LETTING the next season come…
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I heard an amazing story this week, thanks to Beth Nicholls and Kelley Rae Roberts of Hello Soul, Hello Business. They invited Melody Ross, the co-founder of an organization called the Brave Girls Club to share a story about a really powerful dream she had….here’s her story:
There was a time when my life was pretty good and the general version of success was happening in my life, and then over a course of events you know everything crashed and burned and everything fell to the ground. And I wanted to build myself back up, and I wanted to be something. I was so afraid, and I was so hurt and I was so devastated, but what I realized from that dream was that in order to become who we are meant to become and who we want to become, a huge part of it is letting go of who we were once.
I had a dream and it was a devastating dream, but I had a dream one night during that hard time and I this beautiful tree outside my window covered in pink blossoms, and I loved that tree. And in many ways that tree represented me and my life. And what was happening was as I looked out of my window and I started to walk towards that tree in my dream, the wind started to blow and the blossoms started to come off the tree. And I remembered feeling so devastated in that dream because it felt like what was happening in my life. Like I had everything together, I was this big flowery tree, and all of a sudden the wind was blowing all these blossoms off and the tree bare.
Well in the dream I ran and I started gathering up all the blossoms and I started to glue them to the branches. Just crying, sobbing as fast as I could, just gluing all the blossoms back on the branches. And as fast as I could do that there were more blossoms blowing away, further away than for me to be able to catch them. And also underneath the blossoms were the buds which were just going to pop those blossoms right off. And the blossoms were done anyway. They were withering and they were dead, but I was just trying so hard to put that tree back together and make it what it was.
And I so I guess the think that that dream taught me is that there are seasons in our lives. And even though winters come, and times come when the tree looks bare, there are things going on in the root system and in the tree and in the branches that we can’t even see. Underneath those blossoms were the buds of the fruit that was going to grow. And then of course we cry when the fruit is gone, and then winter comes and it looks really bare, but what’s really happening is the tree is growing its nutrients and it is getting ready to burst out into its next season, even bigger and stronger than it was last year.
So that dream has changed my life over and over, as I think, “OK this is a winter in my life and it’s OK. I’m going to come back stronger, and I’m actually going to have another season of blossom.” You just have to let things go, because when you try to hold onto them that just brings you grief and sorrow and pain and misery. But if you just let them go and go. “OK, there’s a new season coming and I’m just going to celebrate that old season.” Take lots of pictures of your blossoms or whatever, but then let the next season come.
Isn’t that beautiful! So often our winters come and we don’t realize that we’re trying so hard to glue withered, dried up blossoms or fruits back onto our tree, instead of just being OK with knowing that even during the “winter” deep things are happening at the root level and soon it will be spring again. I love the idea of looking at our life through different seasons… some winters are longer than other, but some summers are longer than others, too. CHANGE IS INEVITABLE and trying to hold on to a season only brings “grief, sorrow, pain and misery”…letting go really does allow you to reinvent yourself and come back stronger when it’s time to bloom.
