Flowers & Your Transformation

This morning I took some time out of my busy schedule to combat some overwhelm. I decided to resuscitate a flower arrangement that was looking quite stale that I’d received from a dear friend a week ago. Getting my hands in any form of nature helps liven my mood every time. The large bouquet of lilies and roses were beginning to sag, heads down and their color dull. When flowers begin to melt, they always call my attention.

I love flowers and try to have them around me all the time because they always spark joy. My kids find my need to remake each original arrangement multiple times odd. Most people just allow them to be until they’re no longer of value, then just tossing them out. My approach is different. There is a sacred pattern with flowers for me, much like how I view my work.

First, the flowers arrive, all fresh and fabulous. A few days in, invariably, there are drooping blooms. Something I detest is dying flowers, so I’ll sort and snip till the bouquet is looking fresh again.

But it doesn’t end there. Days later, they’ll be trimmed again, this time much shorter, and tucked into a different vase that better accentuates the flowers that are now fewer.

A few days after, the same process is repeated. Depending upon the buds chosen, I usually have at least four different experiences with the flowers that I select. To me, it’s part of the joy of flowers. There is always another look, another experience, when I do the work to help them transform.

I find people to be similar. I meet a client who appears one way and, after only a few weeks of connecting with herself, she begins to look subtly different. Weeks later, when she’s chosen to shed a story she’s been attached to for many years, she feels liberated and changes her hair. And months later, when she’s fully aware of her beauty, she begins dressing differently, accentuating her natural beauty instead of hiding it. So many things begin to shift as her passions are resuscitated, and she connects with her soul.

Transformation is a remarkable thing to explore. It’s not something that is done in quick, deep strokes or with swords. It is done quietly, gently, with small snips to discard what is no longer alive and feeding our vibrancy. It is gentle and, most importantly, it is about seeing the possibilities that are already within.

Michelangelo is said to have been asked how he came to create The David, one of his most world-renowned works of sculpture. He replied that he didn’t create The David but rather that he saw The David in the stone and painstakingly worked to release it.

This is transformation. This is how transformational coaching works with me. I help my clients release what is already within them. Step by step, session by session, excavating the most brilliant version of them.

I’d like to think that I’m a transformational artist. For now, I’ll settle for the title “see-er of beauty” - knowing deeply that I am someone who takes the time to invest and reinvent, with whatever the next day brings.