Do You Need Exclosure?

Exclosure KNPOn the tar road between Lower Sabie and Skukuza Camps in Kruger Park, there is a board explaining that parts of the veld across the Sabie River are fenced off to evaluate the impact various animal and environmental influences have on the ecosystems.  These long-term experiments will hopefully give researchers and conservationists some valuable data on how to protect and even promote the health and growth of the ecosystems in question, in future.  I love the out-of-the-box approach of this research!  Think about it: enclosure for protection is logical, but exclosure?  Well, why not?

THE word “exclosure” isn’t even in my dictionary!  The first time I read it on the board in the image, I confess that it conjured up scenes of old-fashioned chemists in their vintage laboratories cooking up some mysterious concoctions, to try out on some helpless patient lying comatose on a stretcher, with no witnesses or social media to broadcast the unfortunate outcomeSmile:-).

Do you also need a time of exclosure?  Are there friends, habits and maybe even places in your life that are bad for you?  If researchers were to impose a season of exclosure on you, would it benefit you to be removed from the company of friends who break you down, or influence you to make unhealthy choices?  Would exclosure keep you in places that are conducive to your safety and well-being, or out of places you frequent that jeopardise your freedom?  Perhaps exclosure would remove your access to bad habits and/ or substances that have become a coping mechanism, but could be destructive in most other ways?

As the weekend starts, consider this: – only you have the power to impose a season of exclosure on yourself.  You are the chief conservationist of your life – so what is stopping you from making healthier choices today for your own health and growth?  This morning, I am asking myself an even less palatable question: Am I a damaging influence over the life of someone else?  Are there people in my circle today that would benefit from exclusion from me this weekend, or for an even longer season?  A sobering thought indeed.

As I have grown older and hopefully a little wiser, I have had to review my theory that faulty people in my life simply need more of my love.  Over the past few years, I have realised that sometimes no amount of love and tolerance will “fix” a toxic relationship or influence in my life – sometimes it simply perpetuates the damage.  It is my forged-in-the-fire belief, that sometimes exclosure is the only viable option.  A time of being fenced off from that which is harmful – a time to reflect, revive and sometimes reform.  As with the experiments in Kruger – this does not mean there will be no fires – it simply means there will be a higher possibility of recovery – for me and maybe for others in my circle of influence.

So my question is this:  Do you have alien weeds (or aliens AND weeds!?) in your life that are inhibiting your health and growth?  Then perhaps you just need a little exclosureSmile:-).

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