More Lessons from the Garden

It's been a while since I described a lesson I learned while repotting a plant.  Recently I was pruning some of my plants and wondered what the plants thought about being trimmed.

When pruning a plant before Spring, one removes the ends of the branches, often cutting, trimming to guide the plant to be taller, bushier, thinner, or to take whatever shape is desired.  The thick wood is often trimmed away to make way for more desirable parts of the plants, the leaves, flowers, or fruit.

It occurred to me that we do this in our lives from time to time also.  We cut away the parts of our lives that no longer work for us, the parts that keep us from being the best we can be, thereby allowing the new fragrant flowers and leaves to grow.

Pruning ourselves is not easy, and does not always feel good.  Sometimes what we trim away is pleasurable, but not good for us.  Sometimes we know it is time to leave certain people behind, or certain practices in order to be the best we can be.

Deciding what to prune is a challenge.  Just like when trimming a plant, it's important to trim enough, but not so much that the plant is killed.  Trim just enough to enhance the beauty of that plant, and yourself.