Sometimes you’ve gotta be willing to unlearn some stuff in order to grow 🌱.
Unlearning does not mean forgetting. Forgetting should not be the goal.
The goal should be to unlearn so we can do better.
Sometimes it can feel like we need to unlearn a pile of things, do not focus on the pile; instead, focus on one or two things in that pile.
Unlearning is like when you are spring cleaning and you have let things pile up all winter. You look, and you are like, “Where do I even begin?" If you are like me, you may try to put it off and sit and scroll for a while instead. But when you are done scrolling, the work is still there.
Like with spring cleaning, you can choose to start with the hardest or easiest task. What matters is that we start.
Unlearning is a bit messier than spring cleaning our closets and cabinets because unlearning usually comes with a pile of emotions.
Anger and resentment are not piles of things I like to dig through, but I have learned that not tending to those things is like hoarding lots of junk for hundreds of years.
Unlearning is tending to the soil that has hardened from all the time it has not been tended to. You start tending to the soil, and in time, you see beautiful flowers bloom.
The hard work is worth it. It may not seem like it as you’re digging, but the callouses we get from the digging will be smoothed out, and we will hold onto a new thing.
Hard soil
Full of cracks
Added water, dried up again
More water added; tilled a bit
Less dryness
Wait a few
Check the soil, the water worked a bit
Add more water
Till
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
A bloom 🌱
More water, more tilling
More blooms 🌱
And at last, a flower 🌻