I am not sure if it has been the volume of rain we have gotten, or the suddenly warm days, but my roses are on steroids this year! The branches are so full of blooms and buds; they are weighed down with the volume of them! And yet the buds keep coming.
This little bouquet was hastily picked before bad thunderstorms and winds arrived here three nights ago – and they still look amazing.
This got me thinking, or perhaps it was all the curiosity that this post stirred up (really, go read all the linked posts – if you were not curious before, you will be soon!)
How often do I take what comes my way, good or bad, and allow it to bloom an explosion of color in my life? Or, perhaps an explosion of something good/positive/enriching is a better way to think about it.
Honestly, I can tell you that the answer is not very often.
Oh, it is easy to do when what comes your way is good – but the bad? Yeah…
For me, that almost always just makes more bad.
I have been carefully working on my gratitude focus – trying to quietly find one or two things to be grateful for each day. Some days, I am hard-pressed to find anything, and other days the things I am grateful for flow easily into my journal.
One blessing that has come out of journaling is that I can look back and clearly see how the external effects me internally.
Now I need to focus on how to be like those roses – good or bad – create an explosion of color where I am planted!
P.S. I wrote a guest post on the Sheepspot blog with my thoughts on the first year in the Fiber Club! Sign-ups open again soon, just sayin’
Really beautiful roses! My roses are the same this year; I credit the ideal combination of sun, rain, and not too many bugs (yet). It’s easy to internalize the good — we can literally bring roses inside to enjoy and appreciate. I also internalize the bad, but for me that usually means withdrawing and contemplating, not always bad things. Let’s “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” — before the Japanese beetles arrive!
for quite some time I’ve written a gratitude paragraph in my daily journal and that has helped immensely to set the tone to my days. Even if I’m in the most miserable mood (who me??) I can focus and fine tune my thankfulness. I think it comes with aging, maybe.
I feel lots of creativity blossoming inside of me and I keep taking notes and writing lists so I don’t forget my ideas.
Gorgeous roses!
And oh BTW? You are one of the most positive people that I know!:)
Those roses are stunning! I agree that it’s easy to be grateful when good things happen. I was feeling frustrated by a work situation yesterday and I wrote in my journal about it. Then I turned it around and made a list of all the things I love about my job and the people I work with and I felt much better. We have to take the good with the bad and sometimes the bad helps us to appreciate the good.
(My roses – most of them anyway – succumbed to thrips a couple of years ago. I will admire yours from afar. They are beautiful!)
Some days, I stumble across words that just make be gasp. Words that I just can’t get out of my head. Words that get me thinking. Today, those words are yours: bloom an explosion of color in my life.
Yes. I think I will. (Thank you.) XO
I have had to dig deep some days to find anything positive, but when Smith’s accident happened it changed my persecutive like, well, like an explosion! All the bad that came before, and since, has been viewed with different eyes. Eyes, that as you suggest, are more open to the colorful possibilities.