Sep

Petunias, Budworms, and Heart Issues . . .

By diane

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, summer is drawing to an end (though we technically have a few more days of it).

I actually love autumn as well, and the change of seasons in general. (I just wish we didn’t have basically six months of winter here in the Midwest.)

I hope you’ve enjoyed your summer as much as I have. I relish my morning barefoot walks in the dewy grass, sometimes with my son’s dog Chester.

And I’ve enjoyed taking care of my pretty annuals. From which I have derived a few lessons about heart issues.

Every year I buy petunias and plant them in containers (easier to take care of). I love the color and variety of their beautiful blooms.

Every year, however, they would get leggy and then they would die. Early this spring I discovered why.

You have to deadhead them diligently, I learned. I thought, “This will be a great daily reminder for me not only to deadhead my petunia blooms, but to daily get rid of things I don’t need, that don’t serve me now, even if they did in the past.”

That’s something that I really felt I needed in my life: pruning. Much has changed for me, and I knew I needed to get back to “editing” my life—discarding the excess. This would include physical objects, papers, old files, emails, outgrown beliefs and negative energy patterns, information stored on my computer, etc. Even the way I’m doing business.

Well, things moved along beautifully with the petunias. I enjoyed seeing them thrive and diligently watered, fertilized, and deadheaded the spent blooms.

Until one day . . . they started to look sick. Something was munching the blooms and sucking the juice out of the stems.

I researched what could be the problem. I discovered it was: budworms!

Budworms are the larvae of some kind of moth, and they like to feed on petunias.

I bought some spray that was nontoxic and diligently followed the directions.

Soon my petunias were beautiful again!

But . . . the budworms kept coming back. I had to keep spraying.

This summer could be dubbed “My Battle with the Budworms.”

And I’m winning! But it requires me to stay diligent.

Every. Single. Day.

Are you getting how this applies to heart issues? We need to cultivate our heart by “watering and fertilizing” it with truth, gratitude, and positive focus.

We also need to beware of the “budworms.” When those “budworms” aka heart issues–old negative patterns, thoughts, beliefs, memories–start to sap our joy, undermine our health, we need to pay attention! We need to swiftly apply a remedy.