Flowering Fridays: Seeing the Flowers
Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 11:17PM 
Sunflower from last summer's garden, September 2009
On Monday evening, I choose to feel upset with my husband.
And in heat of that moment, looking at him through the lens of my anger, I acted distant, disconnected and cold toward him.
I choose not to look at him with love, beauty and wonder.
And I choose not to see him as the beautiful flower that he is.
Part of my practice around living into my metaphor of flowers is to see everyone as the flower they are.
Some people I see as roses, some as daisies, others as delphenium.
Seeing each person as a flower, I can appreciate the unique expression that each person is — each as a beautiful miracle, each on a journey to its full blooming.
Through my flowered lens, I relate to people and life from the deepest part of myself, through the core gift that I am. (This metaphor arose out of the Future Thinking program that I am in with Jan Smith .)
It's a view that has changed life for me in so many beautiful ways.
But with my husband on Monday, in the heat of my anger, I couldn't see anything remotely flowery about him.
(Maybe prickly thistle or raggy ragweed, but definitely not a flower.)
In my more calm and loving moments, I picture my husband as a sunflower — sunny, regal, strong, upright, willing to give seeds, and radiant in the way he cares and shows his love.
And seeing him as the sunflower he is, I can stand in appreciation for his unique gifts and how divinely perfect he is as a spirit. When I see him as a flower, I am not in judgment or making wrong.
After all, as I've said before, can you really find anything "wrong" with a flower?
Even if the petals have a brown spot or one petal is ripped, the total of the flower is perfect just for being a flower.
In my last post, I mentioned how questions can open us up to a whole new world....and likewise, the lens or metaphors we live from shapes our world, too.
For me it's a question of whether I choose to see people and the world as blooming flowers — or as enemies on the attack.
Depending on how I'm seeing it, I'll move into life very differently.
My commitment is to keep choosing again and again and again to see people — and my husband — as flowers.
This weekend I have the gift of celebrating 13 years with the beautiful sunflower who has shone so much love into my life.
We are heading to Chicago for an anniversary getaway — and my intention is to celebrate and love this precious sunflower for the gift he is in my life.
I want to be like a bee on a sunflower with him this weekend, relishing in all the many facets that he is — funny, smart, handsome, kind, generous, spiritual, loving, proud, musical, curious, passionate, silly.
And letting him know that I am so thankful to have the gift of his sunflower in my life because it allows me to be the flower that I am more fully.
(Happy 13th anniversary, sweetie! I love you more and more each year!)
P.S. If you haven't noticed, I love metaphors and would encourage you to find one of your own if you don't have one already.
You could use flowers, but your metaphoric lens will probably be different than mine.
As I've learned through Jan Smith and Future Thinking about core metaphors, everyone's core metaphor is different. It will be unique to what you love to do with no attachment to outcome.
You might also love flowers, but we will probably love them for slightly different reasons as we are each unique. (Jan recommends the book, The Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff, if you want to learn more about this.)
For you, it might be to watch the wind move through a tree or how the flavors meld cooking or the way contrasting textures of color play in a painting.
Whatever.
The point is to find a metaphor that allows you to see life with wonder curiosity, magic, possibility, openness, compassion, peace and love.
And then to put that metaphor on as a pair of glasses to help you see the world through that lens.
Tell me, what kinds of flowers are the people in your life for you? What metaphoric lens do you use to help you see the beauty and connection in life?
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Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.
Reader Comments (4)
This is a beautiful post in so many ways. The idea of looking -- of choosing to see -- through a different lens is pure brilliance. And flowers... who wouldn't create a kinder more loving world?!
with maitri (loving kindness) ~ Mahala
Mahala,
Thank you for your kind words —
And I agree what a beautiful and kind world we would have we each cherished each others as the beautiful flowers we each are. My opportunity is to remember this when I am in a moment of forgetting (as in the moment of anger) and then put my lens back on.
Blessings to you,
Shannon
p.s. luminous heart is an equally beautiful metaphoric lens to see the world!!!
hey shannon...hugs for your openness and willingness to share a vulnerable moment...
interesting to me is that even amidst the seeming ability to not see the flower, you were aware you weren't...you were aware of the consent to a counter pull...
THAT itself is huge.....as more and more life to me are moment by moment choices to not just resist the counterpull, but understand its powerlessness (to the degree we don't give it consent, it lures less and less). I am just expecting you had a beautiful weekend, no matter how you all spent your time (hard not to have fun in chitown) :) but because you were vehemently choosing to see the beauty of individuality your hubby exudes......hugs for sharing this aha moment....would love to hear more about how you realized you were consenting to the counter and how you shifted out of that....that choice...to shift....is to me the whole point of our moments right now...because to me we innately seek to live the flower we each are.
my metaphor is similar...water.....it's never stuck or stagnant, constantly fluid, moving..whether as a single drop or an entire ocean :) hugs to you for this sharing....
Tre — I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond to your thoughtful — and beautiful words! Yes, the shifting is so important - and I continue to grow in my capacity and awareness in doing so…but I need to keep in the practice of it. For me, it's keeping the metaphor of flowers up in front of me so I remember to keep seeing people as flowers…
I love your metaphor around water — that's beautiful — reminds me of how fluid you are with your words, your listening, your being in the now!!
Love and light,
Shannon