How Does Your Garden Grow?

Happy first Friday of spring! It’s been a beautiful week here in the Northeast. 

When I think of spring, I think of spring cleaning and sprucing up my flower beds. It’s still a little early here to tackle the flower beds so I’ll wait about two more weeks before I start. But my tulips, daffodils and hyacinths are already blooming. As are the weeds! 

Somehow winter never seems to kill the weeds, and they always come back in full force. I’ve started pulling them because I don’t want the weeds to suffocate the blooming flowers or block the sunlight. I’ve learned that if I want to have a beautiful garden, I’ve got to pull them, dig them up at the roots, or spray them with pesticide when they’re too tall. I’ll admit that some weeds are beautiful, but not when they overtake the garden. (Secretly, I love dandelions when they turn to seeds and you can blow on them and watch them float through the air.) 

Being outside in nature is one of my favorite things. I find working in the dirt relaxing–the smell of the soil, the way it feels through my fingers, the worms crawling around, the birds singing in the trees. Tending my garden offers a quietness that gives me time to think, and it’s taught me many lessons about life. As I was pulling weeds this past week, I started reflecting: What am cultivating deep down inside of me? What are the weeds that I need to pull out? If I don’t take the time to cultivate my inner life, then the weeds will grow deeper, and deep roots are so hard to pull out. 

Our minds are like a garden: what we think about and reflect upon can become either a flower or a weed. Anger, fear, anxiety, negative thoughts, poor self-care, toxic relationships–all of these can become deep-rooted weeds that steal our joy. Cultivating kindness, truth, faith, trust, joy, happiness, awareness, a strong spiritual practice–these can create a full, colorful life. Weeds will continue to pop up in our lives, but like a garden that needs to be nurtured with good soil, food and sunlight, we have to constantly nurture the right thoughts, actions and relationships in our lives. 

Ask yourself: What kind of life do I want to live? Do I want to ignore the weeds and let them overtake the garden of my life, or do I want to cultivate a life that brings me joy and success?