The Roots of Your Soul

Last summer, I had these some really tall weeds (you know, the ones that look more like trees) growing in my front yard. I was dealing with a lot of "life" and chose to cut them off instead of digging up the roots... terrible idea for anyone who is wondering. So then this summer rolled around and they grew back, twice as big, so I decided it was time to just get it over with. 

As I'm multiple DAYS into digging up the roots of these "plants" I realized there were several life lessons to be learned here so I shared with a few friends and then decided to write it all out. 

While I cut off the "problem" to make the exterior of my house look better, under ground the problem only got worse. The root system took me almost 5 hours to pull up because it had grown so large that I had to dig up a large portion of my landscaping just to fix the problem. It also took me hours, even days, longer than it ever should have to pull up these weeds. 

I realized that this was so much like my personal life.

Life Lesson #1: If you don't deal with your problems at the time, 
the struggle will be so much greater when you actually get around to working on it. 

I've struggled with this area in my own life so it was like some great epiphany to me. I had spent so many years covering up my problems or even just ignoring them that when I finally started digging up roots, I had to put in a LOT of work!

Life Lesson #2: If you don't deal with your root issues as they arise, 
you will have to uproot your entire life to fix those issues. 

I've had my share of trauma and counseling and digging up my own "garden" to fix my root issues so trust me when I say, it's a lot easier not to let it all buildup. Had I dealt with my root issues when I was younger, I would not have ended up in so many traumatic situations. I realize that's not everyone's story, but for me some of my experiences were self inflicted. Not only did I have to heal from my past, I also had to recreate my own life as well as re-landscape my front yard. 

In the end my landscaping looked better than it did when the weeds were growing but it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get there. It took callused hands and scraped knees. Life may be hard like yard work sometimes but in the end, it's worth the trouble to have a healthy foundation.