TEACHINGS FROM THE GARDEN

When a plant is struggling to survive, you are meant to remove the dead leaves because all the energy of the plant goes to healing those dead leaves. The whole plant could potentially die because of the effort it makes to save the dying leaf.

When the plant has weak roots, you take leaves off the top so that the energy grows downward and not upward.

When the plant isn’t drinking, you water around the roots instead of on the roots  so that the roots have to reach and work to get to the water. In essence, you challenge the plant’s roots to push outside it’s comfort zone. 

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately not just because I have been spending a lot of time with my plants, but also because I realized all the ways I have been “cutting the dead leaves”, “growing my roots” and realizing my own strength and resilience.

To say that we are a mind focused society would be an understatement. While the mind is a beautiful thing, sometimes life defies logic or problem solving. In these cases, quite literally we must redirect our energy from our heads to our bodies. From our outer world to our inner world. From the sky to the earth. This is where our roots come in handy. 

While I haven’t cut my hair in over a year, I see all the areas in my life I’ve made the very difficult and sometimes painful decisions to trim a bit of the dead ends that we’re wasting my precious energy. 

Taking off the dead ends of ones like is not about avoidance. Yes sometimes those leaves fall on their own. However, if you don’t first identify and acknowledge the hindrance to your growth, you may never know which leaf you’re meant to trim.

This is a reminder to look for the things that make you feel alive. Trim some of the fluff when necessary AND realize that your aliveness and growth may feel a bit like dying at first.