God knows me all too well. And just when I think I have nothing left he reminds me how to sustain myself. Today after a victory in court through the jury process (convicting a very bad man) I took the rest of the day to accomplish some errands. Again, as I have been feeling lately I was noticing a sense of disorganized desperation for an answer. I searched many places and drove in many directions until I ended up at Borders. There I went to the section of books that I love best: Psychology and Self-Help. I skimmed over many titles until I found a few that look appealing. I read for an hour. I then walked on to the next section on the other side of the book shelves. I was looking mainly for very psychoanalytic type books and anything having to do with Quantum physics and positive thinking. I ended up finding "Why Positive Thinkers Have The Power" which seems AWESOME. Filled with stories and quotes from all the most influential important and successful people this world has had to offer. Like the quote a keep turning to somehow by Abe Lincoln, "I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards." I also found a book called "Finding Your Own North Star" which is more a scripted journal for furthering your own self discovery which is always good.
On my way out I saw a section that was buy one get one 50% off so I stopped to check it out. I picked up a book called "Crazy Love" I guess it's a best selling Christian book about God's love and having an authentic faith which I am currently rekindling so I thought it too was a good buy. As I am looking for a second book to get 50% off I came across a sort of daily devotional type book called "The Book of Awakening". I barely skimmed through it and saw a couple good quotes so I bought it...
So fitting that I would make such good choices because as I turned to the daily devotional book tonight and made my way to May 15th thinking it was March 15th this is what I read:
"And then the day came
when the risk to remain
tight in a bud was
more painful than the
risk to bloom." - Anais Nin
It continued on with this passage which I will include because it was perfect-
"We all face this turning point repeatedly; when resisting the flow of inner events suddenly feels more hurtful than leaping toward the unknown. Yet no one can tell us when to leap. There is no authority to bless our need to enter life but the God within.
How often we thwart ourselves by holding tenaciously to what is familiar. It is instructive, if chilling, that in floral shops the roses that won't open are called bullets. They are discarded because they will never bloom. They have turned in on themselves so tightly that they can never release their fragrance.
Yet as spirits in bodily form, we have the chance to tighten and bloom more than once. But even spirits, if turned in on themselves enough, may grow accustomed to being closed. Unlike roses, however, the human chamber can be shut down for years, and still, it takes but one breath from the true center and we will flower.
It has always amazed and humbled me how the risk to bloom can seem so insurmountable beforehand and so inevitably freeing once the threshold of suffering is crossed.
I have a friend in recovery, and when asked what made him stop drinking, he says, "The pain of drinking became greater than the pain of not drinking." The same can be said for us all. We can flower for an instant, as soon as the pain of not flowering and not loving become greater than our fear."
- Mark Nepo
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