Close your eyes and take a slow breath in.
Feel the air move through you,
Effortless,
Unhurried,
And now as you breathe out,
Imagine the breath carrying away the weight of perfection,
The burden of wishing things had gone differently.
There is a cherry blossom,
High in the branches of a tree.
For so long,
It has been held in a bud.
Curled tight,
Waiting,
And then one day,
Without knowing what kind of world it will open up into,
It begins to unfurl.
Maybe the sun will meet it with warmth.
Maybe the wind will shake it loose too soon.
Maybe the frost will come,
Unexpected and sharp,
But still it opens.
It doesn't ask if the time is right,
Or if it unfolds the right way.
It simply trusts in its unfolding.
Can you trust yours?
Think of the moments in your life where you wish you'd done things differently.
The words you want to pull back.
The choices you wish you could unmake.
The paths you didn't take.
And now,
For just a moment,
Imagine these as petals,
Soft and fragile,
Drifting gently to the ground.
Nothing stays.
Nothing is wasted.
Even the fallen blossom becomes part of something greater,
Nourishing the earth,
Becoming the soil from which new life will grow.
What if your mistakes are not mistakes at all,
But part of the perfect imperfection of your becoming?
What if,
Like the cherry blossom,
You are simply a flower?
Unfolding as you are meant to,
Whether into warmth or wind or ice.
There is nothing you need to fix,
Nothing you need to force.
Breathe in.
Feel the way life carries you forward.
Whether you resist it or not.
And breathe out,
Letting go of the illusion that you were ever supposed to know exactly where you were going.
Everything in nature understands this truth.
Cracks let the light in,
Broken things let the world through.
Even the most delicate petal,
Even the most fleeting moment belongs.
Rest here for a while,
Wrapped in the quiet knowing that you too belong.
That everything you have done,
Everything you have been has brought you here.
That is,
That this too is part of your unfolding.
And before we bring this practice to a close,
I ask you to remember this.
That we're not supposed to know the way.
And we never know for sure,
Had we taken the route we thought we should have,
How our lives would have turned out.
Have faith,
Just like that cherry blossom,
That it knows not the weather into which it will unfold.
But it does so with bravery and trust in the path of life.
So move slowly,
Coming back into the present moment.
And when you're ready,
Open your eyes.
