Inside Your Body, There are Flowers.
Real journeys of healing, metamorphosis, and rebirth may be inspiring to hear, but they are difficult to live through. They are raw and painful with many dark jungles to cross, swamps to stumble into, and steep mountains to climb. This has been my experience in my life and in my work.
For years I internalized harmful messages I had received throughout my life. I allowed those messages and experiences to define me and weigh me down for so long that a day came when I had nothing left inside me but hopelessness. Trapped in this swamp, the atmosphere felt heavy and I could hardly breathe. My bones were turning to dust and the blood in my veins was drying out. I lost the desire to live and waited for the moment I would finally be free from this life.
Until one day in a season of deep loss, I finally broke.
I shattered.
My heart. My mind. My spirit.….All in pieces.
It was from this place of absolute decimation, with sharp shards of broken life and broken heart everywhere that I began to very slowly, examine the painful lies I had believed about me, my life, and my future.
I began to pay visits to my past to take a closer look at my story. I needed to go back to ground zero where it had all started. Here is where I began to uncover from underneath the rubble…
bloody wounds from my childhood,
compound fractures from soul-crushing religious systems,
and tender bruises from the ways I had unknowingly continued generational trauma in my own life.
In this exploration, I also unearthed something else underneath the rubble, something completely unexpected…
I began to uncover qualities about myself that had been buried underneath the harmful words and traumatic experiences I had lived through. As I examined my life stories, I started to see not only the buried wounds that needed healing, but also the flowers deep within me that could help me begin to heal.
Flowers represent what is lovely, vibrant, alive, good, sacred, valuable, beautiful, glorious, resilient, and true.
You and I have all of this and much more deep within our very beings.
When I began to slowly recover these good parts of myself from underneath the rubble, I felt the need for a visible reminder; since the painful words and broken experiences of my past weighed too heavy on me. I came across a wildflower called fire poppy. Fire poppies miraculously grow after a violent fire has wiped out entire forests. These glorious flowers rise from the ashes and stand tall and bright transforming a charred landscape into a field of beauty and brightness.
They gloriously defy death and devastation by just being.
As I surveyed my own charred, desolate landscape, I knew I would need to sow this flower into the earth of my skin. And I did. It was my way of sowing hope into my despair. Life into my death. And a way to remind myself of the numinous, life-giving, glory-filled flowers deep within me that speak truth about who I am.
A death-defying wildflower tattooed on my left wrist to remind me of:
My strength.
My resilience.
My ability to love deeply.
My courage.
My grit.
My purpose.
As I recovered parts from underneath the rubble, I started to believe that like the fire poppy, maybe I, too, could rise from the ashes. Maybe I, too, could learn to stand tall after a violent fire had wiped out my hope and life. I began to discover that there are other options to hopelessness and despair.
That I don’t have to internalize harmful messages until they turn into self-contempt and self-judgement within me, but I can choose how I want to respond to voices and experiences that have killed life out of me.
And no matter what I encounter, I can learn how to breathe in beauty, goodness, life, strength, courage, and love deep into my being. I can allow this sacred breath to connect me to all these qualities already deep within me.
Naming this is important. When we begin to take a closer look at our stories, we begin to see more clearly and we can name truth for ourselves and to ourselves, our hearts and bodies begin to respond. We begin to learn how to see the flowers within ourselves- what is good, sacred, valuable, beautiful, glorious, true, resilient, and courageous about who we are.
We can learn to love ourselves, our faces, our bodies, our hearts, and even our stories as we explore and discover our wounds, AND also the goodness deep within us.
As we do this, we begin to heal from the harm of the past and can begin to move toward healing, life, metamorphosis, luminous transmutation, and glorious rebirth.
We can begin to heal by unearthing our stories and seeing the flowers within us,
….and….
By slowly and gently learning to grow from the ashes even after violent fires wipe out life and hope from our landscapes…
So, whenever you witness beauty, whether inside or outside; take it in. Visible reminders are important. Maybe for you it’s not a tattoo. Maybe it’s as simple as getting some flowers and setting them on your table.
Hold them. Touch them. Feel their softness and marvel at their beauty and resilience. Breathe in their fragrance. See if you can gently begin to open your heart and absorb this magic deeply.
May the beauty you see in these flowers connect you back with the beauty, vibrancy, life, courage, resilience, magic, goodness, and death-defying qualities embedded in the story of who you are, deep within you.
I invite you to begin to name the flowers within you:
I am strong.
I am brilliant.
I am kind.
My heart is good.
My black/ white/ yellow/ brown face is beautiful.
My body is sacred.
My life is valuable.
I am capable.
I matter.
I am not at the mercy of harmful words or traumatic experiences.
I can actively choose what I believe about me, my life, and my future.
I can create beauty, goodness, and life for myself and for others.
I decide what I want to be filled with and who I allow into my life.
I name who I am.
I rise from the ashes.
Name it for yourself. Believe it. Own it. Unearth it. See it.
Say it out loud.
Inside your body, heart, mind, and spirit… there are flowers which speak of your beauty, truth, sacredness, and courage.
Stunning, fragrant, luminous, resilient, miraculous, glorious, vibrant, death-defying, life-creating flowers within you.
