Strong roots

I have been planting trees. Apple and hazelnut trees. All this tree planting feels brand new and I have been doing my very best to make sure that these trees are getting the care that they need. I can not tell you how many times I have been in to the local garden centre asking questions, buying mulch and trying to do everything right.

Then the wind came… and I looked out at my trees and wondered if I should stake them. They looked fine, but just maybe I should stake them. So back to the garden centre I go to get some stakes, as a just in case. Only when I got to the garden centre, they told me to leave the apple trees alone. Apparently, the trees need a bit of wind so that their root systems can strengthen and stabilize (not too much… but just enough).

This got me thinking to how we all need a bit of wind to create strong roots. What I mean by this is that we can resist and even avoid things that might feel hard, but in reality, we need a bit of adversity to learn how to stabilize ourselves (not too much… but just enough).

Research has shown that those who experience some adversity have the potential to develop empathy, appreciate the sweetness of life when it comes, cultivate a sense of skill for overcoming hardship and develop what Rick Hanson calls grit.  Hanson explains that grit is the determination and the will to keep going when the going gets tough. This is not in a grin and bear it sort of way. Rather, we employ grit in a mindful, self-compassionate way.

He goes on to explain that to develop grit, we need to practice inside our own minds. This might be to practice meeting ourselves with self-compassion as we move through whichever burden life is throwing at us right now, or perhaps it is to take things one day at a time and one breath at a time with sobriety, or maybe it is a practice of regulating our emotional system as we face the daily news. We need to work with adversity, or the winds of our lives, so that we can develop strong roots.

As we move deeper into winter and as the winds start to pick up, we have this opportunity for slowing down and turning inwards as a means of quiet reflection to build our resources for compassion, resilience and joy. It is a time to allow our roots to settle and ground deep into our inner stability. So like the apple trees that I have planted in my garden, we can truly flower and flourish with the return of spring.

This Tuesday at the Sanctuary’s online community meditation, we will be doing a Winter’s reflection as a means of how we might prepare for a season of slow rooting. We can ask ourselves the question of how do we want to work with our mind? What slow ‘attending to’ do we want to engage in? How can we find our ground before the noise of December shakes our branches?

If this speaks to you, why not join us? I would love to see you there.

Click here to join me at the Sanctuary’s online community meditation this Tuesday at 10am.

Click below to do a winter’s reflection which focuses on strengthening our roots: