Healing from life’s traumatic events can often be challenging and painful. Yet, there IS healing for our traumas. Choosing to take the journey through the healing process can lead to improved outcomes over time. It can open opportunities not previously seen or available. It can lead to healthier lifestyles, relationships, and interactions in personal and social settings. Improved educational and career prospects, likewise, happens. Healing is a process. It takes time, intention, and work. Sometimes it’s painful, or difficult. Always it leads to a better life in the long run for individuals and their families across generations.
1. Cutting Back the Currant Bush
Hugh B. Brown (1883–1975) shared the story of his experience with a little current bush. While living in Canada where he’d purchased a run-down farm, in his efforts to clean up the property, he came across a currant bush. It had grown to over six feet (two meters) high and was “going all to wood” with no blossoms or currant berries.
Mr. Brown, having been raised on a fruit farm in Utah, USA, knew what the currant bush was supposed to look like, and what it needed to BECOME – what it was meant to BECOME. He gathered his pruning shears and clipped it down until it was only stumps. He said, “I thought I saw on the top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying.” In his mind, he heard the little currant bush crying, “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree . . . and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me . . . How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”
Mr. Brown then responded to the currant bush, “I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to {become}. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree … I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down…’”
Years later, Mr. Brown went through his own pruning experience. He was passed over for a promising promotion for which he had worked for 10 years. He was told he’d met every requirement for this promotion and was not going to receive it. Despite his being qualified, he was denied this opportunity. As he returned to his residence, he questioned the justice of this, knowing he’d been denied out of prejudice and no other reason. He was angry, recognizing he’d done everything necessary, and asked God how He could do this to him.
Through his bitterness, he heard his own voice from decades earlier, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” His bitterness dissipated and he realized that he was, in a way, being ‘cut down’ so he could then BECOME what was best for him. Mr. Brown reflected back, 50 years later, on how that experience changed the outcome of his life. He realized that the life he had hoped for would not have led to the best outcomes for himself or his family, and that, because of not receiving this promotion, his life had led to much better outcomes in the long run. His comment then was, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.”
2. Understanding the Parable of the Currant Bush
Perhaps your life was left in ruins, abandoned, or not taken proper care of when you were a child. Perhaps you were roughed up, abused, or suffered other misfortunes such as childhood abuse, divorce, grief, or other challenging consequences. You might have been left to grow on your own without guidance or without understanding what you were meant to BECOME. Perhaps you thought you were meant to be a shade tree, and were really a currant bush. One is not better than the other. Both have their own individual strengths and purposes. But a currant bush that isn’t trimmed and pruned to its proper purpose will never bear fruit. It won’t blossom in the season it was meant to blossom.
In relation to trauma, trauma can get in the way of our BECOMING who we were meant to BECOME. Without the healing ‘pruning’ of unnecessary core beliefs, unhealthy coping strategies, and unguided lifestyle choices we might grow up and never BECOME what we could have been if properly ‘pruned.” Healing isn’t always pleasant. We may need to look at our choices, our beliefs, or our past in order to glean patterns that hinder our progress. Learning to recognize unhealthy patterns of behavior, change beliefs that block us, and choose to ‘cut back’ those aspects of our lives that lead in the wrong direction will help us to BECOME our best selves. This may require a variety of healing methods from professional support to intentional choice. Nevertheless, if you ARE a currant bush, thinking you are a fruit tree will never yield fruit because it isn’t who you are or what you’re able to be. Embrace being a currant bush. They are beautiful and purposeful in their own way. Take time to ‘prune’ those aspects of your life that prevent or hinder your BECOMING the best little currant bush you can BECOME. Shape your life, like shaping the bush, to bring out your best qualities and opportunities. A currant bush that is never ‘pruned’ – like an individual who never heals – will not become what it was meant to be.
3.Pruning the Branches Might Hurt Temporarily
No one really likes to look at the ugly of their lives. We live in a society which likes to stay on the surface, keep things ‘sweet,’ and make things all the same. However, life isn’t meant to be lived in a state of vanilla, so to speak. We are meant to enjoy all the flavors of life at all depths of emotion. When someone dies, it’s healthy and normal to feel sad and to grieve. Many people want to ‘get through’ that quickly and move on. But there can be value it simply sitting with our grief for a time. It honors the love we had for those who are gone from our lives. Yet, we don’t want to stay in the grief for long periods, as this can be unhealthy. When we’ve been hurt – whether through abuse, divorce, bullying, or loss of some kind – it’s important to be able to honor that hurt in some way. When we can feel the hurt, we can then heal the hurt. As we go through the hurt or pain or process, whatever that looks like individually, we can arrive on the other side with insights, understanding, and improved outcomes overall. It’s worth the work of ‘pruning’ to enjoy the berries of the currant bush, and the blossoms of growth that will eventually manifest throughout one’s life. Pruning, though it seems painful and unnecessary, actually leads to the kind of growth that will help you BECOME who you were meant to be because there won’t be those obstacles in the way. So many people go through hard things and say, “I’m a survivor.” And they choose to stay at that level. However, they could have ‘cut back’ more branches and reached the level of ‘thriver.’ The ultimate level of BECOMING victorious in the face of difficulties by pushing through and overcoming and learning the lesson and gaining the insights of life’s hard challenges. Then, and only then, will the challenge seem worthwhile in the long-run. Only then do the tears left by pruning have meaning when the blossoms of growth appear.
If you have experienced trauma or childhood abuse and desire to heal, please reach out to BECOMING EXCEPTIONAL HEALING CENTER & RESOURCES today.
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