Be Like The Lotus Flower: Be Reborn Daily And Overcome Adversity
Nature gives us the most unexpected answers when we do not believe that there can be anything else beyond our own mind, our own hopes and our own desire to keep moving forward. Rather than showing a monotonous and predictable reality , every corner where nature grows is able to provide us with a new lesson about what it means to live in this world.
In the wide variety of manifestations, species and phenomena it produces, we encounter genuine lessons on how to tackle life. Genuine psychological theories without control over variables or analyzes of reality and validity, but which contain a message whose beauty and significance cannot be denied.
From this endless and interesting phenomenon in nature we can choose the lotus flower. A sui generis phenomenon that becomes an exciting metaphor for the life and adversity we face every day.
The lotus flower is a type of water lily whose roots are buried in the mud and sludge in rivers and ponds. The lotus flower has the seed with the longest lifespan and resilience: it can live for up to 30 centuries before flowering without losing its fertility.
This beautiful flower rises from and reaches the clay in swamps or swamp areas, and when it blooms it rises from the clay. At night, the petals close and it dives below the water surface. It closes to dip in the water, but when dawn arrives it comes back out of the dirty water, intact and without signs of impurity among its spiral-shaped leaves.
The lotus flower has the peculiarity of being the only flower that is also a fruit at the same time. The fruit has the shape of an inverted cone and is found inside it. When the flower is closed, it does not smell, but when it opens up, the scent is reminiscent of hyacinth. Many people believe that the aroma is hypnotic and capable of changing your state of mind.
The fascination with the lotus flower has led to it becoming a fundamental symbol for a number of different civilizations throughout history. The lotus flower is considered sacred and is one of the oldest symbols, with several meanings in oriental countries. However, there are also several references to it in the western world.
In Greek mythology, the lotophages, or lotus eaters, were a mythological race that the ancient Greeks identified as the inhabitants of a population in northeastern Africa. Legend has it that a beautiful goddess got lost in a forest. She eventually arrived at a place where there was plenty of mud, called the lotus, where she drowned.
This space had been created by the gods for beings whose fate was to fail in life. But the young goddess fought for thousands of years until she managed to escape. She turned into a beautiful lotus flower, symbolizing the triumph of perseverance in difficult situations.
In Buddhist thinking, the lotus serves as the seat or throne of the Buddha or Buddhas, and indicates divine birth. In the Christian world, the lotus flower is the white lily that represents both fertility and purity. Traditionally, the archangel Gabriel takes the Annunciation lily to the Virgin Mary.
The lotus flower symbolizes the power of psychological resilience, as the ability to transform adversity into potential. Suzanna C. Kobasa, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, led several studies in which she found that individuals with resilient personalities had a number of traits in common. They tend to be people with great determination, control and focus.
This explanation was later reconceptualized with the term resilience – the essence of the resilient personality. Resistance is often defined as the ability of individuals to overcome periods of emotional pain and great adversity.
The lotus flower became a fantastic metaphor for people who are able to fold the pain and then fold the latter in the form of peace, self-control and perseverance.
