Picture the most beautiful garden you can think of. One that’s filled with flowers of all different sizes, shapes, and colors. A garden that radiates beauty day in and day out and one which appears as though it will never lose its incredible eminence.

Now imagine the garden as the years go by. It changes a bit doesn’t it? Some new flowers are introduced, a few weeds spring up here and there, but overall the beauty of it stays consistent. In fact, the beauty of the garden seems to increase as the knowledge of the gardener continues to grow and expand with each passing year. Nonetheless, one cannot deny its alluring nature, despite the changes that are taking place.

But then something happens. After years of growing strong, healthy flowers, another plant is introduced that kills off some of the surrounding flowers within the garden. The entire garden is not lost, but one can see that the damage has been done.

So, the gardener realizes that while it might take a while to get back to the garden’s original beauty and health, that state is never fully lost.

After some time has passed, the gardener eventually finds new flowers that work well with the rest of the plants. This time, these flowers not only help restore the garden back to its original state, but actually allow the garden to become even more radiant than it was before. Continuing on the life and prosperity of its existence.

Now I want you to think of this story in a different light. I want you to think of yourself as both the garden and its caretaker because don’t we all start out with these beautiful gardens?

As children, we’re constantly growing and building on to our knowledge as we feel our way through the world. We’re continuously meeting new people, with each person leaving a little something behind that eventually help shape us into the people that we become. Some of these individuals stick around and help us grow immensely, some leave fairly quickly and out of those people, we find that we either like them or we would rather do without them.

Then one day we meet someone that, for some reason, we feel belongs in our garden. So we plant them. We help take care of them and we support them, until we realize that some people take more out of us than we are willing to give, just like the flower in the story.

Part of us feels like we lost a piece of ourselves that we will never gain back and because of the damage that has been done, we’re afraid to introduce new people into our lives. So, months or maybe even years go by and there’s still not much sign of hope. The devastation was just too much and you can’t imagine going back to feeling like that.

However, the pain that you feel and the hopelessness that resides within you starts to subside, little by little. And while you work out the damage within yourself, you suddenly meet someone that makes you want to give out another chance.

You hesitate at first, but eventually you let this individual in slowly. And before you know it, the patches within your garden, start to grow back in.

I want you all to think of the new people that you meet after a breakup or heartbreak as the new supportive flower within your garden. I want you to especially think of those individuals that you meet that try so very desperately to break down the barriers that you’ve been putting up since you’ve experienced the pain and trauma. Because similar to the garden in the story, we are capable of patching up the missing pieces within ourselves. And we are especially able of building ourselves back to our original state, if not more beautiful and whole than we were before.

Because similar to a garden, we are continuously growing and flourishing as time goes on into a more wholesome and knowledgeable individual than before, it’s just sometimes we need a little help from those around us to help us on our journey.

So let people in, learn from them, and be always blooming.