The Lotus Keeps Rising

Learning it is Finally Safe to Bloom

Om Manhe Padme Hum

The Jewel is in the Lotus

I was listening to an online course when the teacher casually said something that stopped me cold.

She said her superpower was joy.

Not resilience.
Not strength.
Not wisdom.

Joy.

And something inside me immediately tightened as I realized I could not easily recall moments of pure joy. I had spent a lifetime becoming capable, responsible, resilient, and successful. I had learned how to survive, function, achieve, and care deeply for others. But somewhere along the way, I had lost access to simple joy.

That realization felt unsettling. When had I lost the ability to experience joy – and why?

My thoughts turned to memories of the first 5 years of my life. I could recall joyous moments – feeling safe within my family, being cherished as the first grandchild, picking wildflowers with my mother in a field awash with color, the smell of apple pie baking and the memory of standing on a stool at the kitchen counter, with as much flour in my hair as in the pie. I remembered my bedroom with yellow walls and a wallpaper border of flowers, and a backyard awash with tulips. I remembered riding in a car, singing silly songs. And I remembered the night my father sat on the edge of my bed, struggling to tell me that Mommy had gone to heaven, but would continue to love me from afar.

The wicked stepmother came 8 months later – stepping into life with two young and needy motherless children, taking on a role she was not prepared to take. My father escaped by spending long hours away from home, while my stepmother took out her anger on me. In response, certain parts of me became highly developed, while other parts quietly receded, because survival took precedence over joy.

I became extraordinarily skilled at functioning. At reading rooms. At anticipating needs. At being capable.

I became highly empathic, responsible, helpful, and resilient.

Those qualities helped me build a beautiful life. But suddenly I found myself asking, “How much joy had I experienced while living the life that I had carefully nurtured and built?” Because survival skills, when practiced long enough, don’t leave room for joy.

I thought of all the times I had witnessed life from the sidelines, present but not fully engaged. My choice of friends. My choice of entertainment. My choice of pleasure. My choice of career. My circle of friends was small, but safe. My pleasures, often solitary. I loved music, but stayed seated when my body wanted to move. I remembered lots of successes, lots of fulfillment, lots of pleasure, lots of gratitude. But joy….. Joy wasn’t quite there.

I have learned to choose openness instead of bitterness. Compassion instead of cruelty. I learned to create coherence out of chaos and trust my heart enough to follow it.

I learned how to love people deeply and sincerely. I learned how to create safety for myself. I learned how to create safety for others. I learned how to soften without collapsing.

But now I’m learning that although I have lived a meaningful, loving, spiritually rich life, there are chambers of aliveness within me that have remained closed. I have survived beautifully and well, some would say even thrived, and for many, that would be enough. But I am determined to experience life fully, and now I’m questioning - have I fully learned how to live?

Joy has escaped me. Joy is unguarded, requiring the nervous system to be open and relaxed. Joy requires a deep exhale, a deeper surrender, a deep embodiment, a deep permission to live life without guarding against its loss. But just like the lotus flower, programmed to move towards the light when the conditions are right, my life has become stable enough, coherent enough, loving enough, meaningful enough, that my soul can finally ask – “What would life feel like if I knew I could fully trust it enough to relax?” Because now I’m realizing that escaping the dark is not the same thing as living in the light, and just like the lotus flower, I find myself asking, “Can I actually allow myself to bloom?”

Life has been good. I have experienced flashes of joy. Moments created by tiny ruptures in control. An unexpected laugh or giggle. A moment in nature. Music. A puppy. My grandchildren. For just a moment, I forget myself, but then almost immediately my warning system re-engages. Not because I’m incapable of joy. But because I have mistaken vigilance for safety for so long.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon puttering in my kitchen. It was a beautiful sunny day. My deck was awash in colorful flowers. I had flocks of loudly chirping birds taking turns at my large feeders. I had two jars of freshly made kombucha fermenting on my counter, and dinner sending mouth-watering aromas from my oven. It was one of those moments when everything was aligned. And at that moment, I had the realization – this is joy. It wasn’t jumping up and down ecstasy, nor was it laughing giddiness. It was the simple, but profound, pleasure of joy.

Joy was the embodied knowing that all was well, that all was in order within my world. It was recognizing that I was relaxed and engaged in simple activities that fed my soul. That my eyes, nose, and ears were awash in sensations that delighted me. In that moment, I knew joy. Quiet, internalized joy. In that moment, cooking in my kitchen deepened from being a pleasant afternoon, to something sacred. A pleasant life sustains. A consciously inhabited life nourishes the soul.

I suspect many of us are unknowingly standing in the middle of beautiful moments while internally rushing onwards to the next. And rushing through life is very different from living it.

My longing for “more” is not evidence that I have failed, or that I have not healed. My longing for more is evidence that my soul naturally yearns to unfold towards more light. The joy I felt while puttering in my kitchen on a sunny day was not proof that I had finally arrived. It was proof that my system was capable of relaxing enough to recognize and receive the gifts that were already here.

Perhaps that is what the lotus has been teaching all along. Not that there is some final destination waiting at the top of a long climb, but that each time it rises towards the light, it becomes a little more capable of opening. Like the lotus, I keep rising, not because anything is missing, but because life is inviting me to fully bloom.

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By Jude Smith

Essays, reflections, and meditations on living authentically and meeting life as a sacred curriculum.