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My first encounter with stinging nettle occurred not long after I moved into my current home 15 years ago. After some initial interior and exterior improvement projects, my husband and I decided it would be ever so much fun to have a vegetable garden in the back yard. We'd both grown up with home gardens and thought it would be something rewarding we could do together.

The main barrier to getting our garden up and running was grass. And by grass, I mean a little grass and a lot of weeds. So, most of the early days of our gardening venture were spent breaking up and moving that top layer of grass and weeds, exposing the soil below until we had a garden-sized rectangle of dirt.

One such day, I was raking the dirt and picking out the weeds when suddenly it felt like my hand was attacked by an army of red ants. I didn't see any ants, but my hand was on fire, nonetheless. Confused, yet undaunted, I grabbed the weed I was working on and received even more stings. I dropped the weed, then picked it up with my rake to take a closer look.

It appeared innocent enough, but upon closer inspection, I could see rows of fine hairlike protrusions lining the edges of each leaf. Could this possibly be the culprit? In the absence of ants, it had to be, but what the heck was this evil weed?

I went inside, washed my hands, applied hydrocortisone cream to cool the fire and sat down to consult Dr. Google.

"What is a plant that makes it feel like you are being stung by fire ants?", I typed into the search bar.

The first response that popped up was a link to something called "stinging nettle", AKA "urtica dioica". This was it! I learned was a perennial plant (lovely!) known for its hollow hairlike threads which act as syringe delivering histamines and paralytics to its victims. I experienced the latter effect firsthand. A day or so after those initial sting, the affected areas became numb for a couple of days.

I learned that nettles have a long history of uses and are found worldwide. Their leaves are used for cooking, taste similar to spinach and lose their stinging properties when cooked. The flowers are used to make herbal tea. The plant has medicinal properties that promote lactation and inflammation (the good kind of inflammation).

Fun Facts: Since 1986 there has been an annual UK nettle eating competition to see how many raw leaves one can ingest before succumbing to the sting. And indigenous Ecuadorean tribes have used the plants to flog those unlucky enough to be convicted of serious crimes. I can relate to that final use quite well, although I swear, I'm innocent!

Now that I was aware of these lethal leaves of instant pain and regret, I was on the lookout for them. I did a grid search of the entire back yard, locating, digging up and disposing any of the nasty nettles with impunity. And although they are supposed to die back in the winter months, that's when I noticed them most prolifically. That's just another one of those Florida paradoxes, I guess.

My husband doesn't seem to understand my obsession with eradicating these perilous plants from the yard, but he also doesn't share my penchant for being barefoot at least 90% of my life. This wicked weed had become a barrier to me just walking merrily along in my own yard! I felt like I'd lost the carefree joy I'd had, walking barefoot in the grass, working the dirt with my bare hands.

I took to wearing gloves and shoes more, but my lawn and garden just didn't feel as comfortable, and I didn't feel as connected to this patch of earth I had grown to love.

Life can feel a little like this as well. You're moving through your day without a care in the world, until suddenly, you feel what I like to call "The Sting". You might call it a wakeup call or some other descriptor, but the bottom line is something breaks into our blissful state and demands our attention.

The Sting can take many forms. It can be a literal sting, such as my example with my garden nettles, but they can take endless other forms as well. You may relate to some of these stings:

• Relationship issues
• Health diagnosis
• Death
• Natural disaster
• Financial difficulties
• Family crisis
• Accident
• Legal woes
• Job loss

The Sting hurts. It stops you in your tracks and forces to you pay attention to what is hurting you and why and how to remedy the situation. Some stings are easily solved, and others change the entire trajectory of our lives.

What all stings have in common, however, is they force us to make a decision, to answer a simple, yet often complex question:

"What are you going to do about this?"

And while the variety of responses is as wide as the variety of stings, they generally fall into a few distinct categories.

• Ignore the sting and hope it resolves itself.
• Allow the sting to stop us in our tracks.
• Rage against the injustice of the sting.
• Go into overdrive mode to fix the sting.

You might recognize "fight, flight, freeze and fawn" in the examples above and also recognize them in stressful situations in your life. Maybe financial crisis resonates with you. Each month you review your income and expenses with a sense of dread as the numbers just don't seem to work. Bills are getting behind and the pressure to get blood out of a turnip is mounting. What do you do?

• Take to your bed with snacks, books and Netflix.
• Log off your banking site, close the spreadsheet, turn off the computer and hope for a miracle.
• Lash out at yourself and everyone around you.
• Feverishly implement a "rob Peter to pay Paul" solution.

None of these sounds like great solutions, although the first one would be appealing if I wasn't worrying in the back of my mind. As I think back to my original sting, the nettle, I evaluate my response. What did I do when faced with The Sting?

First of all, I abided by the "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." logic. After that second sting, I looked for information. That always seems to be one of my first responses. What is happening to me? Why is this happening?

When I learned what it was and why I was getting stung, I had my decision point. I wanted to finish my garden project, but I certainly didn't want to keep getting stung. I didn't run away and hide. I didn't overthink it or get angry (well, maybe just a bit). I made some adjustments to protect myself from future stings AND allow myself to keep moving forward.

For my literal stings, that looked like gloves, socks and shoes and a watchful eye. For stings of the heart, that might look like taking a pause to care for our wounded spirit, applying some emotional hydrocortisone, learning more about the pain we're experiencing. Taking steps to protect our tender heart, shielding it from further stings as we decide how/if to proceed.

We can't protect ourselves from all the stings in life, but we can learn which responses work best for us. Responses that allow us to cultivate the healthiest, most verdant emotional landscape possible.

In the pursuit,

Betsy

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