We’ve all heard the suggestion of talking to your plants to help them grow. Sure, but have you ever listened to them-listened intently to their answers and requests? Listen to plants? What are you talking about?!
Everything has a vibration, a frequency, like a Universal song. I intended to “hear” what they say back to me. This is a notable change from my plant communication earlier in this lifetime. I used to say, “I have a brown thumb,” or “My house is the plant hospice where they come to spend their final months before they die!” I had become a serial plant killer! As a Lightworker, who works with healing energy, this does not need to be, right? Yikes! I either watered them too much or not enough; the latter because I would forget that I had plants! (I love my neuro-spicy brain!).
No more plants for me. That stance changed when I saw a plant labeled as “easy care.” I bought it with the goal of keeping it alive for 6 months. Fast forward, I had managed to keep it alive for over a year! This gave me a sliver of confidence that I could turn away from my career of being the grim reaper of plants, be reformed, and go on to live on the straight and narrow. I had a few more successes, and some “return to the Earth to be compost” attempts.
Last year, I was gifted two plants and bought two more. How to keep them alive and healthy? Instead of randomly guessing, I asked each plant, “Would you like some water? Do you need more water?” I waited for the “yes” or “no” feeling in my body. The same “yes” or “no” response that I have been relying on for decades for internal guidance, such as go/stay at this event; safe/not safe; feeling my emotions/their emotions.
I sat with a plant that I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. The leaves started doing yellow and brown stuff. I searched for the answer online and got great advice, like “You’re overwatering,” and the next paragraph tells me, “You may be underwatering.” Super helpful! So, I stopped trying to figure it out and started listening. Today, I was reminded that requesting consent is a universal imperative for all, and granting or denying consent is a universal right for all beings. (From Merriam-Webster, consent verb: to give assent or approval: agree. I also like the archaic meaning: to be in concord in opinion or sentiment.)
Our conversations have evolved. Conversation begins with consciously acknowledging my own Higher Consciousness and that same energy in the plant. The skill that is required is the ability to get a “yes” or a “no” answer in your body. Fortunately for us all, we are each connected to our Higher Self at all times, even if we have temporarily forgotten. Every single one of us has the ability to get a “yes” or “no” response in our own body from our own Higher Consciousness. This practice overrides the conditioned responses to programming that negates and, sometimes, violently opposes intuitive guidance and communication. Just as an art restorer gently cleans away layer after layer of grime, soot, and other layers of paint that were placed there to cover up the original painting, we can remove layers of the conditioning that, temporarily, blocks this connection to internal guidance.
Plant convo:
Me: (my) Higher Self, I am choosing my Higher Self to connect me to this plant. A: Yes.
Me: Hi! Do you need water today? A: Yes.
Me: Do you need something else? A: Yes. Me: I saw plant food today. Do you need that? A: Yes.
Here’s the consent change:
Me: Would you like me to cut off the browned parts? A: Yes. Me: This one? A: Yes. Me: This one? A: No. (Usually, I’d just be pulling stuff out or cutting stuff! All willy-nilly and whatnot! Now I’m getting consent to prune from a plant!)
Me: Do you mind that I gave you a name? A: neutral response. Me: Do you like the name I gave you? A: No, I prefer Peace.
Me: Ok, Peace! Me: Do you like living in this home with me? A: Yes. Me: What else would you like to tell me? A: Yes.
I sat with it, waiting for an answer, and then it dropped in. Me: Does the air conditioning hurt you? A: Yes. Uh oh. Good to know! She likes to be kept in the office where the window is open and no AC! “Peace” is on the mend. Our conversations led to me re-soiling, adding stuff, removing stuff. I did all of these things and felt good about our communication. I also did the Hawai’ian Ho’Oponopono prayer with my plants for all the unconscious mistakes I made with this living thing.
I did the same with my other plants. One plant communicated that it did not want its leaves to be physically touched, and it did not have or want a name at all! I was just all touching it’s leaves whenever I wanted, because I read that plants “like it,” and “I was trying to help.” Yeesh! Another “not asking for consent” act. I was just naming living things without asking for consent. Oooh, another “not asking for consent” act! I thought that I was “helping” it by giving it a name that I liked, so it would “know I cared.” Once again, good to know!
Now, I ask you to bring your attention to your thoughts about this, and where you feel it in your body. If the thought has crossed your mind, “It’s just a plant! What is the bfd?! I’ve got too many other things to do than give a crap what this plant wants! Grrr!” Maybe a thought like this passed through, “This is so annoying! Why does every little thing need to be such a big deal? I just gave a plant a cute name and touched it. I own it, so I have the right to touch it whenever I want! I paid for that! This is dumb! This is why I don’t listen to you people!” Good. Where do you feel it? Bringing awareness to a stressful thought and noticing where you are holding it is where the deep work begins. The thoughts were there, but we just paused and noticed it. It is simple, but not easy. If it were easy, we’d all be doing it already, and there would be no suffering!
