Fall Into Your Flourishing

How to find your natural flourish points.

The other day a friend told me to lean into my flourishing, and my immediate thought was no, I want to fall into it like it’s marshmallow fluff, I want it to envelope me. This sums up my approach to life over the last year or so, since I’ve recovered from burnout. I don’t want things to be hard. Instead of fighting with life, I want to allow it to happen. I’m ready for a gentler experience. Leaning into something, as originally used by Sheryl Sandberg, meant to be assertive and take the lead. This is not my style. But even the softer way the phrase is often used, to indicate embracing something wholeheartedly, can seem like too much of a struggle sometimes. Right now, I want to flourish effortlessly.

Is such a thing possible? Aren’t we supposed to work hard for what we want? In fact, flourishing should be especially hard to achieve, right? Someone who is flourishing has really made it, they’re living their best life. It’s a decadent, indulgent state of being. Many of us have a deep-seated conviction that we don’t deserve to flourish. Or that we haven’t earned it yet. Or that it would be wrong to flourish when there is so much suffering and injustice in the world. Flourishing, it seems, is a condition that is conditional. Adding to its mysterious nature, it is often unachievable no matter how much effort we expend.

And therein lies the contradiction, this idea that we have to work hard to flourish. Flourishing actually implies effortlessness: it’s a condition that naturally arises when we are in our element. Maybe flourishing isn’t something we have to work toward, but something we already have available to us. Maybe it’s as simple as closing our eyes, opening up our arms, and falling backward into its enveloping.

In fact, we can look backward into our past to discover how we can flourish. Think about what brought you joy and comfort as a child. Before all the “shoulds” entered your life, what activities did you gravitate toward without thought, simply because you loved doing them? These are your natural flourish points. Chances are, these same activities have resurfaced in your life over and over as you matured, but in different forms. Here’s an example of what I mean. After school every day when the weather was good, I’d plunge into the large wooded property owned by my neighbors, two elderly sisters who were very kind about allowing me to play there. I loved spending time in nature; I had a special grove with a fallen tree I’d sit on for hours, lost in dreams, just enjoying being myself. When I was older I gravitated toward activities such as camping and hiking. Now, even older, I am learning how to care for a vegetable garden. Being in nature is one of my flourish points.

Here’s another. My hobby as a child was reading. But it was more like an obsession than a hobby. I spent nearly every free moment reading. I would have read at the dinner table had it been allowed. I also noticed early on that I am a mental narrator – I have a habit of putting my experiences and thoughts into words in my head, full sentences and paragraphs, throughout the day. I have full-on conversations with myself in there. When I grew up I became a writer and a scholar. I still spend most of my free hours reading everything I can on all kinds of topics. Over the years I’ve written fiction, policy articles, and scholarly works. Now I’m blogging. Reading, thinking, and writing are my flourish points.

Recognizing your flourish points can help you gain a sense of self. There may be some that you haven’t developed throughout your life that you can pick up again, and you may find additional ways to express those you have kept up with. This is how we flourish, but doing more of the things that come naturally to us and make us feel good. It seems obvious, yet it’s not, because we are used to judging flourishing by outside markers of achievement, such as career and family. But if we switch our evaluation to internal markers, how we feel about things, we gain clarity. What makes you feel joy, comfort, excitement? Understanding this will lead you to your natural flourish points.