How Will You Meet Your Own Bloom Season?
Warmest Wishes of Spring Friends~
It is that time of year we are SO excited for and often a time of year we can feel overwhelmed by all that there is to do! Notice how you are riding that wave? Personally, I am using all my skills to stay upright on my board! Having a lot of wood energy, in the Chinese 5-Element system, spring is a season that pushes me hard.
So here’s a bit of authentic beauty and inspiration for the season! Maybe just the reminder you need to take the risk necessary to bloom.
I have been teaching two Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) groups and I want to share with you this month, what some of the students are saying they are learning about themselves. To me, as a student and a teacher, I believe it’s this learning that has the most impact in one’s life. Not to mention how we can share this with others and inspire the same growth and learning to those who need it! (Let’s face it we ALL need it!)
During this 8-week intensive course, we pause at week five and I ask each student to reflect on and write about how they are doing. What is going well? Where they feel challenged? And what are they learning about themselves? For me, these evaluations, are like cotton candy at the park during Apple Blossom!! (When I was 9-years old of course).
Here are the comments, directly from students to the page, no marketing tweaks or embellishments, I swear.
Question #3 reads, “What am I learning about myself?”
“The stress isn’t going to go away, but I can respond to it differently.”
“If I don’t take this time for me, even if only 5-min, I become overwhelmed and stop taking care of me. I either procrastinate or run away from the hard things.”
“That I am too hard on myself. I need to put myself first more often.”
“I am learning just how disconnected with my body I really am. How deep the generational trauma really is. I have a lot to learn, I need to remain patient and develop the practice.”
“I don’t have to be perfect. I am going to be ok. I am ok.”
“It’s ok to take time for myself.”
“That I can breathe—that I can use the techniques I am learning to conquer fear and anxiety and feel happy.”
“I am more sure of myself and what is right for me—more confidence. Mindfulness reminds me of “Buddha Nature”—it’s always within me, it just needs awakening.”
The thing about personal learning and growth is that it requires connection:
dropping into the level of safety & connection in our bodies (literally a nervous system “setting”)
forging strong lines of connection between body and mind AND…
contacting & connecting all layers and levels of our lives to feel the truth of the moment.
This practice, of connection and clear seeing, helps us acknowledge choice and gives us an opportunity to live beyond our hardwired habits and limiting narratives.
Connection allows self-awareness and insight to flourish, like a seed planted in fertile soil, and from here we can literally go and grow anywhere. The hardest part is often coming into the room, arriving at a place of commitment to this process, or opening the part of us that feels so closed, so stuck, so unlovable, or unmovable. As one wise woman said,
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
A deep and meaningful bow of recognition and honoring to the work that my students are doing and will continue to do once our time together ends. They are on the path—their own fierce and courageous path of connection, learning & growth.
May the best part of the season find you, and nourish what is ready to bloom & grow! If you need help along the path, please reach out. You are not alone—we are in this together.
Kari