Rainy Day Healing

Making My Peace … with planted seeds that don’t grow

Ideas start with a single seed … sow a seed and watch it grow … keep planting seeds, you never know what may take root … Most advice about seeds of ideas are positive, motivating, and inspirational. But what if, in real life, seeds don’t grow?

Go back to basics. Learn from gardening. What do seeds need to be able to germinate and grow? Just stick the seed in the ground. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. It’s complicated.

Seeds need:

1. Age (the right maturity but not too old – i.e., planted by the use-by-date),
2. Water (but not too much),
3. Oxygen (i.e., not buried too deep),
4. Temperature (not too hot and not too cold),
5. Location (just the right place),
6. Timing (planted during the right season),
7. Distance (planted the right distance apart).

If you knew how complicated it is to grow a plant, a flower, a tree by seed, you’d never plant anything. Fortunately, people plant seeds every day, oblivious to the complications, but with a great deal of hope and expectation.

So, here’s some quotes about managing expectations when planting seeds:

• Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson
• Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness. – Steve Maraboli
• If life beats us up, while we have our back to the wall, there is no other way than exorcising fear and using the seeds of resilience stored in the attic of our imagination. – Erik Pevernagie
• A seed is a place where things begin their lives. It is not a place where they live their lives, for attempting to do so will end their lives. – Craig D. Lounsborough
• Challenges contain the seeds of our glory. – Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel
• Whatever happens when the seed meets the soil, the same thing happens when you meet the wisdom! – Mehmet Murat ildan
• Times of stress and difficulty are seasons of opportunity when the seeds of progress are sown. – Thomas F Woodlock
• Secure tomorrow today by sowing good seeds and by watering them with faith and love to others. – Enock Maregesi
• If you want to thrive, you need to sow the seeds of self-development. – Brian Buffini
• Take the time to plant seeds even if you’re unsure if they will grow; who knows, maybe all it takes is for someone else to come along and water them. – Kai Mann

Making my peace with planted seeds that don’t grow, I learned the following:

• Don’t underestimate hope
• There is always a real-life analogy to put challenges and frustrations into perspective

Martina Nicolls: Rainy Day Healing – MAKING MY PEACE