You’ve been planted

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Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.” Christine Caine

That quote is quite meaningful to many of us.

Why do we love quotes so much? 

I think it’s because they give us hope. Well placed words offer a promise of life improving in some way.

I grew up hearing, “Every day in every way, I am getting better and better.” It was an autosuggestion first written by Emile Coué in the late nineteenth century. He began his career as an apothecary (pharmacist) and found that if he gave patients short sayings, which he called autosuggestions – we now call them affirmations – that helped them expect to get better then they would get better faster.

My Mum used it a lot when she suffered with post-natal (partum) depression in the late 70s.

This too will pass” is one she was given by her Dad, my Papa, during this time that also helped her. It helped me too when I was struggling with depression in the late 90s. 

I was in a dark place. I cried almost every day. Yet it gave me hope, something to focus on, a promise that there would be a day when I’d feel normal again, even if that day didn’t feel like it would be today.

Hard times can be the making of us. Depression helped me to see what was going on in my life that needed to change. It was the seed that grew into who I am today, as a writer and speaker. It ushered me into resigning from a successful career as an R&D scientist and follow a path that was more meaningful for me.

As Christopher Robin told Pooh in Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think,” difficult times can force us to dig deep and find resources we didn’t know we possessed, but that were always there. 

Many of us become stronger in some important way after we come through a difficult time. 

No one in life is spared difficulties, even if we sometimes imagine other people have it easy. A seemingly easy set of physical circumstances for one person, envied by another, can mask a host of mental health challenges. 

I know that from experience. As humans, we adapt to things, even the seeming best of circumstances. Once we adapt, we want more, or something else that we think will help us feel happier.

I spent a week in India on a meditation retreat over 20 years ago. In one of the local villages we visited, I saw poverty I’d never known. Yet, I’d rarely seen kids happier as they kicked a flattened coca cola can around as a makeshift football. 

A child in dirty, tattered clothing threw his arms in the air in jubilation when he scored a goal by kicking the ‘ball’ through a gap between two small mounds of rubbish by the side of the road. It stuck in my mind the whole week. I’d been worrying about getting into more debt and it was keeping me up at night. I was as rich as a king to him.

He wouldn’t have been able to fathom why I was so stressed while having so much.

Of course, this is not to belittle anyone’s individual worries or circumstances. Whatever situations we face are valid for us because they’re set against the backdrop of circumstances we’ve always known.

Just sometimes, though, perspective can provide a little relief.

Some gratitude studies found that when asked to consider, “I’m glad I’m not…” instead of “I wish I was…” it had a positive impact on people’s happiness and overall satisfaction in life. “I wish I was…” actually made people more unhappy. In psychology, it’s known as an upward comparison.

Comparing what you have to what others don’t have, known as a downward comparison, on the other hand, encourages us to see our lives through the lens of perspective, offering us an alternative way to view things, to notice that our grass is a lot greener than we realised.

When my sisters and I complained as children at being forced to eat boiled potatoes, our Mum would remind us that there are starving children in the world who don’t have anything at all to eat. As a child, it was just words. I wanted chips because they had a taste. But in time, those words did get through to me and I learned to appreciate what I had rather than pine too much for what I didn’t.

It’s served me well to this day, although as some have pointed out, perhaps if I was a little less content to accept what I have and be a bit more goal oriented, then maybe I’d be more successful. Maybe. Maybe there’s middle ground somewhere that I’ve not yet found.

To me, success doesn’t always have to be measured by the yardstick of accomplishments in business, sports, or finance. Success to many is being able to find peace despite what is happening around them.

But regardless of our circumstances, difficult times can be the making of us. They can plant us deep. Very deep, sometimes. So deep it feels there’s no escape. But growth is inevitable.

This is not just a platitude, but an offering of a few extra words that might serve as a guiding light in the dark. It’s the nature of all things to change, to grow. Buddhists call it impermanence. Some things just need time. Some people just need time.

When Immaculée Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rawandan holocaust in 1994 found herself hiding in a tiny bathroom with several other women, she was terrified. Soon the terror turned to grief and then anger once she learned, from the celebratory songs of those doing the killing whom she could occasionally hear through the walls of the hidden bathroom, that her parents had been murdered. 

Realising she could not cope any longer, she turned to prayer. Her constant prayer became, “Please God, help me to forgive.”

When she and the other women finally got out and made a journey to safety, Immaculée was a completely different person to the one who entered that tiny room 91 days earlier. She was able to face one of the perpetrators, a teacher she had known all her life, and forgive him, and in the process find a previously unknown depth of peace in herself.

In her bestselling book, Left To Tell, she noted that sometimes in life there’s nothing at all you can do to change a situation. These are times where all you can do is change yourself. 

Sometimes, many times in fact, that’s the whole point.

There are times in life when we are planted, not buried, so that we can grow into beautiful flowers. During the growth period, we have to do what we can to cope, sometimes even to survive.

Sometimes we have to make our own light. Immaculée became the light she was searching for. 

I’ve found that if there are times when you don’t know what to do or which way to turn, try kindness. Being kind to others, despite how challenging things are for ourselves, even if it’s merely a silent prayer for the wellbeing of someone or for the ability or strength to forgive, makes us a source of light. And this light becomes our guide.

