GARDEN CARE SECRETS

Pulling out weeds can be very satisfying. With some of them, if you grab them close to the ground and pull, you’re likely to bring up the whole root. This is of course exactly what you want, because if the root breaks off and stays in the ground, it will send up another plant in no time. Like a later model bad Terminator, the smallest remnant of the root can regenerate a whole plant, I believe. [Smart gardeners out there, please correct me if I'm making this up.]

The roots of some weeds come out easily. Not so with other weeds such as dandelions, whose roots run very deep. To pull up a dandelion weed, you have to dig up the earth all around it with a hoe, all the way down to the bottom of the root. Then you can pull up the whole thing.

The image of a broken-off underground root sending up a new plant is an apt metaphor for unfinished personal business, which can lurk under the surface of our consciousness and send up interferences in our lives. Many of us have issues we think we have resolved or put aside but we actually haven’t done so completely, and the incompletion actually takes up some of our bandwidth on a regular basis. Reaching closure with these “weeds” would actually be a huge relief, and make available to us the creative energy that’s now tied up in them.

What might this look like? Let’s say you’ve reached a plateau in your current work. There’s nothing wrong really, but you’re kind of bored and restless and you can’t see what your next move should be. This might bring up some regret that you didn’t, at some previous career crossroad, make a different decision than the one you made. You might say to yourself, “I should have gone to medical school” or “I should have taken that leadership track position at the consulting firm.”

Consider your awareness of this regret to be an invitation from your life to reach greater resolution with it. This is your opportunity to take a science class so you can indulge your science appetite and at the same time, probably remember why you didn’t go into medicine. Or this is your opportunity to network your way into some informational interviews at consulting firms to see what moves you could make now that would bring you more access to leadership roles.

Here are some other examples of incompletes and how you might address them:

• “I married the wrong man.” Enroll your spouse in doing some couples work, find a great couples therapist, and get going. Guaranteed, there is more going on than you can see.
• “I should never have left California.” Go visit California or look at job opportunities there. Give yourself the chance to really consider moving back.
• You have been trying to ignore the recurring pain in your abdomen that’s just not going away. Go get yourself checked out by a doctor.
• Your relationship with a family member is strained, and it bothers you. Initiate that conversation that needs to happen.

The bottom line is, don’t ignore these rumblings. Take them seriously and seek resolution with them. If you don’t, they will continue to send up shoots that take away from your present quality of life.

Copyright 2006 Sharon Teitelbaum. All rights reserved.

Master Certified Coach Sharon Teitelbaum is an authority on work life balance and an expert life coach to busy professionals, high achievers, people at midlife, and working parents. Her book, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: Restoring Work-Life Balance, is a strategic, tactical guide for maintaining a sane and balanced life, distilled from her experience coaching hundreds of people.

A sought-after keynote speaker and workshop leader, Sharon has addressed such diverse audiences as Harvard Medical School Faculty, financial advisors at Merrill Lynch, and Mothers’ of Twins Clubs. She has been featured in national publications including The New York Times, Working Mother Magazine, and Forbes.com. Sharon works with individual coaching clients throughout the US and internationally by phone, or in person in the Boston area, and always offers an initial consultation at no charge. Married for thirty-plus years, she is the mother of two fabulous grown-up daughters.

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