What can you learn from weeds?

The birds are chirping earlier each morning. The sun is rising at 6:00 a.m., and the days are getting warmer.

Winter is finally over! (can hear my rejoicing tone of voice?)

As spring arrives and yard chores become the focus, I realized that we can learn a lot from weeds.

And before you ask… No, I haven’t been smoking the weeds….

But first, I have to ask you a question…

What is your philosophy on how you deal with the weeds in your lawn and gardens?

Before you answer, let me tell you a story that I heard and thought would be great to share.

The youth group at a local church was helping out with the grounds-keeping during the spring.

The church had a beautiful garden with a stone path entrance walk.

After years and years of use, the sand between the stones acted as fertile soil for every type of weed you can imagine. There were dandelions and crabgrass, Canada thistle (those broad leaved, prickly weeds…hate those when I walk barefooted) and nutsedge all growing through the cracks and covering the stone path.

The youth decided to clean up the path to the garden, so they went to work on weeding.

At first, the kids were working hard to get every bit of the weeds they could find. They used tools to get between the stones and down deeper to remove the roots as well.

It was tedious work. After an hour, the youth realized that they still had nearly a hundred feet left to get to the garden area. And worse, they had only cleared about 20 feet of walkway. Working at that pace, it was going to take them another 5-hours to clean the pathway!

Now these were teenagers…doing manual labor…for no pay!

Needless to say, as the realization of a long tedious day still loomed over the youth, they came up with a new plan.

One of the boys grabbed a flat-blade shovel and began scraping the lines between the stones of the walkway. After each pass, there was a small pile of green and yellow. The remnants of what once were weeds between the stones looked like a tossed salad at the side of the walkway.

And the walkway looked clean and clear.

The boy kept slicing off the tops of the weeds, while the rest of the kids picked up the cuttings. Within 20-minutes the entire walkway looked beautiful. No weeds to be seen at all.

“Looks great, and even got it done in a fraction of the time!” the boy with the shovel said.

The next week, as the youth group got together, the minister walked with them to the garden to observe their handiwork. As they approached the walkway, the first part of the walkway was clean and weed-free. But as they walked further along the path, the spaces between the stones were already showing signs of weeds returning.

“Wait, we weeded the whole walkway. How can the weeds already be returning here?” asked one of the girls.

The minister looked at the youths and asked, “What was the difference in how you dealt with the weeds from the beginning of the walkway compared with the end?”

“We dug up the roots at the beginning, but then as we got tired, we decided to just cut off the tops toward the end.”

“That’s the difference then,” the minister said. “In the first part, you addressed the “root” of the problem. But in the second half, you only addressed the “fruit” of the problem.”

The Root or The Fruit?

I told this story because it can be applied to how you address any physical problems that are limiting you as well.

When you have an injury, a pain, or stiffness that limits your movement and ability to do what you love, you will do whatever it takes to get yourself moving again. The quicker the better, right?

Not always. Often times when you address the pain or stiffness by using a medication, or stretching, you are addressing the “fruit” of the underlying problem. There can be something else that is demanding your body compensate for the pain or stiffness. Or the underlying problem may be causing the pain or stiffness. The would be the “root.”

As an example, Rick presented to me with left shoulder pain that had been going on for several months. He had seen a shoulder surgeon who did a cortisone injection in the shoulder, but there was no relief of the pain. Rick then had an MRI of the shoulder, but the shoulder appeared healthy on the images. The surgeon then sent Rick for physical therapy.

As we worked together on the first visit, Rick was unable to raise his left arm above his shoulder because of his pain. Even when I moved Rick’s arm for him, he had pain as it went above shoulder level. When I tested his strength, Rick seemed weak, but his pain was still very high, which prevented him from giving me much resistance.

So far we knew “the fruits” of Rick’s problem shoulder: Pain, limited motion, limited strength, inability to use his left arm for activities through the day, inability to sleep well because of the shoulder pain.

But none of that told me what was “the root” of the problem.

It wasn’t until we looked more closely at Rick’s neck that we found what the root was.

As I tried a light manual traction on Rick’s neck, he said his shoulder pain diminished, almost completely. It was the first time in months that he had no pain in his left shoulder.

So how does this relate to the kids weeding the walkway?

The kids chose to address the visible portion of the weeds (the fruit) that could be easily identified and addressed with an immediate, short-term fix. But they found that after a week, they still had a weed problem.

Rick could have done ice, ultrasound, exercises,…you pick the treatment…for his left shoulder. There are tons of shoulder exercises that he could have chosen. But he still would have had his shoulder pain, because the pain, limited motion, and weakness were all “the fruits” of the underlying root.

But in the first area, by addressing the roots of the weeds, the kids noticed that part of the walkway stayed clear of “the fruits” of the weeds…like the prickly leaves and dandelion flowers.

By addressing the neck problem, which was “the root” of Rick’s trouble, he no longer had to worry about “the fruits” of that problem…the pain, limitation, and weakness, as well as the interrupted sleep.

Henry Ford once said:

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.

So let’s get back to you. What is your philosophy on how you deal with the weeds in your lawn and gardens?

How about your philosophy on treating a health problem that limits you from doing what you love?

Do you keep spending more time and energy in treating “the fruits” of the problem (pain, stiffness, limited motion, etc.) than you do in trying to solve “the root” of the problem?

While it might take a little bit longer to get at the root of the trouble, which is what the youth group wanted to avoid, it will yield long-term results, as they found when they returned the next week.

So which way do you think? You might learn to know yourself a little better by answering that question.

Time for you to choose…Treat the fruit, or treat the root?

Have you been struggling with an injury for some time?

Have you tried all the “home remedies” and already consulted Dr. Google, but are still having trouble?

Have all the over-the-counter medications left you with the same symptoms as soon as they wear off?

It might be time to reconsider whether you are “treating the Fruit and missing the Root.”

Give me a call so I can help guide you on your way back to full health.