In life, we sometimes feel planted so deep that there’s nothing else we can do other than rearrange our thinking, our mindsets, the way we have determined our priorities or what’s important, or even so that we can find some meaning or purpose.

Once we make this change in ourselves, whatever it is, the world we experience begins to change around us.

Always planted. Never buried.

I believe that’s a good way to look at life. It’s a promise of something better when things are hard.

And who knows what version of you will emerge from the fertile soil of life.

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30 Comments

  1. Frank Brown on September 2, 2022 at 11:48 am

    Great words as always David & passed on to someone who needs to hear this

    • David Hamilton on September 2, 2022 at 11:57 am

      Thanks Frank. I hope it’s helpful to the person you pass it onto. 🙂

  2. Beth on September 2, 2022 at 11:58 am

    Love the mixture of references, the powerful quotes, ueful information and Soul! Thank you, Beth

  3. Nicky xx on September 2, 2022 at 1:12 pm

    Dear David. Thank you for this and all of your incredible insights. I find myself in a situation that could not have been predicted. I am so grateful to your for all that you offer.

    • David Hamilton on September 2, 2022 at 1:41 pm

      I hope you emerge from this situation a new, and shinier-on-the-inside, version of yourself. 🙂

      • Nicky on September 2, 2022 at 2:21 pm

        Thank you ☀️

  4. Carol on September 2, 2022 at 2:20 pm

    Thank you David for your wise and kind words.

  5. Dawn on September 2, 2022 at 3:20 pm

    Wow. You’ve influenced me for many years and I’d not read any of your emails for the last few. Today something made me open this one up. I love this idea, as a few months ago I felt I was buried to the point of not wanting to be here. A few months on and things are slowly getting better. I wish I’d read about the planted idea a few months back but this is a wonderful perspective. Thank you!

    • David Hamilton on September 2, 2022 at 3:27 pm

      I’m so pleased you opened this one, Dawn, and that it’s been so meaningful for you. Everything at the right time. Perhaps you wouldn’t have got so much meaning or motivation had you read it a few months ago. Maybe you were planted a bit too deep back then, but now you’re on the way up. 🙂

  6. Julie on September 2, 2022 at 7:31 pm

    Love love love ❤️❤️❤️

  7. Carlos Henrique do Carmo Janeca on September 2, 2022 at 9:41 pm

    Thank you, Dr David Hamilton, for such a beautiful subject. Actually, it was wonderful to read your reflections and how you shared with us your wisdom and important moments of life, in whose emotions, feelings and references to baggage of life’s difficulties we all see ourselves in one way or another.
    Gratitude! My best regards.

    • David Hamilton on September 5, 2022 at 2:24 pm

      Thanks so much for your kind words, Carlos. 🙂

  8. Anita Martin on September 3, 2022 at 6:19 am

    Your inspirational words continue to inspire me David and I’m always sharing them. I love the thought of being planted and always feel that our roots are like a tree which if we ground ourselves will mean we can be swayed in many directions but never fall over.
    Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom.

    • David Hamilton on September 5, 2022 at 2:23 pm

      Aw, thanks so much, Anita. 🙂 I love your analogy too about being grounded but able to sway in many directions.

  9. Charles Finnie on September 3, 2022 at 9:12 am

    David, this is super. I really like your thinking and the way you have widened the analogy. I’m going to use this as the basis of an exercise with my wife. Without revealing too much, we’ve been going through a fairly tough transition to a new way of living. It has been financially challenging, but also culturally more tricky than we were expecting. However, added to that, she has been going rhrough this with a badly deteriorated hip and her recent surgery has been a very long time coming. I think we’ve both been in the doldrums – lacking notivafion and energy. This article has already made me think of things differently and it could form the basis of a new approach to the future. Much gratitude.

    • David Hamilton on September 5, 2022 at 2:23 pm

      Thanks Charles. I hope it’s helpful for you and your wife and that you come through this difficult patch with a renewed sense of optimism and strength. 🙂

  10. Barbara on September 3, 2022 at 11:20 am

    Thank you David for your inspiring words. May you feel planted. I try to do the same

  11. Jayne Franz on September 5, 2022 at 9:50 am

    Just what I needed to read today David thank you. It has really resonated with me! Thank you for sharing1 Jayne x

    • David Hamilton on September 5, 2022 at 2:21 pm

      Thanks Jayne. I’m pleased it reached you at the right time. 🙂

  12. geraldine field on September 6, 2022 at 5:38 am

    Thank you David. Needed this today. X

  13. Adriene on October 27, 2022 at 8:54 am

    thank you so much I needed this so much today

    • David Hamilton on November 9, 2022 at 10:38 am

      I’m glad it reached you when it did, Adriene. 🙂

  14. Paul Denny on September 12, 2023 at 12:57 pm

    Thanks David. In the process of reading How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body and thought I’d have a look at your site. Those are beautiful words about being planted not buried. I’m going through a tough time with various long term pain and these words have opened up more positive thoughts in me. Thank you.

  15. Telkom University on December 21, 2023 at 5:42 am

    If you were to use the phrase “You’ve been planted” as a starting point for a story or a piece of art, what direction would you take it in? Greeting : Telkom University

  16. Donna on March 19, 2024 at 3:01 am

    That is so wise and helpful. Thank you

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