Treasure or Weed?

Hi! New here? Welcome to the Uplifters! I'm Aransas Savas. I've spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching. On The Uplifters Podcast, we share diverse stories of women who have found something beautiful on the other side of the hard stuff. Despite self-doubt and fear (and honestly, who doesn't have those?), they've done big, brave things anyway, and show us how we can too!

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We moved to this house early last winter, inheriting a yard that had clearly been lovingly tended by someone who knew what they were doing—someone with vision. But she moved on to her next chapter without passing along what was “good” and “bad”. There were some clues, but it was mostly a guessing game, and honestly, one that felt pretty high stakes. What if I tossed a bunch of precious flowers? Oh, the regret I’d feel! But, what if I let the weeds take over? What do I nurture? What do I wiggle out at the root?

Living into our values and purpose feels a lot like this inherited garden, doesn't it? We grow up with all these stories that feel like truth—handed down from our neighbors and families, absorbed from books and movies, growing like seeds we never meant to plant. Even when they rub against us like a pebble in our shoe, we repeat them and pass them along, quietly wrestling with their weight.

Until one day, we interrogate them.

I borrowed that word—interrogate—from my last two podcast guests, and it's really the perfect word, isn’t it? We finally shine a bright light on these inherited beliefs, look them square in the eyes, and if we're brave enough, we say: "Oh, that's not my truth. Those were just words. Who do I want to be?"

Sarah Gormley

, whom you met in last week's episode, did exactly this kind of garden work. All those old stories whispering success means being a good girl, making lots of money, getting lots of big jobs, but you'll never be good enough, successful enough, pretty enough—she dragged them into the light, challenged them one by one, and discovered what they really were: weeds. Other people's stories masquerading as her own, just waiting to be rooted out (with a decade of therapy for a trowel).

It's probably no coincidence that our next featured Uplifter,

Deesha Philyaw

, did similar excavation work for the characters in her award-winning collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Every woman in those stories pokes at a secret expectation, questions the rules about who and how to be, and does her own careful weeding between what serves and what strangles.

Last month, I started a little experiment. Every time I caught myself thinking I should or I can't because, I got curious: Where did this belief take root? Is this voice even mine? Some turned out to be treasures—values I'd chosen and wanted to keep cultivating. Others? Insipid weeds, growing wild and choking out the good stuff.

Seasons of clearing make room for what wants to grow.

Here's what I'm wondering about, and maybe you are too:

What stories are you carrying that aren't actually yours to tend? The ones about what success should look like, how much you should give, what dreams are "realistic" for someone like you?

What treasures might be waiting to bloom if you cleared some space? Those whispered longings, that project you keep putting off, that boundary you've been meaning to set?

What would happen if you trusted your own sense of what belongs and what doesn't? Your inner gardener knows more than you think.

XO,

Aransas

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Catch Sarah Gormley's full conversation about rewriting old stories here, and stay tuned for Deesha Philyaw's episode dropping next week—it's going to be a beautiful exploration of finding freedom in our own narratives.

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