Have You Outgrown Your Flower Pot?

Have You Outgrown Your Flower Pot?

If so, you might be ready for your Terracotta Moment!

Have you ever repotted a plant? If you have, isn’t it a peculiar experience?

If you never have, here’s the gist.

First, you douse the original plant with water to loosen the soil. Next, you get a mini-shovel to poke around the inside edges of the pot, scraping withered root-fingers that grasp the Terracotta sides with all their remaining strength. Finally, for the last step, you reach in, scooping the plant by its buttocks and lift, presenting that plant to the new world like it’s a baby Simba. Or at least that’s what I do.

Here’s what I always find most fascinating about the repotting process. When I’m holding that plant in my palms, there’s such a contrast: on top, the plant is a vibrant leprechaun green. But underneath? It’s the opposite. The plant’s roots resemble a cacophonous clump of cobwebbed computer wires from the eighties. There’s little soil remaining. There was literally no room for growth in that pot.

The plant is stuck!

If you think about it, at times, can’t our souls resemble these plants? Especially if we’ve been in a particularly toxic environment. On the surface, would anyone notice there was something off with us?

Probably not.

We smile at all the right times.

We seem vibrant enough.

We’re not dying.

Our pictures on social media present a healthy narrative. Perhaps we’re even attractive and successful, strong and independent. But below the surface, we may be suffocating. Keeping that in mind, would you mind if I poke around to see if you’re ready for what I call a “Terracotta moment?”

Like the plant, have you honestly and authentically tried everything in your power to thrive, yet you can’t? Perhaps you’ve genuinely made the difficult, uncomfortable, and healthily decisions in faith, but over-and-over you’re confined to an unpleasant reality: the more you try to express the true-you, the more a concrete, orangey-brown Terracotta barrier is preventing you from further growth. Have you found that the more you press-in and authentically express your identity, the more you’re pushed back?

| Perhaps you’ve tried everything to flourish in your new identity.

| Perhaps you’ve extracted all the nutrients out of your ecosystem.

| Perhaps there really is no more room to grow in your present environment.

If you are being honest with yourself, is it possible that you’ve outgrown your flower pot?

If this is connecting, don’t be deterred. This is not a bad situation. You’re just stuck, and you’ve outgrown your flower pot. In other words, you may be primed for your Terracotta moment!

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor E. Frankl

I want you to take a moment to think of some of your current, comfy confines—your flower pots. If you’re the pen-and-paper type, write them out. It doesn’t matter whether these areas of your life seem cramped or you’ve got room to grow.

Think outside the box.

Most of the time we don’t even realize we have the power to change a situation until we realize the situation that we’re in. Flower pots are the activities you do, the people you’re around, or the city of which you reside. It can even be the video game you’re playing. Anything that gives or takes away energy is a potential flower pot.

Here are some potential flower pots:

| A friend / A family member / A community

| A social group / A church / A favorite restaurant

| A room / A house / A city / A state / A country

| A hobby / A video game / A website / An app

| A comfortable relationship / A comfortable workspace / A comfortable career

| A D-4 Co-Ed soccer team

Can’t taking a look at your current life situations get uncomfortable?

Further, when you eventually choose a flower pot that you’ve outgrown, Terracotta moments can get messy. In the process of transplantation, you’ll have soil and roots strewn all over the place. When you leave, your environment might not look the same either. It’s not like it as if a Terracotta moment takes, ‘ten seconds of bravery,’ and you’re done with it. No, there are real life consequences, usually in the form of relationships.

Because of that, you’ll often feel indebted.

Responsible.

Guilty.

As ecosystems of human beings are intertwined with you, others have been relying on you and you may have been relying on them. When you have a Terracotta moment, you may be accused of ‘changing,’ and their accusations may be…accurate. However, over time, you’ve also got to ask yourself, “Has this cozy, Terracotta flower pot that was once my source of growth now become my source of stagnation?”

Keeping this in mind, transplanting yourself isn’t a quick, band-aid rip to roots. It’s more of a slow, pulling bubble gum out of thick hair. Each root plucked may feel like you’re dying a slow death. But you’ve also got to reason that if you deny your Terracotta moment, won’t it feel like you’re dying a slow death anyway?

So now that you’ve taken a look at some of your flower pots, entertain these questions: “What is something that’s sucking the lifeblood of your soul? What’s something that you’ve invested faith in over-and-over, and instead of growing faith, it’s draining your faith dry? What’s something small, perhaps seemingly inconsequential, that’s poisoning your potential?”