Life brings us many challenges. It’s what we do with those challenges, how we respond that matters.

Unfortunately we can’t stop them from coming, and at times they hit us unexpectedly, knocking the wind out of our sails.

I’ve recently had such a wind storm, and as I was sitting in the aftermath trying to make sense of it all, these words emerged:

Let the pond get muddy so it can settle.

It signified how my mind was busy trying to understand, and how I needed to take the time to sit in stillness, to meditate. To witness those thoughts, not feed them and make more mud, but to simply allow them to do their stirring around so that they may settle.

The words then re-emerged as:

Allow the mud to settle so you may bloom.

That only in this place of stillness, this allowance of the settling of mud, can one truly bloom.

Our minds get muddy. Lives get messy. It’s normal. It’s natural.

If we fight it, we stir up more mud. If we allow it, it will settle.

Lotus flowers are a wonderful symbol of this messy transformation we all go through. Here this beautiful flower is grounded in mud. Yet in this dark, murky place, it finds it’s way up to the light and blooms with such magnificence.

If it focused on the mud, it would not reach the light, it would not bloom. It would remain in the dark, stuck in the mud.

Just as when we are in times of struggle, overwhelm, confusion, or what have you… if we focus on expanding that and continually stirring it up more, we lose sight of the light, and the beautiful flower this mud can bloom.

But if we simply be in it, see it, and allow it to settle, we will find the light. And it is when we reach that light, that we can bloom.

Life can be a lot of mud. We’re surrounded by it. People love to stir it up. It takes practice to see beyond those murky waters and know that the light is just above you, awaiting your emergence to open your bloom.

It takes patience to allow the mud to settle. But know the gift of the settling that awaits you is reaching the light and blooming one petal at a time, just like the lotus.

Do you have the patience to wait till the mud settles and your water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arrises by itself? ~Lao Tzu

So today, notice where your energy is placed. Are you focused on stirring up the mud or are you allowing it to settle. Are you open to the light and your beautiful bloom?

If you struggle sitting in meditation or simply being due to a lot of ‘thoughts,’ don’t fight them. What you resist, persists. Let the pond get muddy so it can settle. Just witness the thoughts. Then, allow the mud to settle so you can bloom. Stop stirring. Just watch. It will settle. It will become clear. You’ll see the light. You will bloom.

You are the light. You are the flower. This mud will settle. You will bloom on.