My daughter has been obsessed with this pea plant that she planted at school. Since she’s brought it home she has been consistently asking me to water it everyday and I keep explaining to her that it doesn’t need as much water as she wants to give it because it will drown if we water it too much (keeping this one on tap for another post). The other day, she decided to be stubborn and pick the plant up against my advice and was attempting to twirl the plant around the stick it was climbing and ripped the plant out of the cup that it was planted in on accident. I had asked her to put it down because it was fragile, and her stubbornness may have killed the plant. Despite our best efforts to plant it back in the cup after the incident, it has not been doing very well, which leads me to believe that some of its roots were torn from it.
This situation made me realize a few things about life. Again, plants are teaching me. I realized that plants and people are not very different at all. When we are severed from our roots, we also die… maybe not physically and not right away, but our soul starts to die a slow and painful death. When we disconnect from the roots of who we are while trying to become someone we are not, when we disconnect from our emotions because we don’t want to feel a certain way, when we disconnect from our innate traits that make us who we are, we begin to wither away branch by branch and leaf by leaf. Therefore, it is imperative to stay connected to all of who we really are in order to be healthy, happy, and thriving.
As I watch the wilting pea plant, it strikes me that in some ways I have been just like this. I’ve experienced the disconnect from my emotions and the things I truly enjoy. I’ve clung to the familiar pole I’ve wrapped myself around while the color has drained from my life. I’ve stayed in jobs that have not fulfilled me for the safety of familiarity with that pole and fear that the nutrients provided to me won’t be found elsewhere. Sometimes, I’ve sat waiting for someone or something to come along and uproot me from familiarity and move me into the space where I belong, where I believed happiness could be found only to find that I was still “stuck” in the same place years later.
Unlike plants, we have the ability to uproot ourselves. We have the ability to shift ourselves into a more nutritious landscape, yet many of us act like plants and stay far too long in situations that are not nourishing our roots./strong> We stay wilting in the environment we’re in primarily because some of us have failed to identify what type of “plant” we are and therefore don’t understand what conditions work best for our unique design. Others have identified the type of plant they are, but have grown familiar with their surroundings and fear moving to new territory for fear that they may wilt. Yet, the more successful of us, identify our type, identify the requirements for our type, and move as expeditiously as possible to ensure our own ability to thrive instead of merely survive.
In addition, I realized that like the delicate pea plant, we too must be handled with care as most of us are also fairly fragile. When handled roughly, many of us have also become dislodged from our roots, forgetting who we are and withering in the mistreatment of another damaged individual. Sometimes, and most often, the damage happens on accident as with this situation that inspired this post, yet the results are often the same as if the offense was intentional. We thrive when treated with TLC but begin losing life when neglected or abused. The color drains from our life just like the vibrant green is currently draining from the wilting pea plant and we become limp and lifeless… barely getting by in our lives and focusing on not receiving any further injury as we use whatever life remains within us to cling to that old familiar pole.
What familiar pole(s) are you currently clinging to? What do you need to let go of in order to uproot and find more favorable surroundings? What pieces of you have been ripped away due to mishandling or improper environment?