Check On It
What are you rooted in? I’m trying to figure that out before we discuss what you’re growing – MoxieK
Society assumes that we as individuals are the defining reason to our own problems. Questions such as, “what did you do to cause this?” tend to arise in the midst of chaos, placing the sole blame on one person without taking into consideration the people, places and things in their surrounding environment.
There are certain things that when grouped together make up the foundation of our being. The question becomes, what are you rooted in? What ideals or values have you been standing on to make life-changing decisions, respond to chaos and go through everyday life? We live life without doing an annual self-check .. you know spring cleaning. It isn’t until our life becomes overbearing and our roots turn to weeds that we recognize our garden is suffering a slow death.
I think it’s time for a long overdue check-up. Bring your tools (accountability and compassion) and of course your garden (your heart). It’s time to remove the blockage and address the ugly truth. Don’t worry, we’re in this together.
Check Your Roots
Guarding your heart does not mean that bad things won’t happen to you. It means that you won’t allow those bad things to take root and produce fruit in your mind. If we want to guard the garden of our heart, we have many options to keep potential pests at bay, but there isn’t any enemy to gardens more constant and nagging than weeds. Weeds spring up in gardens where healthy plants have not been cultivated. – Sarah Jakes Roberts
Imagine that you are taking a walk in a garden and you come across this beautiful tree. The trunk is strong and full of detail illustrating the years of cultivation and life this tree has experienced however you look up and the branches are bare. There is nothing, no fruit or expected leaves to show for it. It seems as though there wants to be sustenance but the conditions aren’t conducive to produce it. After gazing at this tree, you notice another that looks similar. The trunk is sturdy and unlike the other, there are leaves present. However, they’re clearly dying as most are falling off and the rest are losing their color.
After taking into account this scenario, which tree are you?
There seems to be a clear physical distinction that separates one tree from the other. The fruit. However, it’s not as black and white as we’d assume. Let’s take into account the things we can’t see: the roots.
You’d assume, based off face value, that one tree is healthier than the other but neither tree is healthy in my opinion. Though the soil plays a major role in the cultivation and growth of the tree (positive or negative), it is also about the roots and nutrients it is receiving to sustain growth. You cannot change your history, your family dynamic or the patterns that were demonstrated to you (roots). What you can change is how it affects your growth. What parts you will throw away and what you will continue to nurture.
Both trees represent the lives of each of us, rooted and grounded into the foundations of our individual stories. Both could have been rooted in the same things but the productivity changes: one produced leaves as expected (living a life that is planned out; in spite of) but the unacknowledged fungus underneath has slowly but surely begun to have an outward affect. See you never know what issues lie dormant until something exposes the growth. Unfortunately for the other tree, something has affected its growth from the beginning. The bare minimum, what it’s supposed to produce, has been negatively impacted because the roots were never considered. There can be a "hindrance” from the beginning but if its never addressed it’ll change everything.
In order to avoid repeating toxic patterns, we must be diligent in understanding the circumstances that produced them in the first place. We must assess if our current environment is feeding into our brokenness or creating a path to mending it.
In her book, Don’t Settle for Safe, Sarah Jakes Roberts mentioned that weeds cultivate in areas where plants have not had the opportunity to settle into. There are some open wounds that have not gained closure and healing which has led to an opportunity for pain, disappointment, anger and heartbreak to maintain their permanent position. You cannot just keep going through life expecting things to be brushed off. Life gives us moments to pause and address recent revelations: that is the in between time. Use those moments to assess your garden and catch things at the onset of growth before it has the chance to affect certain things around it. Don’t let embarrassment fester so much that it affects authenticity and courage. Don’t let sadness fester so much that it affects your joy and peace. Be intentional about the opportunities that present themselves to you.
“When you find yourself in a new circumstance, new life experience, or new situation, everything that requires healing is going to rush to the surface. If you don’t take a minute to breathe, pray or gather yourself, you will do what you’ve ALWAYS done. You have to be centered and grounded enough to ask yourself, “how am I going to handle it THIS time?” – Iyanla Vanzant
Sometimes you have to take the pauses that God is giving you and rearrange your next move. The chaos is there to wake you up. It’s asking you, what are we going to do now since what we did before isn’t working?
Check Your Motives
In order for us to truly be self-aware in all aspects of our being, we must understand that our roots play a huge role in multiple factors. Just as they dictate HOW we react to certain stimuli and handle certain situations, they also explain WHY we respond in the manner that we do. We have to gain an understanding on WHY we do the things that we do so that we aren’t hurting ourselves or others in the process. Honestly, in my opinion, the reasoning behind an idea, a belief, an act, is more important to me than how it is actually done. Often times, people have the best intentions but the wrong motives, thus negating the action altogether.
Are you doing things from a place of love or are you trying to settle into a role created and fed by an insecurity? Are you being a giver simply because you’re expecting a bigger blessing or are you doing it because it’s truly coming from the heart? Are you participating in those behaviors because everyone else is?
Check. Your. Motives. Identify your why!
Though my garden is flourishing with peace, prosperity, patience and positivity, I still have weeds of pride, embarrassment, guilt and fear. Patterns that I thought were healthy and kept me safe were really resting on weeds that were given the opportunity to live and make a home amongst my roots. We play the biggest role in our own dysfunction and it’s time we take responsibility for it.
Just like your physical body needs a check up, so does your spirit. Every day we are given a new set of experiences or even a chance to react differently amongst the old one’s; to be better than the person we were the day before. Identify emotions that have been dictating the way you respond to different life experiences. Uncover the weeds of destruction that seemed to make a home within the roots of your success. Disengage with the foundational principles, values and rules that serve you no purpose. Dig deep! There are things at your core that MUST be taken out. Are you choosing to cut out the weeds or are you so comfortable in your own dysfunction that you can’t even see how much damage has been done?
It’s never too late. Give yourself permission to be open, vulnerable and make a better decision for the sake of your future and the enhancement of your dreams.
Remember this isn’t an invitation for shame. It’s a plea from your heart to look honestly at what shaped it. Pulling those weeds will make the garden of your heart fruitful and beautiful.
Dare to be different. We’re requiring so much of others, let’s require that same love and loyalty from ourselves.
Until next time
