Words by Ross Rosenberg to help you bloom on your journey to self-love.
___
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
___
Breaking through to self-love
is the most difficult journey
for rose bud people
who are paralyzed
by their anxious fear
of the unknown.
The promise of becoming
a fully actualized flower
always seems too far away
as the long winters of waiting,
quietly and patiently
for improbable but safe opportunities,
never come.
Rose buds dream
of throwing caution to the wind,
risking predictable harm
and inevitable pain
for the moment of pure happiness
when hope and love
overtake the loneliness of safety.
We all start off as a rose bud.
Perfect and pure,
filled with potential
to become a most beautiful, unique,
and remarkable flower.
Wounded roses
who were neither protected
nor nurtured,
know only to hunker down
in a safe bud state,
to weather unpredictable storms.
History has demonstrated
that decisions to open up,
to bloom,
have predictably been met
with the opposition of
gale force winds
and torrential storms.
There comes a time
when the courage to transform
into a beautiful rose,
the one we always were,
but didn’t know about,
overcomes our fearful vigilance
to avoid further harm.
The time is now,
to allow ourselves to understand,
finally,
that the fear of harm
brought more suffering and losses
than would would have the rain, wind, and frost.
We need to bravely
be optimistic about the world,
about ourselves,
and decide to no longer settle
for loneliness-infused safety.
Deciding to bloom
allows us to come to terms and accept
our frightened rose bud life,
and why our parents
could and never would
tell us about our beautiful flower.
It is time to discard our life
as a lonely, self-love deprived
and unrealized rose,
and bravely allow ourselves
to transform into the flower
we always have been.
As we vulnerably and carefully
come to full bloom,
stretch our arms out,
and connect with an unpredictable
but potentially loving world,
we will experience,
for the first time
the freedom of a flower.
Only at this time
will we finally understand
the cost of mistaking ourselves
for a rose bud,
and not the flower we always were.
Photo—Mary and Andrew/Flickr