xo,
Sunni
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Did you know that my very first business name was Bella Fiore Art & Design? Bella Fiore is Italian for beautiful flower.
My business has been essentially the same business since day one, though it has gone through many iterations and identities.
Though my business has changed a lot over these 21 years since I started, the heart of it has always remained the same… to bring more beauty, love, ease, joy and abundance into the world and into peoples lives… to make a difference by helping people find their own unique beauty, voice and value, and to let that beauty shine.
I love that even way back then I included flowers in my business name, because flowers continue to be a HUGE part of my love affair with life to this day. They are at the center of everything in some way, and always have been. They are the essence of everything I wish to be and create, they are my greatest teachers… my mascot of a deeper kind of love.
Flowers are successful because they’re themselves. Wholly and completely.
They do not strain or struggle, they do not work or toil… even though many parts of their journey may be messy and require the overcoming of certain obstacles.
The ease of their being comes from the fact that they do not expend a single ounce of their energy arguing that those obstacles should not be there, or that things should not be as they are, all of their energy is spent to grow and bloom and BE and BECOME, no matter what the circumstances are around them.
They do not compare themselves to other flowers, they do not wish they were better or more. Their directive is simple… to just BE all that they ARE in this moment. Not in the future. Not in the past. But now, exactly as, and where, they are now.
From seed, to sprout to bloom. Whether they live or die, they are THRIVING. They are thriving because their essence is thriving, it is all they know how to do.
Even in death, they are thriving still, becoming the very nourishment that will be their next expression, and the expression of all of their kind. Their life will feed life, on and on into forever—they are under absolutely NO illusion that they’re on their own.
They know that nothing is on its own… ever. Not ever.
They remind us everything feeds everything, and that that knowingness creates the brightest beauties that this world has ever seen.
Flowers create such opulent resplendence and such simplicity and stillness all at once! They do not fear death, because they know that death is but one expression of their LIFE. The life force that has no opposite, no beginning, and no end.
They bring love to grief and sadness just as readily and as joyfully as they bring it to birthday parties and celebrations, anniversary’s or simple gatherings.
They are unconditional in their opening and in their presence. They love every breath of their life with every fiber of their being, even if and when that looks like wilting or decay.
Flowers expect everything they need to be given, right where they are planted. Without a single notion that they must earn their right to receive that, and without a single notion they’re unworthy of that kind of love or abundance. And it IS given. And if it’s a hard season and they go back to ground, they know they will simply bloom another season and another cycle, in perfect time.
Flowers don’t have to choose between water OR sun. Between soil OR mutually beneficial insect partnerships. They get to have both. They get to have it ALL. All that sees them thrive. They don’t control its timing, but they trust it absolutely and innately.
I am not a flower of course, I am a human.
But me and the flower are the very same life force. The life force that is all things. And so the flower is my mirror too, and I can learn from the flower every bit as much as I can learn from everything else.
Ultimately, I AM the flowers… and the flowers are me. And to embody their wisdom, even though and especially as a human, will do nothing but benefit me, and all of humankind.
So I want to be a flower when I grow up. And I can see now I’ve always known that, and thus have built them steadily into my path… like my hearts quiet whispers along the way all the while, reminding me of what’s important to me, and of the life I am here to create.
One of absolute beauty and abundance, and absolute simplicity and ease… flexing and flowing with life’s seasons and cycles, opening further in love and acceptance, unconditionally, and at every step.
It’s a tall order, but it’s also my truest nature.
Everything else is an unlearning, a stripping away and a remembering of my most vital essence… so I can do this human thing in a very different way than what’s been done before.
My business and work is no different, it is an extension of me and my lifetime here on earth. It is an expression of what I value and hold dear, and it will go through many metamorphoses throughout my life, as all living and growing things do…
but the heart will remain the same:
To thrive so that I may help all of life thrive. That is the flower’s mission statement if they had one, and it is mine too.
How about you? What is your mission? What is the heart of your life and business? Whatever it is, let it be your guiding light in times of darkness. Let the light of that love help you shine.
