Until 3 years ago when my husband and I relocated from Southern California to Salt Lake City, Utah, I couldn’t grow or maintain anything green to save my life.
Quite the opposite.
My home was where plants came to die, after a very short time of life in my possession. I was especially fond of orchids, which, I’d heard, were easy to care for. Wrong.
It didn’t seem to matter what care I provided, within a matter of weeks plants would shrivel, turn brown, and give up the ghost.
What was I doing wrong?!?
Shortly after we moved into our new home in SLC, a kind neighbor knocked on my door, holding a small tray of budding tomato plants, asking if I’d like to have them.
My inner initial response was conflict, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before these beautiful starter plants would meet their untimely end, yet here was a thoughtful neighbor I was meeting for the first time and I didn’t want to appear ungracious.
And ironically, in my new backyard were 3 customized plant beds ready to go, built lovingly by the previous home owners.
So I accepted the tray of plants and decided that, once again, I’d try my hand at growing things.
This time, however, I was even more diligent in my efforts, which included specific plant placement to maximize the sunshine, precise watering daily (sometimes twice daily- it gets really hot in SLC…), weekly fertilization and pruning.
That first year, those 8 starter tomato plants easily produced several hundred tomatoes. And I’ve had an abundant garden ever since, with peppers, basil, oregano, cilantro, thyme, strawberries, and hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes.
And those orchids I’d kill on a regular basis?
What I discovered was that they weren’t dead, they were dormant. When I stayed consistent with the 3 ice cubes per plant every week, in a few short months the plants would bloom again. And again. Some of my orchid plants have now been in this cycle for a couple of years now.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Because so often we as humans tend to think the grass is greener elsewhere…that the solutions we seek are somewhere else, or that we’d be happier if only we had someone else’s skills, knowledge, looks, body, voice, confidence, connections, wealth, family, spouse, etc.
We keep looking over own fence to find the answers we week instead of pausing and considering what’s already in our own backyards.
Every one of us is uniquely gifted, so unique that we are human snowflakes- there is no one in the world like us, yet it’s rare that I find someone who is not only comfortable in their own skin, but celebrates it, revels in their uniqueness, confident that they are resourceful within themselves to create a life they love.
How about you?
Do you believe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence?
When was the last time you poured into yourself, nurturing your own growth, confident in your inner genius?
Don’t believe you have an inner genius?
Stay tuned to tomorrow’s email, where I’ll share a resource that will prove you do.
