Tulips and Vulnerability

Don't you just love when things start to all just come together at the same time? Spring is a time of growth and rebirth and I have been reading Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. Her research is all about vulnerability, which is a hard and scary topic. No one wants to be vulnerable. However, it seems the best results are always on the other side of it.

I have this habit of reading while I go for walks, I've been doing it since I learned to read in the first place. The past month on my walks while reading this book, I have also watched the tulips come out for the spring season. They are beautiful flowers. More than that, they were a perfect example of the things I had been reading about in Daring Greatly.

These flowers have zero protection. They are simply a stem and a few petals and are considered a very fragile flower. Yet they are among the first flowers to bloom after winter; when temperatures are still rising, when snow still occasionally threatens to fall, and before most flowers are willing to make an appearance the tulips still come. Not only that, but they survive and give us hope that growth and warmth are on the way.

These flowers with so little to protect them are incredibly vulnerable, but they still grow anyways. It's a big risk, given how little protection they have and the still shaky circumstances that may come with the season. For such a weak flower, they are actually incredibly strong and resilient. They are, in a way, a very trusting flower. They have no thorns, they have one or two leaves, and a few petals to protect the core of the flower. They are almost completely exposed.

Do I do that in my life? Am I trusting and open and vulnerable? Based on past experience, I shouldn't be. I've been hurt, just like everyone has. We all have reasons to put up walls and thorns and protection, especially in a world that is constantly rotating through good times and bad. We get high temperatures, then a snow storm.

I am no botanist by any means, but I wonder if the reason tulips can survive the volatile temperatures of spring is because it has less to protect. I'm seeing a parallel in my life at least. The simplicity of this flower is what I want in my life. I want to strip away the excess so I don't have to stress about it and can focus on the most important things in life. Becuase really, what more does a flower need? A leaf or two, a stem, a few petals.

There is beauty in its simplicity and vulnerability. While each type of flower has it's own unique beauty and symbolism, tulips have really touched me as of late. It's like the Universe is conspiring to get me to learn a lesson or something by putting so many of these in place at the same time I'm reading about vulnerability.

And since I can't really speak about anything without it somehow connecting back to my TS, I feel the need to mention how much Paula has helped me to become more vulnerable. For a kid that was ridiculously shy and quiet growing up and suddenly was center of attention a lot more than I wanted, I had to learn to open up. I had to talk to others. I learned to trust and love others.

Paula takes me out on a limb often. I have to talk to new people, I get put in situations most people try to avoid. Sometimes she pops up in the most awkward of places. but through all of those experiences, she has made what is hard and vulnerable for some into something I have become quite adept at. Vulnerability can lead to strength if we let it and if we use it right.

Aren't tulips just beautiful?

Photo by Ivan Gromov on Unsplash