“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
-Anais Nin
Spring has finally sprung. Mother Nature is giving birth. Old life is being reborn. Seeds that have laid dormant for a season now fight to find their way to the surface where they are pushing through the hardened dirt, breaking free of their shells and spreading their beauty. They are exiting their safe and dark space unknowing of what awaits them. They just know that have to do it. They are preparing to bud – opening their souls and breathing in the air.
Becoming your authentic self is hard – really f’n hard. Yes that deserves an F word because it’s that hard at times. Often we have to give birth (see F word worthy if you’ve ever given birth) to a new self that has been living in us for years but just hidden. We have let the words and actions of others stop us from blooming. However you are a flower woman. The flower doesn’t care what other flowers think – it just blooms. It becomes what the Divine created it to be and nothing less. It is it’s true authentic self.
Here I go about me again. Five years ago I had a decision to make. Stay miserable and fight the world or put down my sword and fight the parts of me inside that were making me and those around me miserable. I was miserable but oddly comfortable with my life. Yes comfortable. As much pain as I was in I was comfortable. Why? Because I was living what I knew. I didn’t like my job, my husband, my family, my body, my abilities…nothing was making me happy. Is any of this resinating with you? If so it’s time to start opening your bud. It’s really kind of surreal to look back at my life those years ago and then to look at my life today. Sometimes I reflect on my journal entries and they scare me because of what I was having to go through and the fears I wrote about however I knew though that I could no longer live life that way.
Busting out of the shell we live in is hard. It means uncertainty. We may have to leave people behind, end friendships, start a new career, give up things you treasure but you gotta do it if you want to become the flower that you are. Are those “things” you may loose lifting you or pushing you up? Or are they weighing you down and keeping you from blooming. Remember that beautiful flower from earlier – the bud did not know it was going to become a giver of beauty, source of honey, reflection of one’s love, a butterfly’s retreat, a centerpiece at a dinner party celebrating friendship and family….it had no idea of it’s potential in life but it still bloomed. It took a risk.
We are all flowers of this Earth. Mother Earth, God, The Divine…we are their flowers just like the flower that grows from the dirt. We ourselves go through seasons. It’s really a beautiful thing to realize this and understand what season of life you are in. It can give you hope and direction. It can give you strength to overcome the darkness of your winter or keep pushing towards the sun with the arrival of your spring when your protective casing has not quite fallen away yet.
You may be reading this and think you are not ready at all to bloom. Then don’t. However ask yourself :
Am I sacred of the changes that will come into my life?
Is it because I’m not strong enough?
Do I want to be my best self? Am I being my best self?
You may be in the fall of your life or need more time in your winter. You can’t rush it to be honest. However if the answer is because you are scared then put on your big girl panties and face that fear.
Open your soul, breathe in the air and bloom woman bloom!
Thanks to Robbie at Half Moon Yoga in Franklin for sharing the quote above during her class last week. She always shares a piece of wisdom be it a quote, mantra, new pose or life story that resinates in some part of my life.