Learning to be Flexible...

Sometimes someone says something that just rubs the wrong way.  Chances are they meant nothing at all when they said those loaded words that have pierced me to the core.

There's probably a multitude of lesson to be learned if I analyze, dissect and explore that statement but the one I'm grasping onto now is that perhaps I need to be a little less rigid and just role with the punches, pick myself up and get back to business.

This is what I have been attempting to do as I have found myself occupying much time pruning, tying and tending the vines in our vineyard.  I am dealing with a tightly woven mess of too many branches, a lot of fruit and attempting to make order and sense of this tangled garden. 

From the vineyard perspective the best advice we've received to date is to prune with your head and not your heart.  After living through trying to control the rampant and voracious growth that comes with my cold climate hybrid vines I'm slowly learning that using my head is the best way to operate and I might also add my own piece of advice which is to look to the future and not dwell in the present too much.  So what if a few grapes-okay-A LOT of them!  get hacked off in the process, the plants will be stronger and better for the experience next year.

Certain chosen vines flex in the right direction to be tied exactly where they need to be and others that I want to keep snap off in my attempt to control.  I need to apply this concept to my life and learn to let the words that hurt weave in and around my consciousness but not turn my heart into a tangled mess.  Experiences and people will meander in and out of my days, which I decide to prune and which I decide to hang onto will make all the difference in how I will grow.  Letting others' twisted words affect my productivity is something I need to contemplate with my head so my heart never gets too sore!