Meditation on Gardening Our Thoughts, Because We Become What We Think

When you want to cook a great meal you use great ingredients, right?  Likewise, a good outfit is made of good clothes and a high quality home is formed by quality materials.  Along the same lines: If we want a fabulous life, we need to think wonderful thoughts, because we become what we think.  The problem is, whether we realize it or not the vast majority of our thoughts are repetitive and negative.  In “Eat. Pray. Love.” Elizabeth Gilbert writes: “You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.  This is a power you can cultivate.  If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind.  That’s the only thing you should be trying to control.”

I think a great metaphor for this practice is gardening.  Whether we realize it or not, when it comes to our thought lives we are ALL master gardeners.  We EACH have the power to pull our thought weeds, lovingly prune and heal our inner hurts, and nourish our positivity.  For example, for as long as I can remember I’ve been really competitive … and that could be an understatement.  For a good while now I’ve been recovering, and an essential part of this ongoing transformation is tending to my thought life by shifting from comparison to celebration.  When someone does “better” than me at something I am or want to be “good” at, the natural tendency for me is to compare, which either leaves me feeling less than or disliking the other person.  YET, when I notice these thoughts erupting, I’ve decided to practice changing them from comparing to celebrating, by choosing to rejoice over the other person’s success and smile at where I’m at without competing.

With this in mind, today I invite us to garden our thoughts like the master gardeners we EACH are by discarding the junk, kindly turning the hurts into health, and increasing the joy, positivity, and love.