extraORDINARY

#1 – Shame!

Let’s start with the biggest punch in the guts … no point in building up to a big finale when you don’t know where the journey will take you!

When I say that the garden was transformed “through the skills of a team of guys” … what that actually translated as was: a friend of ours … from Paul’s running club … in the middle of lockdown … started a gardening business.

He was picking up work … filling his diary … growing his team … building his portfolio! As you would expect with a new business some of that that was coming through his existing network of contacts … friends … family … and, yes, running club pals!

You see exactly where this is going, don’t you?!

When Paul suggested that we use them to do the work a little bit inside of me died! Well, actually … if truth be told … probably quite a large part of me died!

Yet a glimmer of hope remained … I knew this guy would only perform quality work … and quality comes at a price … so my hope was that the quote for the work would throw the “let’s help a friend grow his business” plan out the window …

… we could merrily take ourselves off to the “Dundee Trusted Trader” website … and find someone cheaper to tackle the wilderness …

… but more crucially find someone unknown to us … and unknown to anyone we did know!!

But … no … the price came in within budget … and was comparable to the “going rate” for garden work like this … YES … of course I got Paul to check that out!! When bits of you are dying on the inside they don’t go down without a fight!

Typical … where are the big price tickets when you need them??!!

Some people don’t like hanging their underwear on the line … others have taken their phone to the toilet during a Zoom meeting unwittingly with audio and camera still connected … others have fallen face first in front of their boss … others have walked around all day with their skirt tucked into their pants …

… this was my version of humiliation about to land on our doorstep … LITERALLY!

And then on the run up … there was banter in the running club Facebook group … that went like this:

There was no offence intended and none taken at the banter … it was just banter … given and taken … between friends …

… but there was truth in it … there was shame being carried … and that was only too real.

Shame is a destroyer … and it can have very deep roots.

A LONG time ago I once heard someone say that you only needed to look in a christian’s backyard (garden) and it would tell you how well they would look after the things that God had given them to steward.

Ouch!

That thought became like an inner voice of shame within me. Regularly as I passed through, or looked at the garden, I could hear the loud whispers of that voice of shame taunting me.

I do not believe that my lack of gardening prowess (or effort) in any way reflects how I look after other things in my life … but the voice of shame takes no prisoners and accuses nonetheless … and sometimes viciously so!

Shame can bring a disconnect and even cut us off from relationships … in both simple and much deeper ways.

There were friends and family who I would dread the thought of dropping in … rarely (if ever) would I invite them … all much to the applause of my inner voice of shame. They would … after all judge my ability to love and care for them based on the state of my garden … especially the good gardeners … they were the worst and would of course judge me more … or so the voice of shame would tell me anyway.

The voice of shame is a liar … but it is a persuasive one.

Well … voice of shame … the garden is RESET … I’m calling time on your toxic whispers and banishing your company. After all, the voice of Truth tells me a different story …

Take me to: Lessons from the Garden – The Back Story