How good a gardener are you?
I enjoy gardening.
I used to have quite a large garden at one time and it brought me peace and joy as I tended its daily needs.
In the minutes and hours of being in the garden,
My thoughts were calm and tranquil as nothing else seemed to matter in the world at that time as I nurtured the plants lovingly.
Hello,
My name is Jacqueline.
Welcome to my Tranquil Spirits podcast.
In this episode,
I'm going to be comparing a physical garden with our mind.
Strange you may think,
But our mind is similar to a garden in a lot of ways.
Now if you don't have a physical garden to refer to as we journey along,
Just imagine any garden in your mind's eye.
Okay,
Are you ready?
Let's begin our journey.
How pretty is your garden?
As I think of my garden,
I see many different types of flowers of all different colours and sizes growing in harmony together.
None of them worrying about the flower next to them.
None of them comparing themselves to the flower over the way.
Each flower is growing and being the best they can be.
What are the flowers like in your garden?
As I look closer at my garden,
I make sure there are no weeds beginning to take root.
I'm not that keen on some of the weeds which can grow and therefore tend to my garden often to keep them from taking over and not giving the pretty flowers enough room to grow.
Do you allow the rogue weeds to grow in your garden?
Some people say forget me not so weeds,
But I like them.
Their tiny blue flowers bring happy memories to my mind.
Memories of talking with my nan as we looked at the pretty flowers in my parents' garden as we sat together having a lovely cup of tea.
Which flowers bring happy memories to your mind?
My garden is an extension of how I like to live my life,
With plenty of smiles,
Happiness and peace.
The flowers I plant bring me all of these things and weeds really have no place amongst them.
The majority of people choose to plant flowers,
Not weeds,
In their garden.
The weeds normally come when we forget to tend the flower beds,
When we allow our mind to move on to other things and we lose interest,
When we give up caring and paying attention to our flowers' needs.
Our mind is like a garden and our thoughts are the seeds.
Some are flowers and some are weeds and the attention we give to them make them grow.
We get to choose what seeds we plant in our mind's garden.
We have a mixture of seeds,
Positivity,
Love,
Abundance,
Plus seeds of negativity,
Fear and lack.
It's always our choice which seeds we plant.
Our mind garden is the same as a physical garden.
It needs daily care and attention,
Love and kindness,
Patience and understanding.
When we spend too much time trying to take care of everyone else's garden,
Our own garden suffers.
We can become overwhelmed and impatient as we lack time for ourselves.
By making time each day,
Even just 30 minutes or so,
To tend to our own needs of our mind garden,
We can find the joy and peace we need to then be of use to others in a much kinder and more patient way.
When we spend time comparing ourselves to other people or worrying that we don't have as much as our neighbour has,
We become ungrateful for all that we do have.
We become despondent and lose our self-confidence.
Our mind becomes overgrown with weeds so that our thoughts become irrational and non-productive.
When we work on making our mind garden beautiful,
By seeing the good we have in our lives,
By feeling the joy for other people's accomplishments,
We will attract other beautiful people into our lives.
So how do we know if the seeds in our mind garden are growing beautiful flowers or unwanted weeds?
We should check in with ourselves several times throughout each day to notice how we are feeling.
When we find ourselves feeling miserable,
Unhappy,
Sad or angry,
That's when we haven't been tending our mind garden carefully and our flowers are turning to weeds.
Without care and understanding,
We can allow our thoughts to become neglected and negativity quickly carries us away.
When we find ourselves feeling joy,
Happiness and excitement,
We know our mind garden is being cared for in the most loving way and our flowers are growing strong and beautiful.
We are always in control of our mind.
By owning our thoughts and deciding to do something about the negative ones,
We can live a better,
Healthier,
Much more loving life.
It only takes a few seconds to pull a weed from a flower bed and the more we keep removing the weeds and tidying up our garden,
The more we want to keep it looking that way.
It only takes a few seconds to change our thought from a negative to a positive and the more we focus on positive things,
Things we are grateful for in life,
The more we want to continue feeling this happiness inside of us.
So,
As I leave you today,
I want to ask you,
What seeds are you planting in your mind garden today?
Thanks very much for listening and I'll catch you again on another Tranquil Spirits podcast.
Bye for now.
