I love flowers. I love seeing them in the garden. I love having them in the house. I love receiving them as a gift.
I was going to say that I don't know where this love of flowers comes from since 'gifts' is not one of my strongest love languages but as soon as I went to write that sentence, I figured it out:
Mum loves flowers.
My Mum isn't one of the happiest people you'll ever met. So the rare occasions in our childhood when she seemed genuinely happy I paid attention.
Cutting flowers from the garden and arranging them in a vase is one of those few times she is both deeply creative and creates something beautiful that has the potential to make her happy.
Whatever made Mum happy appears to have made a lasting imprint on me and makes me happy too.
While I'm not naturally gifted at arranging flowers, just the sight of flowers does it for me.
And since I worked out that I like flowers so much, I found a photo of a bouquet and put it on my vision board (currently, my office door).
Now, if you know much about the process of manifestation you'll know that you have to:
- Be clear on what you want,
- Let go of how it will come to and when, and
- Release any stories or beliefs you have that could block said thing from entering your life (like, "I don't deserve flowers.")
It's so much fun for me to watch things manifest into form.
Here's how I received flowers unexpectedly today:
I had spotted oodles of weeds on our neighbours front yard. I like the Mum, the Dad is easy going and they have three boisterous kids - 6, 4 & 2 years old.
Trying to limit my screen time today, and knowing that the rain showers we had this morning would have softened up the earth, I asked my friend, the Mum, is they wanted to weed together with me?
Within 15 minutes we were all out in the front yard with our hands and/or feet on the earth. While the 2 year old boy climbed onto high things and picked up rocks with the fascination that toddlers display so well, the 4 & 6 year old girls, pulled out weeds for about two seconds before deciding to switch to flower picking instead.
Despite repeated gentle encouragements from Mum, Dad (who had joined us) and myself to pull out weeds instead, both girls continued to rip flowers from their stems and pile them onto my jacket for me to take home.
When the kids had had enough and it started to rain again, I grabbed my water bottle, insect repellent, gloves I hadn't used... and piled into one hand a ginormous collection of flowers.
My friend told me not to feel obliged to take them home, or to feel free to put them in the compost, but I recognised the gift of love I had been given, and awkwardly carried them home as raindrops fell on my head.
Knowing they wouldn't work in a vase, and would last a few days at most, I opened up the crockery drawer and spotted an extra large serving plate we never use.
I filled it with 1-2 cm of water, and carefully placed each of the flowers on the plate, with the biggest, most colourful ones facing out towards us. And only as I was doing this - appreciating their temporary beauty in our home, and noticing how happy I felt - did I remember the flowers on my vision board.
And I realised that's always been the way things have manifested for me in the past: they've come at unexpected times, in unexpected ways, when I had been so present in the moment that I had forgotten I had even asked for them.
