What the garden taught me about letting go…

“Letting go is a necessary, if sometimes heart-wrenching gateway to genuine transformation.” - Phil Jackson

Before the days of modern medicine, a serious injury often left doctors with only one choice: amputate the limb to save the person’s life. It sounds extreme, even cruel. But sometimes, letting go of what’s been damaged — or what’s no longer serving life — is the only way healing can happen.

I thought about this as I stood in my back garden by the mailbox, staring at the overgrown, now out-of-control Bermuda grass invading my little patch of creeping phlox.

If I let the grass keep spreading, it would eventually choke out the phlox completely. And there’s no neat way to trim or mow the grass that's creeping in — it was creating a wild, chaotic mess.

Now, I’m not a golf-course-type of backyard grass person. I don’t need everything to be pristine. But I do like my messiness to have a little order.

And I love the phlox.

It's the only part of my garden where something actually thrives under my care, despite my “black thumb.” Every spring, these beautiful vibrant shades of pink and purple bloom around the mailbox. I smile every time I check the mail or pull into the driveway.

And yet — in order to save the phlox from the invasive Bermuda grass, I had to do something painful:

I had to pull out some of the phlox, too.

It wasn’t the grass alone that had to go. The phlox had grown intertwined with it. And so, in choosing to clear the space for health and growth, I had to let go of even some of what I wanted to keep.

That’s what letting go often looks like for a great many of us. We don’t always get to separate the unwanted from the beloved so cleanly.

Sometimes, preserving what truly matters means releasing things that are good — or once were. Roles we’ve outgrown or dreams that no longer fit our current goals. People or patterns that were part of our lives for a season, but can’t remain if we want to experience growth.

Letting go doesn’t mean failure. It doesn’t mean giving up. It means making space in the garden - where something new can grow.

What are you ready to let go of? Let’s talk.