4 ways that pruning a plant can inspire you to care for yourself
/4 minute read
Late winter in Vermont was made for self-care. We are all desperate for signs of spring that never seem to show up, so a quick little restorative yoga practice, a few minutes paying attention to breath, or reflective journaling are all very do-able ways to tend to yourself as you’re looking after others. And if you’re brave enough to bundle up and head outdoors, it’s also the perfect time for some meditative pruning. This year I didn’t get to tending my berries until May (oops), but it will still be beneficial to the plants’ overall health.
Whenever you choose to do it, trimming back fruit trees and berry bushes can serve as inspiration for ways that we can tend to ourselves every day. Pruning takes a plant back to its strongest, most vital parts, leaving the healthiest tissue to flourish. Sounds like a smart thing to do, right?
As I headed out to our berry patches this Beltane with my loppers and Felco pruning shears, I realized that the guidelines for pruning are practical reminders of how to nurture ourselves every day—no yoga mat required. And while each type of plant has some specific parameters for the best way to trim it back, there are some general principles that work on most growing things:
Social image by Árpád Czapp on Unsplash
First, look for dry, dead wood and cut that down to the ground. This is often the easiest to do emotionally, because non-producing wood doesn’t add to the plant in any way.
For you: Consider those things in your life that no longer serve their purpose: habits that leave you feeling depleted, ways of thinking that no longer bring you joy, or old beliefs that are holding you back from a fruitful future. What dead wood can you cut out of your life?Next, remove anything growing “out of bounds.” This one takes the least amount of discernment when you’re working with plants, as usually you can use a fence line, pathway or other landscape feature as a guideline for what to take out. Save your brainpower for a later step in the pruning process.
For you: I find this one a little easier to do outside in the garden instead of inside myself. Look for places in your life where you might be encroaching on someone else’s territory … where your actions begin to crowd out or overshadow another, or where you might be taking on their feelings unnecessarily. Need some help with this one? Check out inner sanctuary bookclub favorite Boundary Boss by Terri Cole, so you can show those errant behaviors who’s in charge here.Now thin the plant to keep most robust shoots. This can be tough because it often means removing perfectly healthy stems, but it allows the plant to focus its growing energy in the best places—the ones most likely to produce the biggest fruit.
For you: Think about those activities you do that are causing you to spread yourself too thin—even ones that you enjoy. This once can be tough if you have a lot of interests, like I do. But trying to do All The Things often means I lose the luxury of empty space once in a while. For those non-negotiables that you just can’t part with, maybe you can recruit another set of hands, or step back to look for ways you might be able to streamline your daily schedule.
Finally, cut back individual stems to the desired length. This is not just so the plant stays within the boundaries you’ve set for it, but also so you can concentrate its efforts, helping it form more—and more beautiful—fruit.
For you: Do you notice that you have very little down time, and you’re unable to work on just one project at a time? That’s a clue that paring back might be helpful for you. Spending more time on the activities that are most important to you right now—family, creative pursuits, or moving your body, perhaps—will help settle your mind and energy so you can feel more focused.
The real final step of any pruning process is to step back to admire your work. You might be taken aback (or even shocked) by seeing how much you’ve cut away from your plant, but know that you haven’t hurt it by your actions—in fact, you’ve improved it. Even though the temps were a little too warm for me to do some hard pruning—and I may have lopped off some flowering shoots that were on their way to becoming berries—in the long run the bushes will be more vigorous and produce higher quality fruit.
Similarly, honing our schedules and emotional availability can be challenging at first, but over time streamlining our daily routine will ensure that we’re taking at least a few minutes each day to make ourselves stronger and more resilient.