Many perceived “emergencies” in our daily life and work are not real emergencies. We treat them as emergencies due to our preference to finish and to focus on more positive items. I have run into many seemingly urgent and unexpected obstacles which I did not have a solution for at the time. In the past, I would attach myself to a problem and tirelessly force its resolution. I have had a good success rate – one can not argue with persistence! However, that persistence may come at a very high mental and physical expense. The solution is not about working hard, rather knowing the urgency of an issue and the degree we put our focus and energy into it immediately. Some call it working smart.
Now, if I run into seemingly urgent, unexpected obstacles which I do not have a solution for, I ask myself, is it a real emergency? Can it wait an hour or two? If the answer is yes and I go back to the issue after a while, I either have a solution for it or somehow it has been resolved (consider user error, network outage …).
The bird in the poem below can be you or I in some aspect of our life. Sometimes by just sitting idle, observing and assessing our situation we can be more effective; otherwise, sometimes our exhaustion may force us to be quiet and idle waiting for resolution of our perceived emergency.
Bird in the Glass House
Have you heard the story of the bird
who flew into a house with many large windows?
A scary new environment
with clear views of open skies.
Confined, tight spaces are not part of his nature.
A person chases him and makes gestures
toward a door.
Bird trusts no one.
He can get out of this situation by himself!
He musters all his energy to force his way out.
Bird tries and tries to fly through the glass.
Each try brings more pain to his small body.
Panicked and out of breath Bird keeps trying.
Exhausted and hopeless
Bird collapses on the floor.
Giving up hope, Bird accepts his perceived demise.
The stranger holds the bird gently in her hand
taking him through the door outside.
She lays Bird gently in a small tree.
After a while
Bird flies in the open skies again.
Did you realize Bird’s exhaustion and subsequent letting go
was the key to his freedom?
What part of your life is similar to this bird’s story?
Do you believe that we create and sustain our own reality? Do you believe that subconsciously or consciously we choose what we experience in our life?
We may intellectually agree that we mostly create and sustain the reality that we choose to experience. When we focus on any idea with intense emotion, we allow it manifest in our reality. Motivated people who are focused have accomplished many seemingly impossible tasks. How can they accomplish what many consider impossible? Don’t they keep playing their desired outcome in their mind?
Let us take a look at our own focus on outcomes. Do we focus on our friend’s/mate’s desirable or undesirable attributes? Perhaps we are upset with our mate for not doing the “correct” things (more exercise, more help at home, etc). Perhaps whenever we see our mate we get a tape recorder playing in our head saying that he/she is not exercising or he/she is not helping at home. We may be frustrated at the situation and have decided not to say anything – since we have expressed our concern many times before. In such a situation, we actually re-affirm their behavior (perhaps subconsciously). Basically, what we pay attention to becomes our reality and then we wonder why the situation does not change.
There is something that we can do to help ourselves and others. We can focus on what we would like the current situation to turn into and consciously replay it in our head. Consider the difference between saying and replaying in our head: my spouse does not exercise (fact); versus I empower myself to help my spouse to reach her/his optimal health goals. The first statement, a fact, may have a tone of judgment (wrong/right) and the second statement, seemingly trivial, increases our awareness to support our spouse rather than just focusing on our spouse’s challenge. The second statement also opens the possibility that “our” way of helping our spouse may not be the only way (takes out the ego from this issue).
In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, it is important to focus on our desired result (outcome) rather than just focusing on the challenge.
What is the Outcome?
We co-create our reality.
Our words combined with
our feelings act as a decree.
A decree is accepted by our subconscious
and attracts experiences matching our decree.
Angry words stating
“I can’t” is a strong decree
which attracts experiences of helplessness and neediness.
We are all story tellers. We tell our stories from our own perspectives. Sometimes our stories can create empathy, sadness, anger or helplessness for ourselves and the listener.
I have met people who are passionate about their stories. One story that comes up many times is when somebody has done someone harm and the one harmed does not wish to see that person any more. Yet, the one who was harmed continuously talks about the person that they hate!
