Acknowledge.
When I was really young I lived on a farm and helped a lot with growing things. All the vegetables we ate came from our garden. I tilled, fertilized, weeded, planted, harvested and did all the work required to make things grow. My parents have incredible green thumbs. It’s honestly a bit shocking.
As I’ve grown – well a whole lot older – I’ve come to a probably not that startling realization. I don’t actually enjoy gardening. I can do it, but it doesn’t bring me all that much joy. I routinely forget to water plants (there’s one actively dying on my desk right now). I can never remember the right time to grow things. It’s all a bit exhausting to me.
Oddly, I spent a long time trying to force myself to enjoy gardening. To be something that I am not, and never will be. I tried to fit into an expectation I created based on the family I came from, rather than the person I know myself to be.
The point of this tiny snippet is, once I acknowledged that I do not like to garden and that there is nothing inherently wrong with me because of that, I felt immediately lighter and freer.
We must learn to acknowledge ourselves, others, and that we are all worthy, full stop.
