Emotional Gardening

Amazing Actors.

Let's think about your thoughts... as Open Space.

Open Space in the world of the environment can mean a natural, undeveloped area of land allowed to grow as nature would have it be.

Think of your mind, with its tens of thousands of thoughts, as your Open Space.

So. What is growing there?

Wild, chaotic thoughts, climbing and growing toward the sun, choking out the less tended plants.... I mean thoughts?

Have you shorn all your thoughts to a nice steady 3 inch high level, seeing all you can see, and admiring the security and comfort?

Are you seeing the toxic plants?  The invasive species, the poison ivy, the plants that, quite honestly, need to be pulled or at least, pruned?

Are you allergic to anything growing there?

The untended brain. Is like open space where the world gets its way. Tangled with undergrowth, swampy in places, arid in others. 

If you absorb every news broadcast, every unkind remark tossed your way, every repeated story your mother told you, every casting director's discount of your talent, every critic's sharp jab as Your Truth...

This is what is growing, untended, in your brain.

And, my friends, unless and until you get in there and start tending to this Open Space in your brain, you will never feel quite right in your mind.  

Your life, on the surface, or in your posts, may be an endless sea of brilliance and good works.

But what matters is how you feel, and the results you want in your life.

An untended, unexamined thought does not just Go Away.

It grows.  Spreading roots far and wide underneath (your subconscious) and tethering the rest of your thoughts, even the ones you nurture, to this toxic grounding.

Getting coached, and learning how to Coach Yourself, will cleanse your mind of the toxic thoughts, teach your mind how to keep flushing them through your system and out, and allow you to evolve in your human journey.

This is not about (yes, have stretched this analogy to it's breaking point) just growing one kind of perfect flower.  

Not about Happy Thoughts.

Or Thought Switching.

Or Mantras.

True, some of the above could happen from time to time, if that works for you.

But fundamentally, this emotional gardening is about creating the life you want, and not just accepting what grows there.  Someone else's seeds.  The tree of beliefs you inherited from your culture, your faith, your schooling, your best friend, a book you read.

You decide what is serving you.

But please please please. Don't ignore your thoughts.

Remember, You Are Not Your Thoughts!

Your thoughts just come, many times unbidden, into your head.  Don't judge yourself for what you think.  

In fact, try to avoid judging yourself at all.  Not generally useful.

Just pull them out, several times a week (on the schedule that you work out would be great) and take a look at them.  Is this thought a problem for me?  What does it make me feel?  

And when I feel that emotion, what am I doing (or not doing) in my life?

Look at the results in your life.  Think about the goals you have (no matter the depth or breadth) and consider them in the context of Am I Moving Toward Them?

Here's your power.

It all starts with the thoughts in your head.

Let's maneuver back to the earth.  We are born (most of us) with the fertile possibilities of all humans.  Our brains work the same, with our prefrontal thinking and our primitive "run from the fire" survival brain. 

And Yes.  Sometimes.  Some dark days.  There is scorched earth.  

There are events, circumstances in our families, in our physical bodies, in our careers as performers, and in our global village, that shake our foundational beliefs.  This scorching spreads unchecked so that we have to reexamine every thought growing from this fertile brain.

Of what we Thought Our Lives Would Be.

Notice when One Thing Changes, our brain wants to immediately examine everything else.  Our primitive brain screams 'Danger!' 'Change!' and wants us to react as if it is a true emergency.

But like learning to flex and shape a muscle, the brain is magnificently responsive.  You can get coached, or learn how to coach yourself so that no single thought has power over your life if you don't choose it.

Because the scorching, which comes in every life, doesn't care how it spreads.  It just burns until it runs out of fuel, deadens its path so that everything has to start new. 

The only way to stop the scorch (which in emotional terms, is overwhelm, confusion) is  considered, intentional thought work.

These thoughts can serve as a firewall, a mighty thousands year old tree - your defense against panic.

Because you may not even realize that something you've been thinking in a pattern for years and years is not really something you chose.

You just accepted it.  Repeated the thoughts.  And it became a belief.

Untended thoughts, sprouting up all over and growing rampantly, shield the sun from the thoughts that could explode our lives in the best possible way.

The elements will shake the earth. (A divorce, a death, a virus, a show closes, you are fired, someone spits on you, your rent goes up, your partner cheats, you cheat.)

But, like the earth itself, your mind can reset.  You can choose what to think.  You can imagine the life, the garden, the outlooks and outcomes you desire.

And you can think your way there.

The callouses, the wrinkles from the sun and wisdom and smiles, the replanting, the seeds that are carried away by the wind, the aches from leaning over and doing the work that is tough (leaving someone, saying goodbye, asking for what you want through the fear, embracing discomfort, ending the people pleasing) are your statement to the world that your mind is worth tending.

The rewards are infinite.

The reward is your life, as you choose it to be.

 And.

Like the earth.  With climate change. There needs to be awareness.

That we don't have forever.

But the land you tend and give over to the future, will continue to give gifts to the next generation.

The arguments you don't have, the compassion you show, the stands you make because you like your reasons and aren't just adopting the current psychology, the love you birth, the work you offer up, the humans you help by understanding how your brain works and therefore how Their Brains Work.

That gift will continue on.