This sign, “I am not dead, I’m dormant,” immediately caught my eye while taking a walk through the conservatory at The NY Botanical Garden in the middle of June on a hot and humid Sunday afternoon.

Have you ever felt that way? Like your life is on a standstill. It seems like the harder you try the more things stay the same.

Or worse get worse.

That’s when you have to really take a cold look at things. Like the plant, cut back. I mean some drastic pruning. Whether it’s relationships you need to run from or places you need to disappear from.

We humans like routine or maintaining the status quo. Taking the path of least resistance is what some will do. That obviously won’t work when you are looking for change.

This is no rah rah speech about attaining phenomenal success in a short period of time or becoming famous.

This blog post is about growth. More specifically what really has to happen for growth to occur.

Plants can teach us alot.

“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a long time. Is everything okay? How’s it going? How’s the family?”

Like you needed to be on someone’s constant radar for all to be okay.

Originally, this post was going to be about hibernating for the winter.

That example was not strong enough.

Have you ever seen a landscape person take a wild bush and with their shears cut at it with determination? What’s the result? Sometimes a ledge straight as a box, sometimes rounded out with shapes not thought possible. Of course in this example, this is growth gone wild that needs to take shape. Growth that is out of control and not really pleasant to look at.

The cutting I am talking about are the dead leaves in your life. Growth that’s not going to happen in the branches of your life, no matter how much water or fertilizer you put into you, someone else, or a project you have been working on.

Sometimes things can look so dark and bleak after a pruning that you wonder if you’ve made the right cuts.

In a world where it’s not just the established media, you have homegrown U-Tubers, Bloggers, Instagram and Pinterest stars in the know fighting for your attention to put you in the know. In other words they’re trying to make you think you are relevant if you listen to them and take their advice. Or better yet, if you listen to them they’ll put you in on the know on the next great thing before it happens.

Distractions, distractions, distractions!

Yes, you have to have a sense of what’s going on in your immediate family,  community, city and nation.

Just not at the expense of YOU.

You need just enough information day by day to  develop into a FUNCTIONING part of the whole. Not a dead branch on a tree. Otherwise too much info here and there is like swallowing a whole watermelon all at once.

Meditation is key.

Meditation is not about thinking about nothing.

Meditation is about taking what is current in your life and filtering what is useful to you, what needs to be stored away, and finally what needs to be flushed down the toilet.

Meditating just like pruning are actions that require much work. Pruning is obviously visible and meditating is an internal process.

The next time someone tells you, “Where have you been? I haven’t heard from you in a while,” Your response can be

“I am not dead, I’m dormant.”

Regine Baptiste

P.S.

I don’t write as many posts as recommended because I am not an intrusive writer. The goal of all my posts is for readers to expand their thought processes. I want to truly be an influencer towards people living lives on purpose unique to each indivdual.

I make no excuses, the foundation of all my writing comes from reading the bible. The bible is my main influencer.

I have favorite writers and speakers regardless of backgrounds that have influenced my writing.

And with that, hitting people over the head with the bible is just not my way. Nor do I pretend to be a spiritual guru. There are trained men in the ministry for further imvestigation on questions I am not ordained to answer.

We live in a world of opinions. We are all drunk with my way and this is my take on things.

Truth has fallen in the streets.

Reading your bible everyday leads one towards better and clearer thinking.

The bible is filled with examples of people living lives towards two ways, the way of life or the way of death. You cannot be on two paths at once. The bible is clear on that.

This blog is dedicated to all those who thought suicide was the answer. And those who succeeded at suicide.

Life is a gift. Don’t allow anyone to disempower you in the gift you possess.

Meditation coupled with reading the bible (especially the Psalms) can strengthen your relationship with Source – God Almighty and Jesus the Christ.