Who Are Your Flowers? Who Are Your Weeds?

In life, as in gardening, we need to tend to the things we want to grow and weed out what is growing where it doesn't belong. Dandelions: weed or flower? For now, let's call them a symbol of the choices we make in life and who we surround ourselves with. We choose the weeds from the flowers of friendship. Ask yourself: who are your flowers... who are your weeds?

When people are ready to work on their lives one of the most powerful places to start is to weed out the toxic and negative people. It's not always fun, but boy is it freeing!

In last month's workshop someone asked what to do with people we can't weed out of our lives? First, one of the things we need to own as adults is most people in our lives are there because we invite them in. Bosses, family, friends are in our lives because we haven't: quit, walked away from, or unfriended. This is actually great news, it means we have the power to be more discerning in our choices of the relationships we cultivate.

When people are confronted with the idea they can rid themselves of the majority of their toxic influences at will they get defensive. They strain coming to grips with thought that they could have dissociated with these folks a long time ago and they've wasted so much time and energy.

Granted sometimes there are toxic people we can't or choose not to get rid of-- so what to do with them? If they're not a weed you can pluck, or a bud you want to tend to... then consider them a rock to mow around. We don't water rocks or worry about how they are being fertilized or cared for we let them just be.

In the lawn of life, rocks are just there. If someone is a boulder we can't extricate from our life then let's just let it be. Walk around it, pay no attention. Don't let it rock our world that it's there-- we have more important things to attend to.

There is no better time then today to weed out what we can, let boulders be, and cherish what's in bloom and beautiful in our life.