The Flower Opening

I've been examining my expectations about spiritual awakening. I think I expected something dramatic—a moment when everything changed, and I suddenly saw clearly, understood completely, and felt entirely different. When that didn't happen, I wondered if I was doing something wrong. Maybe I wasn't spiritual enough. Maybe the program wasn't working for me.

"But most of us found our spiritual awakening to be a much slower, more subtle experience, more like a flower opening petal by petal than like a flash of lightning." This image stops me every time I read it. A flower opening. So gradual you can't see it happening. So natural it seems inevitable. So beautiful precisely because it unfolds slowly.

My awakening has been exactly like this. I didn't wake up one day completely transformed. But over months and years, I've changed in ways I never thought possible. Each meeting opened me a bit more. Each Step revealed something new. Each conversation with my sponsor helped another petal unfold. The cumulative effect is transformation, even though no single moment felt dramatic.

I'm learning to trust slow growth, to appreciate subtle shifts, and to recognize that gradual change is still real change. The flower doesn't open all at once, but eventually, it's fully bloomed.

I don't need a dramatic transformation to prove I'm recovering. The small changes—not checking their phone, sleeping through the night, laughing genuinely—these petals opening slowly are evidence that the flower is blooming.