A Note On Wilting
"We have to hurt, so that we may heal."
There’s something deeply beautiful to me about wilted flowers. I love seeing them. I love collecting them. I love pressing them between the pages of my notebooks, studying the withering form that they take — a sort of softening into themselves post-bloom.
It is much like my love for the season of fall. I look forward to witnessing the changing colors of the leaves — how lovely they look when they make their way to the ground and form a collective sight of beauty. In some instances, the adorning sight is so breathtaking that I find myself utterly captivated.
And all while I swoon over the glory of wilted flowers and autumn days, I recently realized that I never thought to look at my healing in this way. The way that I witness change through a simple flower or a physical season is so beautiful to me, yet when it comes to witnessing change within the seasons of my own life, I am often left devastated and broken. There doesn’t seem to be anything beautiful about it. I don’t have the tendency to approach change with softness, tenderness, and grace. Through changing seasons, I can be so hard on and harsh with myself.
I wonder why I never step back to look at my healing through the same eyes that see the beauty of a withering rose or the season of fall. The truth is, I want to get to a point where releasing comes as natural to me as it does to the tree that loosens the grip on its leaves, ushering in a season of unbecoming with grace. I want to accept that this act is a necessary, natural flow of my life, and that in due time, I will bloom again.
But let’s be real — change is hard, and healing often hurts. It’s not as pretty as most quotes make it seem. It uproots you. It’s full of grit. It makes you vulnerable. And sometimes, it just doesn’t feel good.
“Growth is not a process absent of pain.”
But as I’m learning, growth is not a process absent of pain. Sometimes we have to hurt, so that we may heal and grow. Teaching myself the guitar has taught me this lesson. I recently picked up my instrument again after having not consistently played it in some years.
If you’ve ever played the guitar before, getting used to the strings can hurt. Your fingers may callous overtime. You have to get used to stretching them to uncomfortable positions, especially if you have small hands like me. I also often have to cut my nails down, a symbolism of getting rid of whatever is in the way of my learning, of my growing.
It can take some time getting into the rhythm.
But once you get past the pain of learning something new, beauty meets you on the other side. In fact, it was there all along — but the posture of your heart and your mind may not have been in the right place to recognize it yet.
Once I made it through the uncomfortableness of calloused fingers and sore hands, I was met with the easefulness of strumming the strings of my guitar. I became so engulfed by the beauty, that the challenges I had to overcome were a weight lifted from my mind. But what moved me even more was the reflection of the process — the days that I wanted to give up. The days that I didn’t think I could go through with learning a new thing. The days where I felt like the pain was overwhelming. The days where I didn’t believe I had the strength.
But I pushed through.
The power of perception is essential. It’s easy to view our changing seasons with grief and from a place of hesitancy. It’s easy to look at our healing as unpleasant. It’s easy to see the task of learning something new as intimidating. But today, I challenge you to look at it all from a different perspective.
Change can be uncomfortable — but it’s a necessary part of life. Healing can be heavy — but it’s essential to our growth. Learning a new way of life can unearth our tucked away trauma and cause discomfort — but we have the strength to make it through to the other side.
Taking from all of this, I realize that beauty exists in the process even when our eyes aren’t open to seeing it. Through change, through loss, through healing, through learning something new — beauty is there. Through the wilting of old narratives, through the withering of former versions of ourselves, through the releasing of people and things that no longer align — beauty is there.
And when we take the time to look at it all on a larger scale, we will realize how big life still is outside of our own grief and sorrow. How we’re a collective — like the trees that let go of their leaves to give us the beauty of fall, or the flowers that bend. How so many around us are withering, loosening, and releasing in conjunction with us. How we’re all losing leaves as we’re being ushered into a new season. How we’re all wilting, waiting to be in bloom again.
Reflection questions:
How do you view your healing process?
How do you handle changing seasons in your life? Are you open and welcoming, or closed off and unaccepting? Where do you think your approach stems from?
What pieces of your life seem to be wilting at this moment? How does it feel?
What do you need to release in this season?
With love and light,
Mariah Maddox
I wrote of something similar on my recent post, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. When you asked yourself why you don’t reflect on the beauty of your own wilting moments, i too feel the same. The word itself is so beautiful. Feeling our feelings fully would include not moving on to the next thing so fast but reflecting on it. I’m going to do that this week.
Love every word and detail here. I remember seeing your work on LinkedIn—it stayed with me. Beautiful essay on change and healing. Thought-provoking too. Best wishes here.