You may or may not know I went to Queens University of Charlotte for my third of my three attempts at college. I finally got my bachelor’s degree in Organizational Communications there at night and worked there full-time during the day. And I spent a significant amount of time on campus four busy years.
Luckily, Queens has a gorgeous campus: stately red brick buildings, well-manicured lawns, pretty landscaping, blooming flowers in the spring, and beautiful artwork all around. Not a bad place to feast my eyes (and my brain) for those four tough years.
So I vividly remember showing up one morning and seeing something was very, very wrong with the 20 or 30 giant boxwood plants in front of the main campus building called Burwell Hall.
Those boxwood plants were tall – easily as tall as me. Plenty of birds nested in those leaves. The gazillion squirrels on campus would take refuge under those boxwoods to escape people, the sun, the rain, the cars, etc.
Yet those same squirrels would lay in wait for someone to walk by and then shoot out towards their feet. One time a squirrel actually crawled up the pant leg of the university president’s wife! I imagine she screamed in terror while the squirrel gleefully fled back to the refuge of those huge boxwoods.
So my walk onto campus that morning and see that those boxwoods had been pruned back within an inch of their life? Where not a single leaf remained? And to only see those white stems which looked eerily like bones?
The uproar on campus was intense, immediate, and undeniably negative:
- Those groundskeepers have KILLED those boxwoods!
- How could they do that?
- Why did they do that?
- Now campus looks UGLY!
- Will those leaves ever grow back?
- How long will it take?
- What if the shrubs are permanently damaged?
- Don’t they NEED those leaves?
And on and on. And on.
It took quite a bit of education (heh) for everyone to pipe down and understand what happened.
The grounds keeping staff explained that those boxwoods had gotten unhealthy due to their size. They were top heavy, the leaves were too dense to allow for new growth, and the pruning would actually help the shrubs regain their health and vitality.
I thought about those boxwoods the other day when I was having coffee with someone new. I was trying to explain how I work with clients and the results they see from our time spent together.
He astutely said, “Oh, you get to the root of the issue.”
And immediately I thought, “Dang. He’s right.”
Of course this makes me think even more about you, gentle reader.
Is your life top heavy? Are you not experiencing any new growth because the old stuff, the same stuff, is choking out your potential?
When was the last time YOU took stock of your whole life and did an aggressive pruning?
What could happen if you just did a big ol’ chop, chop in your life? What would you eliminate? What would you discard? What is no longer serving you? What could you remove that would actually restore your health and vitality?
Here are some areas to consider pruning during your big chop, chop:
- Stuff – in your house, office, car, storage shed, storage building, garage, etc. You have too much stuff and you know it. Simplify.
- Beliefs – those that are limiting and no longer serving you
- Stories – that keep you stuck, small, brooding, hating, resenting and stagnant.
- Work – do you love what you do? If not, chop, chop!
- Debt: the A+, #1 way to stay stuck and feeling trapped.
- Relationships – got folks in your life who don’t support you, add negative drama, or otherwise drag you down? Time to ax them off your contact list for good.
- Business – is it time to make a change, a pivot, or declare “I quit?” Do it!
- Religion/Spirituality – if it’s not expanding your heart and feeding your soul, walk away.
- Hobbies – still playing tennis or disc golf or scrap booking because you’ve done it forever? If it doesn’t make you feel satisfied or joyful or awesome, let it go!
The drumbeat of my life these days is: MAKE SOME ROOM!
The idea of pruning everything in your life that doesn’t serve you anymore is becoming the foundation of my work and life.
There’s something so incredibly attractive about tending to the roots of a life – my life, your life – in order to allow the rest of it to grow strong and healthy. And oftentimes, the best thing you can do to nourish the roots is prune away the leaves and branches.
Your leaves and branches can be found in your home; at work; in your email; on your calendar; even on nights and weekends when you’re wishing you were doing something – anything – different that the task or activity or event at hand.
Time to get out those pruning shears. If you don’t have any, I’ll most certainly lend you mine. And if you’re afraid, we’ll handle the pruning together and I’ll guide you toward deliberately choosing what goes.
Make some room,
Angie
P.S. Still working on the content of the summer series. It’ll be focused on helping you make some room to get out of overwhelm in 30 days. Get your pruning shears ready!
P.P.S. And those boxwoods at Queens? They did indeed grow back. It took a while, but slowly, ever so slowly, new growth emerged. The shrubs looked more balanced, the new branches were healthy, and the emerging leaves were a brilliant green.