I came across this beautiful flower that was not only growing out of the concrete but was thriving! This little plant had not only managed to set up roots in a place that was obviously harsh and inhospitable but it had gone on to find a slit in the slab, push its delicate stem through it and go on to bloom. It was not only surviving against all odds, it was flourishing!
This flower and its obvious determination to live made me stop and think about my own life. Would I be able to fight this much to survive? Would I defy the odds to bloom in an arena that was not ‘conducive’ to my wellbeing? I thought of all the things that hold me back – like my inability to handle conflict which then causes me to be led in directions I have no interest in going in; my almost crippling fear of what others will think of me; my quick, hot anger that sometimes makes me react in ways that I am often ashamed of. The list goes on and on. There is so much that I let hold me back but the more I analysed these things, the more I realized that they were not external factors (like the concrete this flower had to deal with) but internal hurdles.
It’s kind of shocking to discover that my biggest obstacle, the biggest ghost that I have to slay isn’t my environment and all that has happened to me since I came into this world, but MYSELF! Yes, some pretty crappy stuff has threatened to take me down but I survived all that and sometimes, I even managed to thrive. I however let those thorny incidents leave little barbs in me that I have gone on to internalize. I have allowed these poisonous thoughts and perceptions to seep into me and become a part of me…a crippling part of me. It’s like carrying my very own bag of kryptonite.
I realize now that what is so amazing about this flower isn’t that it conquered the concrete but that it conquered itself for the minute it did that, nothing could stand in its way.
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