Stay on Top of the Weeds

I hate pulling weeds

It's probably one of my least favorite things about gardening. It's a pain in the ass. And they always grow back. Here's the thing though.... you can't have a garden if it's overgrown with weeds. I mean... you can... it's just not going to grow very well! The thing with weeds is, they don't just get pulled once and that's it... they grow back. Sometimes with a vengeance! It take persistence and patience to stay on top of weeds. And yet, weeds are part of what you get when you sign up for a garden. I heard someone say once, if you have good weeds, it means you have good soil. Well, I let the weeds in my garden bed grow a little too long. Not only did I know they were attempting to kill my tomatillos plants (which were successfully growing on my second attempt!) but they also just looked really bad. I'm an aesthetics person... and my garden was looking pretty sad. As I sat on the stoop of the planter bed pulling out weed after weed, rich, fresh soil started to emerge. Tomatillos I hadn't seen before because they'd been covered. New opportunities to trellis appeared. Life started to happen again in the garden! I was reminded that even though I don't like weeding, it's a necessary part of plant growth. It's just something I have to do. I may not love it... and I can stay in it anyways and love what the end result brings... fresh soil, space for the plants, and life! Weeds are a lot like the thoughts we have. We can't stop our thoughts from happening. We can't stop thinking all together. Our darn pesky thoughts don't to leave sometimes. We have tapes on replay in our heads.Without thoughts, we wouldn't be human. It's natural to think and plan and overthink and over plan.

Much like the weeds in our garden, sometimes our thoughts entangle us.

We pull them out and remove them, and they grow back. We can become frustrated with this process and get mad at ourselves and wish away our thinking... or, just like the garden, we can be reminded that underneath all those thoughts... there is good soil. The more we stay on top of our thoughts, just like we stay on top of weeds, the clearer we will feel. The less we'll allow ourselves to get tangled up in our thoughts just like a weed entangles a plant. When I sit and meditate, some days it feels like my head is so full it might explode. It takes patience and focus to center myself... to clear the weeds out. Other days, the thoughts aren't so bad and it's a few quick tugs here and there. The next time you are in line at the grocery store frustrated about wearing a mask, or in traffic made about the slow person in front of you, or angry at the state of the world and entangled in all the thoughts that come with those things, get yourself somewhere where you can take 5 minutes to sit and meditate. Sit in your car when you leave the grocery store. Pull your car over. Go into another room and close the door. Do some mental weeding. Sit and untangle your thoughts and get yourself a little bit of clarity. Take care of your headspace like the beautiful, fertile garden it is. Remember to weed often, be patience, and remember, you can not love the process, but love the end result that's coming.