Have you seen it?

Something new is happening.

All around us (well, at least where I live …) new leaves are growing out, new colours are appearing, and new buds are going to bloom.

I mean, I know it happens every year, but it doesn’t seem to change how excited I get.

Spring means new chances to me.  

A fresh start.

New beginnings.

New sunny days.

Rain that makes everything green again.

It amazes me how a bulb can lay under a blanket of frozen dirt and feet of snow for months on end, and then when the temperature and timing are right you see it coming through, first as a small bulb and eventually blooming into exactly what it was supposed to be.

But more vibrant and full each year.

Do you ever wish you could feel like that?

I love how I can literally watch the transformation take place.  In my garden and in the women I know.   They also come out of hard and cold times and bloom brighter and fuller than they were before.

But my favourite?

It’s how the tulips come up in their time, and then the peonies bloom at their time, and the hostas fill out to their potential and show up just as they should, and when they should.

Our lives are so much like that. 

But us women so easily try to live as hostas, hardy and resilient, but also bloom as delicate as peonies.  

It leaves us feeling overwhelmed, not enough, and confused.

It seems that as we get older we try to dig ourselves back in the cold earth and regrow as someone different. 

Maybe you were the right bloom all along …

So here’s the trick.  We need to stop trying to be what we think others are.  You read it right, sometimes it’s not even what we think others think we should do, but we are deciding how others are and then trying to live up to that.

No wonder we feel overwhelmed, because that is not who we are created to be.  It will never work, because you aren’t her.

My family nickname is Spitfire.   Sometimes I like that and sometimes I don’t.  But I know I have a natural feistiness in me that has allowed me to stand up to wrongs when I needed to.  Mind you, I had to be pushed to my limit before I could get out of the limiting beliefs I was coddling, but when I needed to, I stood up.

But not everyone is a spitfire.  Not everyone was made to be a spitfire.  

So, what kind of bloom are you?

Can you see the fresh start of a new day, a new season, and new warmth?

Can you see how to be you today?  To bloom right where you are? 

Funny thing is, we don’t have to wait til tomorrow to lean in and be our best today.

Today is a gift, a new gift, and it is how we get to tomorrow.   

Did you know that peonies only bloom for about 7-10 days and their season is over?  Yup, a week, maybe a week and a half.  But that doesn’t stop them from blooming.  

But when they bloom … watch out!  They make me happy.  They are full and bright and fill a room with beauty.

What kind of flower of you?  

Be that.  From bud to bloom.

New things are coming, can  you feel it?