Thorn covered roses and what we learn from grasping them. A mini essay by me, Morgan Harper-Nichols.

If you've ever touched a rose with thorns on it, you learn very quickly to be careful as you hold that stem.

You learn that due to its pointy sharp edges, you can't fully grasp it the way you do other flowers.

There's a sense of delicateness we acquire when it comes to dealing with the sharp edges of life.

And for the most part, we acquire that sense of delicateness right away.

When we encounter the sharp edges of making a mistake and being

ridiculed or trying to speak up and then being silenced, we are quickly shown that for all the work

we've done to pick up that rows of courage to do the brave thing, there are also still these sharp edges that come at a cost of picking

them up. We learn to be careful with our courage. We learn to grab hold of the bloom of doing the

brave thing while afraid, knowing that we will likely encounter the thorns of criticism or mockery or even shame.

Suddenly, every time you want to do something courageous, you can't help but think about how you

must do it delicately. You pick up that rose and you check for the thorns immediately. You proceed with caution.

But here are two things we must remember when we encounter the thorns of life's many roses.

Number one, you can learn how to remove the thorns. There is a way that you can learn to cut off

the thorns of these roses. And perhaps, in life, removing the thorns looks like this. It looks like

asking ourselves these kinds of questions. What would my bravery look like in a space where I felt

welcomed? What would courage look like in an environment where I truly felt free to be me? What would it

look like to step out and try something new in a safe space?

Oftentimes, we end up in spaces where people see us a certain way, we see ourselves in a certain way,

and those perspectives become so fixed and hardened that they become sharp edges that keep us from fully embracing the roses in our lives.

Perhaps we can't do something about every single thorn in our lives, but maybe we can do something

about some of them. Maybe we can cut off thorns by figuring out what people we need to limit our time around.

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