"Water Your Root"

Let’s imagine that you and I are walking through an apple orchard together. All the trees look nice and healthy. They are all a vibrant bright green and bearing beautiful rosy apples. As we walk through the orchard we come across a tree that doesn’t look as healthy as the others. This tree is beginning to wilt. The apples on the tree look shriveled. The leaves are drying up and the limbs are sagging toward the ground.

We also find the farmer of this land dashing around the tree trying frantically to help the poor thing by brushing away all the dirt and dust off the branches. He’s spraying the apples with water and trying to polish them. He’s sprinkling water on the withering leaves. With all this effort he is seeing no signs of any relief. He looks distraught as all his efforts have been in vain.

Now anyone with even a little knowledge of how plants grow knows that this guy is wasting his time going from branch to branch, leaf to leaf, apple to apple. We know that there is one easy action that will address all the problems of the sickly tree: Water the root to enjoy healthy looking fruit.

Sounds obvious to us, but sometimes we get caught up in the details of life and become blind to the path of least resistance. “So,” you may ask, “how does this analogy relate to my daily life?”

The apple tree represents you as an individual. All the different branches represent the different roles you play in your life and everyone plays many different roles. We are sons or daughters, parents, employers, employees, customers, students, educators and so on. All of these different roles we play from moment to moment, require some sort of action on our part and from that action there is always some sort of fruit of our labor. Whether or not our action is performed with ease or with certain degree of difficulty will determine how we feel about that particular role we play.

If there is a lot of stress associated with being an employee then we may feel our effectiveness is being compromised. If there is a lot of tension between family members then relationships can feel cumbersome and strained by even the smallest things.

All of these different aspects of our self can be nourished with one simple solution: meditation. Watering the root of yourself means getting to that calm place within and residing there for a little while. When we come out of meditation we feel relaxed and peaceful. No matter what role we step into in that next moment we have that inner sense of well-being and calmness that we know exists within us. We can act from there instead of from a place of stress and frustration. The more we access our inner peace the more we bring it out into the world naturally and the better all of our roles and relationships become.

You have the power to make it a great day.