Summer is here, and I spend a lot of time in my beloved garden in the mountain. It is, in fact, a part of the mountain in Mont Tremblant, it is full of typical garden things, like flowers, plants, shrubs, ferns, slugs, and weeds. The weeds are a good thing as one of my favorite things to do in life and in my garden is to weed. Weeding is a time for just me, ( as no one else in my family shares my love of weeding), it is a time to be outside, in the fresh air, just me, my weeds and my thoughts.
As I care for my garden, I am keenly aware of how, I get to choose what goes in her, what water, what food, what plants go in and what plants (weeds) come out. In other words, it is my garden and I get to have it the way I want it to be.
It occurs to me over and over again, how similar life is to a garden. We get to choose, what kind of life we are going to have , what people are in it, what we eat, what we do, what stays and what goes. In other words, it is our life and we get to choose how we want it to be.
This brings me back to my thought for the day! Weeds! In my garden, I decide what stays and what goes. Dandelions, for example, are considered by many to be pesky weeds, by others nutritious salad greens and still by others a base for tasty pesto! ( I have in fact received dandelion pesto recipes this summer} I am not judging whether or not dandelions are weeds, I am saying you get to choose if you want them or not in your garden. The same exact thing applies to the weeds of our minds. The inner critic, the squirrel chatter, the doubt, the fear, all the mind weeds that keep us from the joy of life. I am sure you are familiar with your own inner voice, how it sounds, what it says. It is part of being human, I have it, my clients have it, we all have it. It might sound like ” I will never have enough money”, or “I will never find the right job, mate, house whatever”. Or it might show up as fear, of trying new things when what you want is a life of adventure. Maybe you are starting a new business, and your monkey mind starts ” I will never succeed, never earn a decent living.” You get the idea right?
Well here is the thing, these are just mind weeds. ( sometimes called limiting beliefs, lol). We can get rid of them just like unwanted weeds in our gardens. Here is how:
- Catch the belief. (mind weed)
- Delete the belief (mind weed)
- Reset the belief ( plant new flower)
- Stop and delete ( when the weed argues back, stop and delete again)
- Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Let me give you an example of how this works. One of my Life Coaching clients, a beautiful young woman named Helena, is talented, hard working, competent and caring. She is developing an online business helping others. In coaching, we are working on her “mind weeds” so that she can build her business successfully. Here is how it works.
- Mind weed says” You will never have enough clients or enough money” ( She catches the mind weed, she hears it, identifies it.)
2. She replaces the weed (belief) with a new one. ” I have plenty of clients and earn a great living.”
3. She deletes it. Kind of like when you delete an e-mail or a message, she pictures deleting it and poof it is gone.
4. When the mind weeds try to make a come back, with arguments, she stops them, deletes them.
5.Repeats this until the new belief takes root! ( sorry pun intended).
The next time you are feeling less than you want in the garden of your life, stop and see what mind weeds you can catch. Remember, it is your life you get to choose what stays and what goes.
As always, I hope this is helpful.
Coach Susy
I am a Life & Resilience Coach helping people to recover from adversity, discover their dreams and find the passion to live their best life! I can be reached at [email protected]