with the rhythms of nature — because nature holds the blueprint of our own innate, healthy rhythms. This is the wisdom we have slowly drifted away from in modern times.

If you wish to rediscover these rhythms and integrate them into your life, I warmly recommend the articles:

• “The Art of Living According to Nature’s Healthy Rhythms!”

• “Forest Bathing: Nature’s Powerful Medicine Against Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout”

These resources offer practical guidance and hands-on methods for finding your way back to your natural, life-giving rhythm.

The Soul’s Urge for Expansion

The third — and perhaps most powerful — force that drives us toward growth, evolution, and the desire to become more than we are today arises from the nature of the soul itself. The soul’s true home is a realm beyond time and space — a state in which it exists as one with everything that is. It carries infinite wisdom, insight, and resources — a vast wholeness that cannot be confined or diminished.

When the soul chooses to incarnate into this life, something extraordinary happens:

It voluntarily enters limitation.

Almost like slipping into a symbolic straitjacket made of body, time, space, karma, and free will. Most of the soul’s inherent abilities and knowledge go into dormancy — not because they disappear, but because having full access to them would make incarnation meaningless.

Think about it:

If from the moment you were born you had access to all the wisdom your soul carries —

if you knew everything, understood everything, and could never be surprised —

how could life teach you anything?

How would you grow, evolve, or experience something new?

What would be the purpose of being here?

The soul must be limited in order to learn within the human experience.

This is part of the sacred contract of incarnation.

And it is precisely through this limitation that the soul gains access to experiences it could never taste in its boundless state:

the sweetness of a strawberry

the spark of falling in love

the warmth of an embrace

the depth of melancholy

the grief that shatters and heals

challenges that stretch us beyond what we thought possible

the boundless love for a child

the calm of a sunset

a star-filled sky alive with northern lights

struggle, breakthrough, delight, and everything that makes life human

This is why the soul came here:

to experience what cannot be experienced in its infinite form.

And that is why you feel a deep inner urge to expand.

It is not the demand of the ego —

it is the calling of the soul.

The Resonance of Your Soul

Deep within you lives a part of yourself untouched by time or space — a quiet, steady resonance that is always aligned with your soul. This inner core carries a profound longing: a pull toward unity, toward the limitless, toward its original state of oneness with all that exists.

It longs to return home.

Even though this flame burns within your heart, it is often overlooked in the modern world. It is ignored, dismissed, mocked, misunderstood — or silenced beneath the ego’s and intellect’s relentless demands for control, achievement, and external validation.

Yet the soul’s flame keeps burning.

When you begin to understand it — and more importantly, when you begin to cooperate with it — you open the door to a force far greater than anything the intellect could ever create.

This is the strongest of the three mechanisms we have spoken about: the deep inner drive that continually pushes you toward growth, expansion, and the desire to become more than you are today.

For the soul is always seeking its way back to its true nature.

It grows, learns, stretches, and yearns — until the day it once again experiences the wholeness it came from. It will never stop moving you forward.

But what you do with this power is entirely up to you.

Your free will allows you to:

suppress it

ignore it

try to fill the emptiness with material things that can never satisfy a spiritual hunger

or drown it out with ego, stress, and human ambition

But you can also choose something entirely different.

You can listen to the whisper in your heart.

You can follow the longing already alive within you.

You can say yes to the soul’s call and begin the journey home — the epic journey your soul incarnated to experience in this lifetime.

And you can begin that journey right now.

The Soul’s Epic Journey

If you want to understand the deep longing that lives within you — and how to begin aligning your life with the calling of your soul — I warmly recommend reading the article “When Life Feels Empty and Without Meaning: Are You Ready to Begin Your Soul’s Epic Journey?”

There, I describe in detail what this journey truly is, why it matters so profoundly for a meaningful life, and how you can take your very first steps into this transformative, life-shaping process.

This journey is not abstract, mystical or reserved for a few — it is the path every soul is meant to walk. And when you begin to follow it consciously, something extraordinary happens:

Life starts to make sense.

Your inner compass awakens.

And you feel, often for the first time, that you are finally walking toward the place your soul has been calling you to all along.