Renewal of the Lazy Gardener

Dear reader,

I hope this finds you well.

I hate to admit how much I've been doubting myself lately. Our prompts for week one of the soil searching campaign have really been marinating and it’s helping me realize that I've been doubting myself as a gardener. I feel like the best skill set a gardener can have is that of sustainability. Sure you can plant a million seeds but can you sustain them? Is what you’re planting sustainable? These are questions I’ve come to ask myself because it seems like I can never get past the planting process.

I’ve replanted myself a dozen times thinking it was me that needed to change, but no, it’s the soil. It felt like what I had been planting wasn't worthwhile, but a newfound perspective has me thinking maybe it has and I’m just now realizing it isn’t serving me anymore. I’ve always judged my skills by the fact that I was even able to cultivate something in the first place; good or bad. (shows how little I expected from myself.) But this season of my life is calling for me to raise my standards. It wasn’t until now that I realized I kept placing myself in infertile soil by refusing to do the deep work. Be it my mental environment or my emotional and physical, I was suffering because I would only dig so deep. Instead of digging deeper like I needed to I would just uproot myself and run to the next patch of soil hoping I’d bear fruits there, and I prided myself on my ability to do that because it’s all I was taught. And honestly, I found pride and comfort in my ability to thrive in chaos and change. The problem though, is that I was never able to sustain myself. My environment wasn’t conducive for the growth I wished to have.

For years, I've been harshly uprooting and leaving vacant holes in the garden of my soul, my soil became weak. I was a lazy gardener. I realize you cannot just mow the lawn of your problems, you have to dig them up from the root and examine them no matter how hard it is, or how bad it hurts. You cannot run from yourself, because you will always be met with YOU. A great gardener gets their hands dirty, they don’t just plant seeds they know the intricacies of the soil, the environment of their internal canvas, and what those all are predicted to produce when combined. That’s what makes a great gardener, at least to me. I guess in a way my doubt has humbled me into position. It humbled me into seeing where, why, and how I deserve more from myself, and how I never thought to give myself more because I was basing my efforts off of the minimal efforts that were put into me by the people I loved. It’s made me analyze where I need to canvas my land, dig deeper, dig some things out so that my roots can be deeply entrenched in new soil. Honestly, I've been feeling this heavy these last couple of days and there was a moment where my doubt rendered me faithless. 

Now, I see that I’m just becoming a student to myself again, and I hope the next time I circle around this topic I’d have fully grown into this position. 

SOTD: Going Through It - Lion Babe

Mariah