Blooming Out of The Rough In Life
/by Rev. Lynsie Buteyn
Learning How To Bloom Out Of The Rough
I was born with a rare disease that was difficult to diagnose and treat. As a little girl, I ignored my initial symptoms and never thought about how I tired more quickly than the other kids my age or became ill more frequently. At age eleven I contracted encephalomyelitis, a virus that attacked my brain due to my low immune function. After this point, my whole life changed. It was as if the virus turned off a light switch that controlled all my inner organs and muscle function. I could not sit-up for any length of time and had trouble with various bodily functions. A new life had begun. This life consisted of watching life occur through a window because I was too sick to get out of bed. A life of being inside of a hospital on and off unfolded as the years ticked by. A life where I realized that my body could not be fixed. As my peers went to school and talked about what they wanted to be when they grew-up, I had to leave school and say goodbye to my dreams before they had even begun.
In my life before I became ill, I avoided art. My neuromuscular disease made it difficult to use my hands. But, after I had to be hospitalized for long periods of time, drawing became an act of rebellion. Although I felt powerless over my body and where I was, I could determine what I looked at. I started drawing pictures of flowers that my nurses would hang on the walls of my hospital room. These pictures became a way that I felt more empowered, a way I could be seen by medical staff on a level that was deeper than my physical state. Art gave me a new identity and a way of connecting that wasn’t based solely on what was wrong with me.
One of my favorite things to draw was flowers because I was adding beauty to my life. They reminded me that I alone could choose to focus on the parts of my day where I found grace instead of pain. The meaning behind drawing flowers grew deeper when a hospital chaplain told me how he would hear staff remarking that they lingered in my room because they felt recharged after seeing me. He then looked at my paintings and said, “flowers don’t do anything. They just are. I know you are frustrated that you can’t do the things you want to do, but in just being, you do a lot.” These words of wisdom changed my entire self-perspective. I saw that I could just be and this was enough. I saw that the flowers I drew had a wisdom to impart in their way of being.
After this, I started drawing all kinds of nature symbols and listening for the message each one taught. Each symbol taught me how to become more empowered in my own life. In the end, I found I was better at managing stress, my illness, and creating a balance that allowed me to have my best life possible. When I listened to what my illness was teaching me, just as I listened to the message of the symbols in nature around me, I saw that both were teaching me how to be in relationship with others, how to find my passion in the life I had, and how to let my circumstances guide me to create a better life.
Starting A Non-Profit to Bring These Messages to Others
Working as a hospital chaplain, I started to share some of these practices with people in crisis. When people used them, I noticed that it helped them to shift in positive ways. They grew calmer and started to find new meaning within the challenges they faced. I started the Non-profit Bridges to Empowerments as a way to help bring these practices to others. The Healing Notes Project began through the non-profit as a way to support patient empowerment. The program is based off the premise that everyone who has been through a life challenge has something to share and teach to others. The project helps people to see themselves as teachers rather than victims through sharing art and inspiration to support one another through challenges.
Now this program is available to the community through sessions held online and within the program’s manual that will be published in the coming year as Blooming Out Of The Rough: a collection of practices that uses symbology myth, story, and spiritual exercises to help you bloom out of adversity instead of becoming a victim to it. This manual was created for people facing a challenge or life transition. Blooming Out Of The Rough takes each reader on a self- empowerment journey with a program that uses art, inspiration, and symbols to impart tools to build resilience, combat stress, and inspire change. Although each practice has a spiritual component, you do not need to be religious or even to believe in God in order to use this book. The Latin root of spirit is breath. Breath gives us life. A life that is connected to others through our shared air. In this way, spiritual practices are simply a way of grounding ourselves in the common elements that connect us. No matter what adversity you face in your life, by drawing the symbols and going through the exercises on your own or with a group through BridgestoEmpowerments.org, you can discover how your challenges are helping you to discover the life you need to be your best self.
Visit BridgestoEmpowerments.org to contact Rev. Lynsie and to be notified about upcoming virtual group sessions and the publication of Blooming Out of the Rough.
Check out Trish’s interview with Rev. Lynsie on January 12, 2021 on CareHero™ Radio.
