This piece was written as I continue to learn to set boundaries and manage feeling small. It centres around apologising when I didn’t need to. For more growth related pieces, checkout the Gratitude Series.
Today I celebrate 6 hours without turning into a ladybug. I’m learning to find my boundaries and enforce them. Last month, I existed mostly as a ladybug, a small insignificant insect that hardly anyone notices. Well, some do. The deeply perceptive ones, the ones who look hard to find our humanly flawed beauty in a world of plastic perfectionism. Those are the precious ones.
My friend Nicole and I, sometimes we meet as ladybugs. In her smaller form, she has small black spots all over her red body, and she can fly too. It’s comforting when she’s around. She makes me feel that I’m not the only human that gets to become so small sometimes. Occasionally we fly together and get to rest on little flower pots on people’s balconies. If we are lucky, we may find a way into a home and discover a vase with fresh flowers to brighten our days.
This morning, 6 hours ago, I apologised to a man on the tube when I didn’t need to; I asked him to move his bag from the seat so I could sit. Sometimes it’s so easy to say sorry, to make myself smaller and to become more agreeable. And there I became the smaller version of me, in my red domed body, large round black spots and my little wings, crawling between people’s giant feet, taking shelter in the creases of the carriage to avoid being crushed. I saw many of my fellow bugs in the carriage. It wasn’t just me, there were colonies of us!
For more mindful posts, visit the Mindful Sauce Instagram page.
Though I run Mindful Sauce, this site is not just about me, it’s about you, it’s about us and the community we are building.