One of my shrinks- yes, I have had a shrink, more than one. Go figure. Anyway, this shrink was listening to me as I verbally abused myself comparing myself to anyone and everyone under the sun. When she finally reached her limit, she interrupted me.

“What is the prettiest flower?”

I was knocked sideways, “what the? What do you mean? I don’t know. How do you answer a question like that? They are all different. I mean, I like lilies, but I think roses are pretty, but they are different. Huh?”

“Exactly!” She was all proud of herself, smiling like a little daisy.

At the time, I still didn’t get it. First of all, I was no flower. Second, I just did not get it. Messages about self-love and the beauty in our uniqueness flew over my head. I was an insecure teenage girl who really felt less-than. If I were to latch on to the notion of people being “flowers” on the Universe’s landscape, I would have measured myself somewhere in the Dandelion family.

Stop. Hold it. Let’s look at the Dandelion. Sure, some people may see a weed, but others see wine. Others see those white things that you can blow off of them once they “die”. They have covered nearly every lawn at every home I have ever owned in a fabulous blanket of yellow. To the person who took the photo attached to this entry, the dandelion is art.

Who am I to judge? Who are any of us to judge? But we do. Sometimes, the people we judge with the most critical eye are ourselves. If you think there is no harm in harsh self-judgement, I can tell you from experience, that just is not so. My judgement of everything in the world, begins with the view I take of myself.

Flowers do not worry about whether their petals are blue enough, big enough, fluffy enough. They do not question whether they deserve the raindrops. They soak up the sun and stand in plain view, unashamed, uninhibited. They also do not worry about other flowers. They just “are”. They do not know that on some human scale, they are categorized and rated and valued differently. They just come back, season after season, content to simply bloom.