to prune or not to prune

Over Labor Day weekend, we visited my parents and I was surprised to see the state of their peach tree. The branches, heavy with too many peaches, were bent over and hung to the ground with the tops of their branches brushing against the grass. It was at once comical and tragic. We spent a good part of an afternoon picking the bad peaches off the trees but there was still a considerable amount of peaches weighing the boughs down. I tried persuading my mom to pick off more peaches, but she was reluctant to lose the peaches that looked more promising.

After doing some online research and getting advice from a friend who's grown peach trees, I learned that some preventative measures can be taken before a tree gets to this state:
1) Pruning: cutting and trimming branches and buds
2) Thinning: proactively and preventatively picking off peaches as they are growing to space them out more

If neither measure is taken, then the result is what you see with my parents' tree: a fruitful but useless (and tired...and nutrients depleted) tree.

I can relate to that peach tree. More often than not, I am so focused on being productive, on staying busy, on doing too much because I'm unwilling to let go of all the good things. The result is that I'm tired, cranky, feeling depleted and producing half-ass fruit. Without taking time to actively prune or thin in my life, I too can bear a lot of fruit but at the expense of my well-being. And the fruit produced is not as good had I pruned and thinned.

I'm currently reading Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud and it's been reinforcing these notions of pruning and thinning in my life.
"Pruning is a process of proactive endings." (Cloud) In his book, Cloud notes that pruning purposefully cuts off branches and buds that fall into these three categories:
1. Healthy buds or branches that are not the best ones
2. Sick branches that are not going to get well
3. Dead branches that are taking space needed for the healthy ones to thrive

Life is a series of seasons and rhythms - whether I like it or not, endings are a natural part of that. I can either proactively prepare for, consider, and even initiate endings, or I can be in denial or even fight against endings. But the endings will happen anyway - with or without me kicking and screaming all the way. I've lived too many seasons like this overburdened peach tree - with all the good intentions in the world but none of the decisive action required to prune and thin towards health and sustainability. So in turning over a new leaf (haha, pun intended), this is a season that I'm challenging myself to practice pruning - in obligations, commitments and relationships.

Do you prune? How do you feel about pruning?