The first week of June, I planted flowers in my garden.

I was so excited about them. I tucked each little plant into the soil, watered them, admired them, and eagerly waited for them to grow.

A week later, on a Saturday morning, I was luxuriating over coffee on my patio when a gang of adolescent magpies appeared.

I am not exaggerating when I say gang.

They descended upon my garden like a bunch of delinquent teenagers looking for something to destroy simply because they were bored.

And, right in front of my eyes, they began biting the flowers off my plants.

Not even eating them.

They walked to each new plant, bit off the flowers, threw them in the dirt, and stomped on them.

Apparently just for fun.

I watched in disbelief.

Then they upped their game.

They started pulling the little plants completely out of the ground and tossing them onto my flagstone patio.

I did nothing. I could have chased them away. But I just sat and watched. You all know how much I love my animal visitors. I didn’t want to scare them, but I also had never seen, in the fourteen years I have lived at this house, any animals show up and purposefully destroy what I had planted. 

They reappeared that afternoon, looking to wreck more havoc. I thought about going outside and chasing them off. I even looked up “Magpie exterminator.” Can you believe it? Me! Ms Snow White herself! 

I decided I was not going to get into a fight with animals and was going to send out a vibration of harmony. You are welcome to come to my yard for rest, shelter, food, and safety, but if you want to cause chaos, go elsewhere to do that, I said to them inside my mind.

Then, I went outside, gathered up my battered little plants, tucked their roots back into the soil, gave them water, and hoped for the best.

And, amazingly, they began to grow again.

Tiny new leaves appeared.

They started filling out.

Life was returning.

And then one day, as I was doing my morning luxuriating on my patio, this magnificent buck appeared. 

If you build it, they will come, I thought to myself as I sat sneaking glances at him.

What an honor to have him out there with me. He pawed at the mulch, created his spot, and nestled down under the trees. For a while. 

And then, in front of my eyes, he got up and ate my plants.  Again, I did nothing. I just sat there and watched. 

He ate the leaves and flowers and tender little stems, glancing up to look into my eyes as he did so. I stayed put, and mute. Unable to chase him away. But, when he finally left, I did get up to inspect the damage. Which was considerable. He had, however, spit out the root balls. 

So once again, I picked up what remained of my poor little plants, tucked them back into the soil, watered them, and ordered wire cages for protection.

But one plant was so tiny that I didn’t put a cage around him.

Surely there wasn’t enough left for anyone to bother with.

Apparently, I underestimated the buck.

Because the next time he appeared, right in front of my eyes, he ate that one uncovered tiny little plant. I saw it disappear into his mouth. 

But after he left, I found the root ball higher up in my garden. He had spit it out. Again.

At this point, this little plant had been picked apart by adolescent magpies, ripped out of the earth, thrown onto flagstone, replanted, eaten by a buck, spit out, replanted, eaten by a buck again, and spit out again.

I picked up his sad little root ball that had a few tiny leaves still attached, put him back into the earth, watered him, and this time I put a cage around him. And I promised him the cage would stay on him until he was big and strong.

No one would be able to eat him again.

And then something beautiful happened.

He grew.

Slowly at first.

A few tiny leaves.

Then more.

Then stems.

And eventually, flowers.

Today, that tiny little plant is big and beautiful and covered in blossoms.

And every time I look at him, I think:

He always knew how to become this.

He didn’t have to strive to become a flower.

He didn’t have to create a vision board or do daily affirmations.

He didn’t have to work harder.

He didn’t have to prove himself or create a five-year plan.

He didn’t have to look at the bigger plants beside him and wonder why they were further along.

He already was.

Everything he needed to become that beautiful, flowering plant was there from the beginning.

It was implanted in his DNA.

All he needed were the right conditions.

Nutrient-rich soil.

Water.

Sunlight.

Protection.

Time.

And it hit me that we are the same.

We spend our lives striving to Become.

Successful enough.

Beautiful enough.

Accomplished enough.

Healed enough.

Spiritual enough.

Worthy enough.

We think there is some future version of ourselves we are supposed to create, and if we just work hard enough, accomplish enough, improve ourselves enough, eventually we will arrive.

But this little plant showed me that Becoming is not our job.

The blueprint is already there.

Because the flower doesn’t bloom first and then deserve water.

It gets watered so that it can bloom.

And yet so many of us have this backwards.

We neglect our sleep because we have too much to do. We don’t make time to exercise because we need to produce more. We grab food that doesn’t nourish us because we are too busy. We postpone rest and play and sunlight and walks and laughter and the things that make us feel alive.

We stay in friendships that drain us. We stay in relationships that require us to abandon ourselves. We consume things that make our bodies feel lethargic and poisoned, and information that makes our minds feel anxious, depressed, hopeless, and afraid.

And somewhere in the back of our minds, we tell ourselves that one day—when we’ve finally done enough, accomplished enough, earned enough, become enough—we will have time to take care of ourselves.

But self-care isn’t the reward we get once we Become.

Self-care is what allows us to become.

And self-love is not only about what we give ourselves.

It is also about what we refuse to allow access to us.

Sometimes self-love looks like sunlight.

Sometimes it looks like water.

And sometimes it looks like a little wire cage.

A boundary.

A no.

A goodbye.

A decision that something—or someone—no longer gets unlimited access to our garden.

Because nurturing ourselves also means protecting what is tender while it grows.

Maybe that is what this tiny little flower came to remind me.

That beneath everything that has happened to us—beneath the heartbreak and the conditioning, the relationships that depleted us, the years we neglected ourselves, the times life uprooted us and tossed us onto the proverbial flagstone patio—there is still something within us that remembers.

Something ancient and wise.

Something that knows exactly who we are.

The blueprint remains.

Maybe our job isn’t to strive harder.

Maybe our job is simply to nourish what is already there.

Protect the garden.

Nourish the soil.

And leave the blooming to God.