This might not be a popular opinion—but I LOVE weeding. I have zero green thumb, but I’ve learned to water and weed, and found that gardening is mostly about consistency with these two things. Luckily I’m obsessed with one of them. 

As an aside, I also liked being “in the weeds” when I worked in restaurants—it made the time go by quickly and, no matter how stressed I was in the moment, I knew I was making money. Weeding these days is different. While arguably just as back-breaking, I have a lot of time to think while weeding, and I often find myself wondering why I like it so much. Here’s what I’ve pulled (haha, weeding joke) together: 

1. It takes a lot of patience. You have to pull the weed out carefully, keeping it in-tact from the root so it doesn’t immediately grow back. This requires some wiggling and jiggling that’s SO insanely satisfying when it works!
2. It’s interesting to pay such careful attention to something I’m trying to get rid of. 
3. It takes consistency. If the weeds get overgrown, they become so cluttered it’s harder to sort out what’s a plant and what’s a weed. Like the kind of cluttered my brain gets when I cram it with unnecessary information and don’t take time to be still with, or ignore it completely, for a little each day.
4. On a similar note…I realized weeding is a LOT like dealing with negative feelings you don’t want around anymore. You have to acknowledge these feelings, carefully, so they don’t return. Ignoring them will only make them multiply.

In this distraction-oriented society I rarely have time to sit with my negative feelings, and I never focus on those that are difficult. I’m too tired. And (foot stomp!) I don’t want to face my bad feelings or acknowledge the parts of myself I don’t like. My kids already point them out to me! Unfortunately, it turns out it’s really important to make time for this—even if you plan on changing your ways, or letting those negative feelings go. It really should be mandatory for everyone responsible for bringing up another human—or doing anything dangerous or life-threatening, really—to face the parts of themselves they don’t like. We can’t know the parent we are (or the writer or creator we are!) if we don’t know our shortcomings, too.

I can’t be the first to make the analogy between weeding and sorting through personal issues or bad feelings—but the epiphany was so startling to me that I immediately vowed to start sorting through my bad feelings while weeding. It’s one of those “make the things I do every day as simple and as impactful as possible” things, but it’s more about the practice. Successfully getting to the roots is the perfect visual to accompany me in “getting to the root of the problem” I’m experiencing personally. It’s like living proof there’s a benefit to being careful with things we don’t like.