Sometimes we are so entangled in our emotional issues and our suffering that we may not see the most obvious solution. If we hate someone, why do we talk about them so much? If we do not want to see someone at all, why would we place them front and center (mentally or emotionally) by continuously talking about them? What is our outcome by talking about this person so much?
There may be many reasons for constantly talking about this person. Maybe we are grieving the emotional hurt. Maybe we are indirectly punishing our self, by not forgiving the other person (what is worse than remembering someone that you hate every minute of your life?). Maybe we just want to tell our story to get sympathy for ourselves. Maybe our story has defined who we are. Maybe …
In any event, we do not know what the intention of the story teller is. It is unproductive to guess their intention (they may not know either!). In such a situation, sometimes a simple question, “What would you like this hatred to turn into?”, may shift the focus of the story to a desirable outcome. A desirable statement of outcome can be, “I hate him and I choose to forgive him and to live my life with joy and peace.”
In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, it is important not only to state what a current situation is (there are weeds in my garden within), but state what we choose/wish to turn the current situation into (a beautiful flower bed in my garden within). The poem below conveys this concept further.
Turn Your Attention
Focusing on what has happened
may be a necessary part of our grieving and healing process.
Focusing for a long time
on our grief and hurt
may only reinforce what we are trying to move away from.
State and acknowledge what you
believe the truth of the situation is.
His/her action has hurt me.
Turn your attention toward what
you would like your current situation to turn into.
I forgive him/her and I choose to transform my hurt into
Do you ever feel overwhelmed or agitated? How do you reduce the impact of seemingly difficult challenges in your daily life?
I sometimes feel overwhelmed and agitated. When I meditate and energize myself in the morning, the likelihood of feeling overwhelmed or agitated reduces dramatically. I would like to share with you a very powerful technique that I use for at least 4 minutes every morning.
I lie down and relax by breathing in deeply, hold the air in my lungs for 2-3 seconds and exhale completely with a short pause before inhaling air again. After breathing this way for about a minute I feel completely relaxed. I then focus on my heart (emotion center) by physically touching my heart. I then recall all the kindness and blessings I have received from my creator, parents, friends, wife, children, strangers and even my pet. I visualize all the cells of my body bathed in the energy of gratitude and love.
This exercise amazingly changes my attitude, my focus and my body’s energy. With this new found energy and attitude I experience challenges at my work and in my life with ease. I invite you to experiment with this technique to find out how it may bring benefits for you.
In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, it is important to nurture our soul (soil) and body with the best form of nutrients (love and gratitude) to regularly create ease and joy in our daily experiences. The poem below conveys this concept further.
Bathing in Love and Gratitude
Focus on your breath
breath in, hold
breath out, hold.
Feel your peace and love.
Remember all the love and kindness
you received from
your creator, parents, friends, family and pets.
Soak and bathe your body in
gratitude and love.
Feel the sweet sensations and vibrations in your body.
As part of the New Year ritual, we welcome the new and say good-bye to the old that we are complete with. In order to effectively let go of what we no longer desire, we need to become aware of the impact old habits in our life.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve paid special attention to my internal chats and I’ve been surprised at some of the common phrases I have been using. I have noticed that during the day I repeat many times: “I do not want to do …” “It is going to be hard …“, be it making a phone call to a co-worker for his deliverable, looking for misplaced item at home, learning something new on the internet or going to the gym. I realized that I eventually do complete those tasks and my use of the phrase “I do not want to” and “It is hard …” sets up tension and an expectation of hardship in performing those tasks.
I have also realized that when I say, “It is going to be fun and easy …” my mood changes and the task at hand it is not as difficult as I was expecting it to be. My verbalization is most effective when I totally believe what I say without knowing how exactly it may happen.
In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, we need to use the tools that help us produce blooming gardens within with minimum pain and suffering. It is also necessary to update our gardening skills as we learn new techniques (more effective daily affirmations, etc).
