Storms Make Your Roots Go Deep

If you were in the first balloon with wind, lightning, and rain beating against you it might seem futile to struggle to fly the balloon to safety.  The storm could be internal or external, both can seem overpowering, even life threatening.  What we need to remember when we are going through a storm, is that the storm isn’t our destination.  It can’t rain forever.  The storm is just part of our path, and it will last as long as it needs to, in order for us to learn what is needed. 

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

  –  Willa Cather

When we are suffering through a real storm in our life, it certainly puts all of our other worries and concerns into perspective.  The loss of a job, health crisis, loss of a loved one, or a severe financial struggle, makes us wonder how we can get so mad, that someone didn’t put down the toilet seat.  We see how often we let trivial, petty things take away our peace.  If you think back the past few months, how many arguments have you had in your life?  And how many of those arguments can you not even remember what triggered them to happen?  Whatever it was, wasn’t truly important enough to lose our peace over.  It also helps us see, how many times the storm blowing through our life was created by us. 

A wise woman recognizes when her life is out of balance and summons the courage to act to correct it, she knows the meaning of true generosity, happiness is the reward for a life lived in harmony, with a courage and grace.

  –  Suze Orman

I love the analogy of a tree with deep roots.  The trunk and branches are what we live in the outer world.  The root system is our inner world.  During a storm, the outer world is what usually gets affected.  The leaves get blown away, we may lose a couple of branches.  But as long as we stay strong in our roots, our inner world, then we can withstand whatever happens in the outer world.  In fact, the storms can cause us to grow our roots even deeper.  That is how we stay in balance, living life with courage and grace.

When someone is going through a storm, your silent presence is more powerful than a million empty words.

  – Thema Davis

When someone is in deep pain, we often don’t know what to say or do.  Sometimes we realize that nothing we can say or do, will make any difference.  Have you have ever been in the middle of a crisis or a life storm, thinking to yourself, I don’t know if I can take anymore?  The presence of someone who we know loves us, just giving us a hug, can be the one thing that gets us back on our feet, ready to withstand one more day of heartbreak.  Know that the light that shines from within you is creating a beautiful rainbow.

Pain means you’re growing.  Fear means you’re risking.  Tears mean it mattered.  Take what hurts you and let it help you.

  – Mandy Hale

In the moment of melt down, when we think that it is unbearable, we transform from the ashes like the phoenix.  We reveal our true self.   Instead of dying we awaken as though we had been in hibernation.  We become fully alert to what has happened for us (not to us) and we shake the sky as we shine through the darkness like the sun coming out from behind the moon in a solar eclipse.

I admire people who choose to shine even after all the storms they’ve been through. 

  – Joubert Botha. 

I love the book, Women Who Run With Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  She writes that, we have created these doors from every storm in our life, and that if we yearn for a deeper, more fulfilling life, we have to start opening doors.  It reminded me of a saying, “The tiger and the lion may be more powerful…, but the wolf does not perform in the circus.” We have to free ourselves from the cages that we have locked ourselves into, as we perform in the circus of a daily life where we deny who and what we are.  We have to be willing, even if we think that we are not strong enough, to speak to what we have hidden and locked behind those doors.  We have to be willing to be wild and howl at the moon.

The truth is that we are never “ready” to face the unconscious.  There are all those parts of you that you hid away because you were ashamed.  The parts of you that are not worthy, not good enough.  The not pretty enough parts of our body, the not smart enough parts, the parts that were bullied and made fun of, and so on.  There is never the “right time” to unbury and reveal the real us. 

If you have yet to be called an incorrigible defiant woman, don’t worry, there is still time.

  –  Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The most courageous thing we will ever do in our lives is to stand up in the storm as it is happening and intervene.  To stand up and show the world who you really are, to reveal the beauty of your wild soul.  Instead of drawing back with your head held down in submission, own it, front and center.

As the quote across the photos said, you will not be the same person who entered the storm.  It is up to you to arise from the ashes.  It is up to you to unlock all of the hidden doors.  It is up to you to own all the parts you hid away.  To reveal yourself, no longer hiding and trying to be invisible.  Breathe.  Spend time in stillness and awareness.  Try new things.  Explore and seek connection with others who want to converse in the language of the heart.

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