Life Lessons from the Lotus

Trust the healing process.

Be like the lotus:

trust in the light;

grow through the dirt;

believe in new beginnings.

Lotus flowers only grow in muddy pond waters. They must rise from the murky surroundings in order to reach the light… and once they do, they bloom beautifully, petal by petal.

However, each night they must go back into the murky water but, each morning after, they rise again… completely unstained by their circumstance.

As a survivor, I hid in the shadows of shame for ten years—shame that I didn’t deserve, nor ask for. Survival isn’t easy. It can be incredibly lonely. It is filled with the scariness of the unknown. The road of survival encompasses many emotions. There were many days that I couldn’t see past the gloom. There were several dark periods where I couldn’t see any beauty or worth in what I had now become, against my will. On days when I saw glimpses of light, or even found a ray of sunshine, the feelings were short lived because the darkness would always eventually swallow me back up. I suffered in silence, rarely sharing my genuine struggle, despite often progressing through life seemingly unfettered.

I waded through the twists and turns of this cycle until one day I began to recognize that pieces of me were coming alive again. I had not yet learned how to be intentional in my healing journey, but I could feel the rejuvenating power that the glimpses of light were sending through me. In time, I could see those once stifled petals beginning to open towards the light—blooming for the first time in over a decade. As I navigated with more intentionality, more light ushered into those dark spaces, deeper healing began to take place, and I started to see a new, improved version of myself.

In this restored space, I could find beauty in the pieces of myself that I had once considered unbecoming, and I could embrace the wounds that I once bled from because I was finally flourishing, authentically. Authentic me was not void of experiencing negative emotions or periods of self-doubt, but my healing journey was teaching me that not only was I able to focus on the light from the darkness, but also that I was becoming a source of light for others trapped in dark spaces. And just like that… I found a purpose in my pain.

-TRE