MM Ep 39: Greener Grass

We reflect on why the “greener grass” we admire often grows from burned ground and how real renewal follows loss, friction, and hard inner work. We share simple steps to tend scorched seasons so joy, hope, and mended ties can take root again.

• be the flame and the spark as a growth metaphor
• how fires start, scorch landscapes, and reset soil
• why greener fields often follow ash, not luck
• naming burnt ground as grief, anxiety, lies, rupture
• the slow work of watering, weeding, and reseeding
• building healthier ties through small, steady repair
• trading comparison for curiosity and local action
• choosing seasons over quick fixes to sustain change

https://aarondegler.com/

Transcript

Be The Flame Metaphor

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to a mindful moment. Thank you for taking a moment to join me. I was having a conversation this past week. We're talking about be the flame. And we're talking about the sparks that fly off a train as they go down the tracks. You know, if it's a dry field and the sparks spark off, they will catch the grass on fire. And as we're talking through it and about what it means to be a flame and everything about that, I thought about how the spark flies off the train. How the train is going along, it makes friction, it has a spark, it catches the grass on fire, and it burns the grass. And depending on how long it takes them to get the fire out, it might be a big amount of space that is burned. And we drive by those places all the time on the highway and go, ooh, that's burned. It's black, it's crispy, it just looks awful. All the trees are burned, all the grass is burned, everything is burned. And if we were to drive by it maybe a month, a few months later, maybe four or five months later, we'd notice that it's all green. Because after everything's burned, all the weeds are burned, the grass is burned, it rains, a little bit of grass grows, it rains some more, some more grass grows, and up comes the green grass, and we go, oh, look how pretty that green grass is. And we also often hear the term it's greener on the other side. And it means that it always looks better on the other side of the fence because the grass is greener, it looks better, it must be better over there. And as we're having this conversation, I thought about we always look about it, the grass is greener on the other side, but we never think about the burned ground that formed that greener grass. So many times we want that greener grass on the other side, but we don't ever want the burned ground. What does the burned ground mean? The burnt ground is could be a broken relationship. It could be depression, it could be anxiety, it could be a death, it could be lies that we've told ourselves. The green grass is the time we spent, the weeks, the months, the years we've spent watering the ground and working the soil and doing the internal work on ourselves to make that burnt ground begin to go away, to make new things grow, to make happiness grow, to make joy grow, to make mended relationships grow. And we have to work that hard, we have to work that land hard, we have to work ourselves internally hard for that green to begin to grow and what that looks like in our life. So never think that, oh, it's greener on the other side. It's greener on the other side of the fence. The grass is greener. Always remember it may be greener, but at one time that grass may have been burnt and crispy. And to get that green grass, to get that hope, that joy, that good marriage, that mended relationship, that family put back together, took months and years of hard work to make that all look so green again. So never underestimate that sometimes we want to jump over on the on the other side and play in that green grass and just, oh, it's better over here. But no, very seldom would we ever say, I want that burnt ground. I want to work hard on that burnt ground. We just want the green grass. We all have burnt ground, and my hope is, and my challenge is that if you have burnt ground, it will be green again. But it takes work, it takes effort to make that ground, that grass healthy and green again. So if you have burnt ground, don't give up hope. There is a greener pasture, a greener grass on the other side of your fence. Work it, be there, make it what it is, because we can't have the green grass sometimes without a little scorched ground. Thanks for joining me on this week's Mindful Moment. I look forward to seeing you right here next time on a Mindful Moment.