Becoming open!

It was while visiting the rose flowers in our garden yesterday, I noticed seven different stages of flowers in their opening phase.  This caught my attention. 

A bud turns into a flower by becoming open.

A person becomes himself or herself by becoming open. 

A bud does not stay in that stage. It evolves into different stages of openness till it is a flower with its colour, texture and fragrance. 

I spent a week end with a group of people recently. It was during that time, I became even more familiar with the inhibitions that some feel about being open- to be known as we are inwardly.

It was during that experience, I took time to get in touch with my own inhibitions that restrain me from being fully open. 

The openness of a rose flower is a natural progressive process, regulated by its own biological rhythm. 

How can this process of self disclosure grow within me!

Our biography has a personal and relational dimension. The relational dimension is where most of us feel inhibited to be open, for fear of breaking the creed of confidentiality. It is in that relational dimension, the inhibitions can restrain us from being fully open. 

However, there is a need to walk through that terrain to feel free of the knots that make us prisoners of our past. I took time yesterday to revisit some seasons in life, when some difficult experiences left memories,  which act as restraining influences to be fully open. In relational engagements, it is one's own personal part which one can embrace as an act of omission or commission and offer self forgiveness. When possible and at an appropriate time, it is good to get ready for making a personal confession to people who are ready to receive it. 

I realise that the rose flowers become fully open naturally. To become progressively open is a natural journey that I too can make in my life!

Mrs Priyanka Gandhi made public disclosure recently of how angry she was towards the assassins of her father for years. It took her a decade or so to process that anger and feel free of the ache in her heart arising out of anger, loss and grief. One of the last steps she took was to meet some who were imprisoned for plotting for the assassination of her father. She hated to be in public life as a politician. She and her brother were weary of her mother being in active in politics. Now all three of them are in active politics, making a difference, by being  ardent advocates of democracy and secularism, in a turbulent political scene in India. I feel touched by the inner journey of freedom and openness Mrs Priyanka convey, following years of opus of alchemy in her personal life, a spirit of thoughtfulness, consideration and courageous engagement with people who need healing in their lives. 

Becoming open is a personal inner journey worth pursuing!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)