To Bloom or Not to Bloom – That’s Your Choice Right Now

When I think of expanding and showing up more in the world, the image of a blossoming flower comes to mind.

As we open ourselves and live more authentically, we share our beauty in a new and greater way.  Our uniqueness is easier to see.

We allow ourselves to use more space, take up more room.

We live more fully.

And still there’s a big difference between a flower blooming and our expanding. For most flowers, blooming is a one-time thing.  Once they bloom, they’re a flower.  Done.

For us, expanding and showing up more in the world is an on-going commitment.  A choice we make over and over and over each day.

How are you going to be in your phone call with your prospective client today?  Open, connected and fully you, or slightly closed down?

As you write your sales page, are you completely open and standing in your value and strength, or do you feel yourself wilting a bit?  Or a lot?

No, we have chances over and over to bloom – or not.  To open all the way or to hold back.

Most often, we open partway.  We take a step, open a little, and then stop.

We get stopped by our thoughts and fears.

Can you imagine a rose saying to itself:

Should I open today?  What if it rains and I catch too much water?  Or it’s too sunny and I wilt?

Look at that bloom.  I’ll never be that big!  Or that pretty.  I’ll bet it even smells better!  Maybe I shouldn’t even bother.

Oh, no!  What if I’m too beautiful and I get clipped to go in a vase!

Or I have a misshaped petal??  I’ll be so embarrassed!

Maybe it’s better to just stay like this.

There’re already plenty of blossoms. It doesn’t really even matter if I bloom or not.  Nobody’s going to notice.

I’ll just stay like this.

I probably should have been a daisy anyway.  Everybody likes daisies.  Daisies don’t have thorns.

And the thing about these worries and fears is that they’re always based in the past or the future – not the present.

Of course, you can choose NOT to grow.  You can choose to stay small and not take risks.  You can keep following in others’ footsteps and never venture to find your own path and your own voice.  People do it all the time.

You can stay in the herd.

At a cost.

The price you pay is that you never get to see just how beautiful you are.  You never get to know your own strength and power.

Do you doubt your beauty?  Do you question if you really are that powerful?  Are you afraid that you can’t live up to that power – or what you’ll have to do once you claim it?

Yeah, me, too, sometimes.

That’s why we need support.  We need someone who sees us at our very best when we can’t see it ourselves – and helps us to live up to it.

When you feel a longing inside to live a bigger version of yourself, you’re calling yourself to bloom.

That call comes from your soul longing for expression and from the world that needs what only you can give.

So in each moment, your choice can be a conscious one.  In this one moment, right now, with the task that’s in front of you, will you choose to expand and bloom?