Weeds and Other Resentments
- Cynthia Haas
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Plants have always been a good mirror in my life. When my plants are doing well, I tend to be taking care of myself. The converse being true, let’s just say many plants have perished at my hands. Recently, however, I’ve been pulling back on my relationships and doing a bit of “deep digging.” Regular yoga practice, prayer, ancient texts and meditation allowed tidbits of wisdom at first, and then full on life-changing revelations. I blossomed, so to speak.
The first nibble came from JmStorm:
“you can blame the bee for the sting, buy you learn nothing from that. the bee is what it always was. sooner or later you have to find fault in yourself for believing it could be something else.”
What? You mean I can’t blame someone else for my misery? My wilting plants disagreed. I actually was, truth be told, the cause of their misery. So I used my calendar to write “Water plants.” Every week. And this little morsel of wisdom began to grow as I sat with it, along with my parched plants. So this meant that any acts of anger (albeit sometimes rage,) pointing of fingers, voiced resentments, and developing of mistrust was of absolutely no use in trying to change the other person who was so clearly in the wrong. And not only that, but I was to blame for my frustration at expecting them to…I don’t know…be a decent human being. Me? The cause of my own emotional affliction? But as I really sat with it and began to see my projected adversaries just as they were, there was a calm beginning to take root. I can let them be themselves and just try to find a way to keep myself emotionally safe from them. I quit arguing. I stopped asking for approval from someone who never gave it. I began to not take their actions personally, even if they meant it that way. They were just being who they were. And I was growing into something that was no longer getting tangled up in their manipulative ways. And my plants were starting to look a bit better, too.
So my second revelation came when camping. A fire ant had just bit the dickens out of my foot, ruining my hiking plans (but he was just being an ant, right?) So I decided to pick up some kind of ancient text, let the pages fall open and meditate on the words. This passage was found in “The I Ching or Book of Changes” translated by Brian Browne Walker:
“6. Sung/Conflict. Conflict provokes strong feelings of doubt, fear, anxiety and impatience to resolve the situation. If you act under the influence of these inferior emotions, you will severely complicate the misfortune. By following the prescription of the Sage and returning to a position of neutrality, acceptance, and detachment, you are able to meet opposing forces halfway: not recoiling in anger and condemnation, not pressing forward for some unnatural change in things, but waiting calmly in the center until the Higher Power provides the correct solution. The I Ching teaches us that all conflict is, in the end, inner conflict.”
WTF??? Me, again??? So neutrality and acceptance went hand in hand from the first quote, but detachment…I had pulled away socially, physically, but now it was time for the hard part…emotionally and even more difficult…mentally. It was not lost on me that at this time some life changes had been shifting my foundation. After being her primary caretaker for many years, my mom had passed. I had worked through a lot of issues before she died, and was at peace with our relationship. However, having lived with her for almost two years had taken a toll on my own house, which was in moderate disrepair. There were other actions by family members during those last years which I still had deep resentments about. And the yard…ugh. My mom’s illnesses and being a single parent for a decade after my husband’s suicide had left the yard severely neglected. As you might have guessed, my emotions and mind needed tending as well. Inside plants were looking pretty good, but now it was time for the deeper uprooting.
So I wanted to tend the yard, but sometimes God will give me a good shove to move forward with jobs I am procrastinating. Keeping it real, here. I got a letter from the gas company saying that if I didn’t trim the bushes around the gas meter there were going to be repercussions. Poor guy was fighting a jungle of 20 plus year old azalea bushes that were half as high as the house. So, I paid a landscaper to uproot all of them and planned to just start anew. Pay someone else to do this hard work! Genius! Easy peasy, right? Nope. There had been thorn vines growing all through the azaleas (no irony there!) and now to do anything with the lawn, I needed to clear out some of those vines left. A day’s work. Here’s a pic of one day’s work:
I knew. I knew it when I was tugging at those vines. I understood this was not just a work of physicality. This was digging up emotional and mental thorn vines that had been growing…no, flourishing…for a long, long time. There were 4 days of getting down in that Carolina red clay mud and clearing out what had been unattended. The beauty of it was that I had no shame about it. I knew I had been distracted taking care of other things, and it was now time to address this tangled mess of resentments, anger, ruminating, grief, and betrayal. Accomplishment and clarity were replacing the hurtful thorns, and it felt amazing.
There were many lessons as I worked. Some vines were just a matter of pulling a bit, and they came right up, roots and all. Hurtful words. Little lies. There were others which appeared to be a simple tug but ended up being much longer and twisted around other vines until the root was found. Deliberate and calculated manipulations. My own hurtful responses to those acts. Previously unseen and unfelt nuances of grief hidden behind the busy-ness of it all. Then came the big ones. Two and three inch diameter roots too deep and strong to pull out fully. What do I do with those? Those were buried remembrances that could not be fixed. I painted some brush killer on the ends and reburied them. I might not be able to fully get rid of them, but I could keep them from growing any more. I had to accept that some things are never resolved. Some people will never change, or cannot look at or admit the depth of pain they caused. Some hurts must be buried as hurts. But I can go on. I no longer have to be wrapped up in the tangles of emotionally charged memories or expectations.
Will there still be weeds? Yep. It’s a maintenance thing. Will I find more deeply rooted thorny vines? Most likely. But when I stop to reflect on my own reactions and fully take responsibility for my own actions and words in those events, I am able to own that the conflict begins and resides with me. Conflict is my own inner conflict. Dang it. I am responsible for the nourishment of good healthy plants, but I’m also responsible for the maintenance and uprooting of the weeds within. And I can let the bees just be themselves, but not invite them close enough to be able to sting.
Comments