Assessing Your Relationship Garden

Many of us want healthy relationships, but do you ever ask yourself: what do I need to get rid of in order to have healthy relationships? As gardeners will attest, routine pruning is crucial in maintaining the health and vitality of their plants! Likewise, pruning your relationships leads to healthier, more fruitful connections. It is a key practice for healthy relationships. 

Relationships, like gardens, are dynamic and ever-changing. Their fluidity allows for growth and transformation. When we talk about relationships, we don’t only encompass your connections with other people—relationships with your body, your work, your living space, your downtime, and your spiritual practice all need regular tending, nurturing, and occasional pruning.

So, how are your relationships? Take a moment. Breathe. Sit in meditation or pick up a pen and paper and undertake a thorough audit of all the significant relationships in your life. 

Are certain relationships taking up more space than others? Are there instances where relationships lie dormant or are being overlooked?

Pruning: An Essential Step for Healthy Relationships

Ending relationships may be necessary sometimes. It’s an integral part of maintaining the balance of our lives, allowing us to make room for new patterns to emerge. Endings aren’t inherently bad. Sometimes breaking a habit that’s detrimental to your health, and resetting your relationship with your body, job, a friend, or even the media might be just what you need to rejuvenate your life. 

Remember, ‘the end’ doesn’t necessarily equate to a full stop. Endings always have new beginnings hidden in them. Closing the chapter on a dysfunctional dynamic in a relationship doesn’t mean you have to throw the whole book away. As one chapter ends, another begins, providing the scope for a new, more positive phase of the partnership to evolve. Relationship 2.0, anyone?

Pro tip: Be patient. Give the old dynamics some room to dissipate before embracing the new ones.

Taking action is just as essential as identifying what relationships require pruning. Once you’ve figured out what needs to go for the overall health of your connections, take the necessary steps and communicate your intentions as clearly and kindly as possible to all involved parties.

Healing after Pruning: Finding Peace in Change

Pruning can hurt, and it’s okay to feel down after deciding to trim some aspects of your life. Whether it’s a segment of your career that you were once excited about but is no longer serving you, or a part of your personal life that has become a burden, you might feel sad, resistant, or scared to let it go. 

It’s important to give yourself the space to feel these feelings and move through them. In order to move through this change with grace, be gentle with yourself. The other side of grief is celebration. How can you celebrate what this aspect you are now letting go of has brought into your life? 

The more you can validate the positive things this aspect has brought to your life AND validate where you are now (and where you’re headed), the easier it will be to let go and move into something new. Consider marking the change with a ritual as a way to honor the transition. Light a candle and thank this aspect for all that it has done for you, and then say out loud that you are releasing it and moving on to something new. 

Consciously engaging with the transition in this way will help you hold space for your feelings and move through any resistance that might be coming up. 

If you’ve taken classes at the Beep, you can use any of the tools we teach here at the BPI to let go of resistance to this change and anything that would keep you from being able to feel your feelings. 

Validate how courageous you are to engage in pruning! Allow yourself the time and space to heal, rest, and regroup from the process.

And then, it’s time to welcome the new! Having done the hard work and pruned what was not working, you can now start sowing seeds and nurturing new relationships.

Planting the Seeds for Future Healthy Relationships 

Once you have assessed what isn’t working for you and done the necessary pruning and letting go, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you DO want to create going forward. Reflecting on what ISN’T working can often give us the clarity of what it is we DO want. 

Be patient in allowing these new seeds of desire to grow, however! Growing takes time. 

At this juncture, if you’re searching for support in ending relationships cleanly and without any extra pain or suffering, consider signing up for a reading or healing with us. Our students will guide you in deciding what needs to depart from your life, helping you foster growth through healthier relationships.

So, embrace the power of pruning in relationships! Tend, nurture, prune, and watch as your relationships blossom, creating a vibrant, fulfilling life.

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