Growing my own healing
When I decided that I wanted to figure out my answer to the question “who are you”. I made the decision to dig deep into the things that hurt. I wanted to get to the roots that anchored my pain. As I closed my eyes, I envisioned a beautiful garden. Much like the one in The Secret Garden. It was filled with budding life but there was so much neglect that you couldn’t easily see it.
It was a matter of picking a starting point and getting my hands dirty. When I began weeding my beautiful garden, I did so with no tools. I was simply grasping weeds I could find and ripping them from the earth. Of course, in doing that, I left behind deep and expansive roots. They seemed to be never ending. Making the task at hand feel daunting and impossible. For years, I would desperately claw at the weeds of ache. Feeling a sense of accomplishment when the ground appeared cleared out and ready for new seeds. I should have known it would quickly become infested with the same weeds.
My grandmother loved to garden. She had a magical strawberry patch that I would plop myself down in the middle of, and spend my day picking two baskets worth of the beautiful red berries. One basket for her jam making, and one for my munching. She had stunning rows of roses and peonies. Random sprouts of asparagus that popped up every year right next to her well. There was a half-gone tree that we built a house in. And a single vine of grapes that ran along her driveway. Her property was always a bright spot in my childhood, and I felt a bit like a failure, because I couldn’t seem to get the garden in my mind to thrive.
One beautiful day in March, years ago, my mother returned to non-physical. Or, died, as the saying goes. I hadn’t really spoken to or seen her for five years. The last thing she had said to me was that I was a disappointment and that she was praying for my eternal soul. I was reminded that, because I was such a horrible daughter, I would not be told of her passing. I would also not be getting anything from her when the time came. I tried to explain in an email that “things” was never something I wanted. But she couldn’t hear me. So, when her time came and I got the text message letting me know, I found myself lost within my emotions. Trapped in the weeds of my garden desperately writhing to break free.
When I got the phone call that my mother had made no will and that I, as next of kin, was now responsible for the remains of her physical life. I jumped on the task. Oh, I complained the entire time, but it gave my mind something to do that didn’t feel like writhing. I collected her belongings from the police station and met with the coroner. Next it was onto cleaning out her one-bedroom apartment. I poured my energy into planning the funeral I was told not to attend. Spending hours writing down words I thought I should say.
When the day of the service came, I dressed up myself, my husband and our children. I was running on steps and dressing up for a funeral was just one of the steps. Right? As my childhood church filled with people I knew and a few I had yet to meet. I found myself feeling more out of place than ever. My time to stand up and speak came and all of the words I had written down, no longer felt right to say. They were beautiful words, of course, but they felt false. If I was going to say goodbye to my mother, I was going to do it with truth.
So, I stood up there at the pulpit, staring at the weathered faces of the people who knew her well. I said, “My mother lived her life never knowing what it is to love herself. The splinters of trauma she carried were often left to fester and spread. That’s what unhealed trauma is though, isn’t it? A personal pain that spreads into the lives of those we love. It’s not intentional, it just is. She gave me what she had to give.”
After her funeral, I started to see the weeds in my garden that reflected the ones in my mothers. I heard my grandmothers voice say, “Don’t forget to till the earth.” So I did, I got some tools and started not only ripping out weeds, but digging them out. I tended to the earth and prepared it for new seeds. I learned the beauty in the patience required for life to grow. My garden started to thrive in many places. It felt so wonderful to see life in my garden.
What I like to call, my first sacred space.
One night I performed what you might call, a ritual. It was with a group of friends and we were all searching for more of ourselves. I discovered that not only did my garden have weeds, but it also had broken tools and random bits of junk lying around. They weren’t placed there by me, but as they were in my garden, they were my responsibility.
So, just like with the weeds, I began clearing out the junk. That junk, was foundational beliefs about life and who I was. They were ideas and understandings that were born out of fear and insecurity. A lot of them were intended to shrink me. They were designed to make me small and reduced to a puppet on strings. They said things like, you must believe these things, or else. You must not be these things, or else. You must mold yourself into what I deem pleasing. Only then will you be worthy of the love you so desperately reach for.
Man that hurt. To have the garden of my mind filled with such hurtful things. From the people who I loved deeply. I heard an echo of my mother telling me, “I can’t change the past. You need to just let it go.” She never did grasp the idea that the past wasn’t to problem, it was that the past still echoed in the present. I had never asked my mother to change, my request was that she heal so we could have a relationship. As a mother myself, I knew there was nothing any of my children could say or do that would ever make me ask them to carry the burden of generational pain I carried.
I made the decision to detach myself from almost every belief I had grown up with. I thought, if these beliefs leave me feeling miserable, then why am I holding onto them. If my life is determined by my thoughts and choices, why not find some that actually feel good? So, as I cleaned out more weeds and removed the debris. I planted seeds of new ideas and beliefs. Some I nourished into thriving beauty. Others, I realized weren’t for me and I let them wither and die, to be removed with the next season.
My garden is thriving now. I look around and it’s filled with beauty and life. I see the spots that were thick with weeds. The areas where broken tools were left to rust. But they are a beautiful Eden now. I no longer see or feel the pain that once resided there. It might look a little less traditional than my grandmothers garden, but I feel right at home in it.
My mother and I actually spend time together now, healing in my garden when I meditate. I see her in the mirror and smile at her reflection. Her hands are mine as I embrace my children. I have cultivated such growth and healing that what is left between my mother and I is the love we never got to nourish while she was physically here.
The garden that is my life, is forever becoming. Forever expanding. To know that generations of trauma has been healed by my tending, feels magical. In knowing and loving myself. In nurturing my garden. I have healed both past and future generations. Now my garden only needs a daily tending. For me that comes in the form of meditation. I’m no longer focused on weeds and broken things. I am basking in the nourishment of what I have created. The beauty of my life, is the living of it.
