15 - In the Weeds?

TRANSCRIPT

 

In January 1999, I started seeing my first therapist. I worked with her for a couple years. My friends told me there was a night and day difference between who I was before I started therapy - how I seemed - and after I started therapy.

 And I felt different. Stuff wasn't driving me crazy anymore. I wasn't having flashbacks any more from my childhood trauma, so I figured I was healed. I went on my happy way. I was stable. I was more successful than I had ever been. More confident than I had ever been.  I was like “wow, this therapy stuff really works. This is good!”  

 And about 10 years went by, and then suddenly – well gradually -- I started to change. And it started to feel more like it had before I first started going to therapy, and I was so frustrated by that, because I was healed. What was this doing cropping up again? What was going on?

 

 Now, it wasn't coming back with the same intensity that it had when I first started seeing a therapist, but it was definitely... it was back. And it was affecting me, and affecting my perception of things, and I knew whether I wanted to or not, I was going to have to find a therapist again. I had moved by then to a different state, so I couldn't go back to the original therapist, but I knew based on prior experience, therapy was the only thing that was going to help me through it.

 

 and I was talking to my friend Barb, who I've known since she was a freshman in college and I was a sophomore (so it's been a couple years now), and I was like “Barb, why?  what am I doing wrong that this is coming back?  I thought I was healed - what did I miss?”

 

 It’s been eight years since Barb and I had that conversation, and I still remember her answer to me.

 

 I had recently moved into a house with a yard, and I was planting stuff in the yard, and had been doing that for a couple years I guess. And she said “you know Mary, you like to garden. What do you do when the weeds come back? Do you look at the weeds and go why are these weeds here? I just pulled these weeds last year! Why are they back again? What did I do wrong? What’s wrong with me, that the garden keeps getting weeds? Or do you just look at them and say oh look,  I've got some weeds. Let me go get the weed killer. Let me go start pulling these out and deal with them?”

 

 Thanks for joining us today on Lessons from Life. I'm Mary Young, and we’re gonna be talking about the weeds, and how they pop up and what to do with them when they do.

 

 We all have weeds in our life. We all have areas that we work on, that we think we've dealt with, that will come back around and need to be dealt with again. And most of us will look at that and think it means there's something wrong with us.

 

• I gained back that 10 pounds I lost -- I must be a failure.
• I'm unemployed again -- I must be a failure.
• My kid is having trouble in school – I must be a failure.
• My siblings and I don't get along – I must be a failure.
• My New Year's resolutions petered out after six weeks -- I must be a failure.

 

 

1. You are not a failure.

 

My childhood trauma came back to be looked at again, I must be a failure.

• I must be broken.
• I must be defective.
• I must not have looked at it the right way the first time.

 

 None of that is true. What’s true is that we all have weeds in our life, and we will spend our life pulling up weeds, and they will come back because that's what weeds do.

 

 The birds fly by and plant weed seeds for us. The squirrels plant weed seeds. The wind blows the dandelion seeds around, and so then your perfect lawn has dandelions in the middle of it.

 Because weeds happen.

 

 They are part of life, and we have a choice. We can sit there and go “oh my gosh! I'm a failure because I have weeds!”   Or we can get busy pulling them up, dealing with them.

 

 I don't care what you're talking about. In my case, it was childhood trauma and my healing journey that came back and needed to be looked at again. In your case, it could be something else entirely – finances, weight, employment, children, siblings, parents...what ever. Having to deal with issues does not mean that you are a failure. Having issues come back to be looked at again does not mean that you are a failure.

 

 It means that you get to look at it again. Whoo hoo!  Yeah, I was so excited, believe me (you know I wasn't - that was sarcasm). But the thing is -- each time that it comes back, it's less powerful than it was the time before. As long as I keep the flower bed weeded. As long as I get after those weeds when they come back, and I don't let them sit there for three or four years before I try to pull them out, eventually that flower bed will not have weeds in it.

 

But even when that happens, I still have to be vigilant because the wind is still gonna blow the dandelion seeds, and the birds and the squirrels and the chipmunks are still going to plant weed seeds in that flower bed.

 

 It’s part of life.

 

 But it does not make me a failure because I have weeds growing among the flowers. It does not make you a failure because you fell off the wagon; because you stepped away from the diet; because you did some emotional spending when you were trying to keep to a budget. All it does is identify here's another area where I need to work, or here's an area that I need to work on some more.

 

 You are not a failure. You are not broken. You’re a flower bed that happens to have weeds in it.  So am I.  And I can take my time, and I can let those weeds grow while I try to ignore them, or I can choose to deal with them.  There will always be weeds. I will always have the choice. Do I want to deal with the weeds, or do I want to ignore them and hope they go away on their own?

 

 Speaking as a person who loves to play in my yard -- they don't go away on their own. I am looking out my living room window right now at a weed that is 5 feet tall, because I did not go out and weed that bed because it was 85° out this summer, and I can't work in the heat. And I could look at that 5 foot tall weed and I could say oh my gosh, Mary, you are such a failure as a yardener, and as a person who wants to grow flowers, because look how tall that weed is! Think about what the neighbors must think when they drive by and see that. Everybody must hate you and your yard, because look at the weeds!

 

Yeah. Go back to episode one of the podcast if that's the way that you think.  If that's the way that you talk to yourself when you see areas that need work, go back to episode one of this podcast and listen to it again.

 

 Good self talk does not beat yourself up.

 

 So I look at that weed outside my window, and I go “wow, I dropped the ball this summer. I'll do better next year.”

 

 I look at the weeds that crop up in my life and go “Oh, I get to look at that again. Let’s schedule an appointment with Tracy.”

 

 Don’t beat yourself up because you have weeds, deal with them.

 Promise yourself to deal with them.

Preferably when they're small so that they don't get uncontrollable, but if you're caught up with other stuff and you don't have time to deal with the weed until it's 5 feet tall, that's okay.

 

 As long as you deal with the weeds.

 

 Because I promise you. If you just put your head in the sand and try to pretend they're not there, they won't go away. They just get bigger. Dealing with stuff is not always easy, but it's always necessary, and it's always beneficial. So please... remind yourself you are not a weed.

 You are not a failure.

 You’re just a flower bed that has some weeds that need to be dealt with.

 Just like I am.

 

 If you're not sure how to deal with the weeds, then get some help. In my case, I found a therapist. I will always recommend therapy as a good option. Support groups would be another good option. A trusted friend could help. Don’t beat yourself up because you have weeds. All it means is that you’re human, and you’re alive.

 

 So remind yourself -- the weeds do not define you.  They simply challenge you.

 

 Thanks for listening. Go make it a great week.