Back to consent and listening to what is really being said. As children, we are taught “Don’t touch that. It’s not yours. Keep your hands to yourself!” This was very confusing, because the adults in my life would never ask if they could touch you. They just did. Just like what was done with them. I had learned that I didn’t need to ask if you wanted help because I was “trying to help.” The pattern I was shown, taught, and absorbed was to bust in, take over, work yourself ragged, and then deny that it was an inconvenience. Then, on the drive home, complain about everything and everyone. Being an empath, I was confused because I heard words and saw smiles, but felt their thinly veiled rage and absorbed it. Always shamed for “being so sensitive.” Being a girl, there was no chance of “not helping” like the boys. The adults’ public punishment was shaming, guilting, withdrawal of love, or a short but painful twisting arm pinch or under table kick. The cycle continued. Forced compliance with a side of “Take that look off your face or I’ll really give you something to cry about.” As I was growing up, if I said to someone, “No. I don’t want your help,” or “No, I don’t want that stranger (to me) to kiss me,” there was punishment- emotionally, mentally, and physically-for being “selfish”, “ungrateful”, and “embarrassing” them. I had unwittingly emotionally crushed the adult with my refusal of their “help,” or my bodily autonomy and request for reciprocal respect. I absorbed it all and believed I was responsible for their feelings, emotions, and resulting actions, because it was explicitly communicated to me that I was. Yes, there were also many memories of joy, support, and being told “I’m so proud of you!” Cue the roller coaster!
That was the confusing program from which I had learned consent and intent, and then had many painful lessons to change, grow, and heal from. When I intruded into your personal business without consent, I “was just trying to help.” Many years of healing later, I was continuing to unearth the stuck parts and recognized the compulsion. I realized that I had to help-I had to push past my internal flashing lights and sirens, as well as yours or else. Being conditioned to go beyond others’ boundaries and allowing others to cross mine* so they “wouldn’t be mad at me” or “not like me,” or say I was “selfish.” If I could see that you were going to “make a mistake,” and I didn’t “help” you, then it would be my fault. When I touched someone’s hair or sleeve without consent because “I wanted to feel if it was soft,” I assumed that “that’s how everyone does it,” because that’s how it was “always done” to everyone that I knew. When I stepped on someone’s boundary line or barreled right through it, I could feel the discord. When the other person (boundary break-ee) reset the boundary with me (boundary breaker), they were now the one that emotionally crushed me when they refused my help, advice, or touch. The number of times I ghosted people due to shame or guilt-or talked shit about them because they “exposed me” for what I said or did- I don’t even know the number, but the karmic slap backs were painful enough for me to keep going on this path. I am fortunate to be an empath, a neurodivergent empath, so there is no way I could not sense it or feel it. I knew it hurt them and me. I was in enough pain that the compulsive “had to” changed into a burning desire to remember what was real and not conditioned. I had to heal from being forced to ignore my own internal guidance. I had to heal my own boundaries and consent. I had to look at the two sides of the same archetypal coin- the bully and the coward-to accept that, when unhealed, I was both-just as much as “they” were. I had to break the cycle. I had to look at it, go deeper. I had to remember that I possess the courage. The courage to look at the shadow and remember the “yes” and the “no” in my heart/mind/body. I had to take the steps to walk away from what was familiar-even if it meant losing relationships/family/friends/jobs/offers- because the cost of acquiescing is way too high for me. The “yes” or “no” you feel in your body is you speaking to you. Maybe it’s the tightening of your chest or feeling of nausea when someone tries to push your boundary line back just a little, or rage that seems to come from nowhere. Your body’s response is your internal navigation in a world that disregards intuition.
Each one of us has two choices-Choice one: Keep the temporary pain of healing away by not looking at it, not amending it, not changing anything, replaying the same movie over and over which keeps the pain structure in place, keep looking for someone to blame/blame yourself, and pass it down to the next generation for continued suffering. Choice 1 is a seemingly endless cycle of pain that continues until someone breaks it. Choice 2. Do the deep work to clear what hurts self and others, in order to remember one’s Higher Self. You are the artist who chooses to restore yourself to the original. There is pain in this choice, too. For real. However, the pain of this choice is temporary, and brings joy, kindness, wonder, amazement, contentment, and love on the other side of it. Physical consent*, mental consent, emotional consent, and energy consent are vital to the healing process.
Let us end by coming back to the archaic definition of consent; to be in concord in sentiment (feeling). To be in concord with someone is to be in harmony-“hearts together.” This is the heart of energetic consent- in all interactions (human and nature). My Higher Self, Infinite Love Source Intelligence, in harmony with yours. Honoring energetic consent in all interactions is a powerful, healing leap to the next level of awareness of innate wholeness. I have been doing the deep work of removing those layers of pain for years of my life. It is challenging, but necessary, and so worth it! Can I do it 100% of the time? Not yet, but I’m a million miles down this road from where I started.
Lastly, I would like to congratulate myself-I just recently graduated from being a serial un-aliver of house plants. wink!
I am on this journey with you.
iIysm~Carolyn
#ConsentIsVital4Healing #Consent #RespectBoundaries #FYP #HealingConsent #ConsentIsAUniversalRight
P.S. I am booking clients for one-on-one assistance with this process of remembering your own Higher Self and abilities through Higher Self-guided writing and supported healing energy of Reiki and tarot. Contact me at True Love Abundance
*Note: Please seek immediate professional help if you are not safe. In the U.S., dial 9-1-1.