If you too have been predicting hardship in your daily tasks, I invite you to join me in focusing on ease and fun for a week. Let’s replace the old phrases of “I do not want to …” or “it is going to be hard …” with “it’s going to be fun and easy” and “I choose to do it with ease and fun … ”. New affirmations with the feeling as if the task is already done (trust it is so), and the resulting smile will be magical. Give it a try; experience it first hand; Happy New Year!
It is Going to be Easy
Let go of the old unconscious affirmations and habits.
You know what I’m talking about:
It is going to be hard to go to work.
I do not want to make the phone call.
Today is going to suck.
Invite the new!
It is going to be easy and fun.
I choose that it will be fun and easy.
Today I will experience my miracles.
Welcome the new consciousness.
Let go of the old patterns.
Let go of the need to repeat old limiting stories.
One beautiful thing about our lives is that we have the opportunity to change limiting patterns which were inherited and/or taught by our parents to us.
Our parents have done their best to raise and teach us how to protect ourselves, especially for us to not experience their hurts or their parent’s hurts. Their teachings, in general, have helped us survive our childhood to adulthood. Most likely, our parents learned their survival techniques from their parents and have passed their knowledge to us.
In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, it is necessary to study the effectiveness of gardening techniques used in our garden within. In the midst of winter, we need to protect our flowers and shrubs in our garden within by keeping them warm and using protective cover (armor). In the spring and summer, we need to remove the protection for our shrubs and flowers within to flourish and thrive.
Perhaps our parent(s) did not show enough positive emotion toward us. Most likely, it was not personal or intentional to hurt us. It is highly likely that they did what they knew how to do to protect us and themselves – they loved us by showing us their secret techniques for survival. They taught us how to be tough so that no one could hurt us.
It is tempting to judge our parents for not letting us express our emotions as children, or to blame our lack of emotion on our upbringing. If we are aware of this dynamic in our family, then we already have the power to stop this cycle for ourselves now and our future generations. The key factor is to change ourselves and be a model for our children and parents by doing the uncomfortable. The poem below illustrates this concept further.
Hard Shell
Do not let the hard shell of your loved ones fool you.
Within the hard shell
a soft heart is residing.
The hard shell was necessary to protect their heart.
Our loved ones have survived due to
the protection of their hard shell.
They have survived,
but may have forgotten the identity of who they really are
and the potential(s) hidden within them.
With the hard shell
emotional hurts can be blocked.
Your parents may have trained you to be like them.
As a sign of their love
they taught you to protect yourself like
they protected themselves.
You may have a tough shell like they do
and you may resent it.
Perhaps, as a child,
expressing your emotions
was like walking on egg shells.
The hardest words for you may be
“I love you”
or
“I love myself”.
Saying, “I love you”
may be a sign of weakness in your family.
Saying, “I love you”
may create a fear of an expectation that
you are not able
to live up to.
Saying, ”I love you”
may create emotions within you that
you do not know how to cope with.
Do not allow yourself to be distracted
by their short falls.
It is your ego’s way of protecting itself.
Your ego may allow you to compromise,
letting you say the magic words
over the phone
with your eyes closed,
or via an email.
Start by doing something.
Intend to crack open the hard shell.
Crack open the hard shell with
“I love you”
“Thanks for being there for me”
and
“I understand.”
The hard shell is ready to be cracked open.
Use the magic words.
Hear the cracking sound of your own shell.
You have stopped perpetuating the hiding of your heart.
In May 2010, I attended a shamanic retreat in Hawaii which was lead by Wilbert Alix (for more info see http://www.trancedance.com/wilbertalix.do).I would like to share with you a glimpse of what I experienced in the class.
One of the activities I participated in during the retreat was a soul hunt.The concept of a soul hunt is that when we encounter a trauma, usually at an early age, a part of our soul departs to safety.As a result, we feel emptiness in ourselves that we fill with our ego.This is a great burden for our ego, whose primary responsibility is to report what it sees rather than interpret or be our guardian (imagine asking a five year old to protect you).Our ego will protect us not only from that trauma, but all the bad things that it thinks may hurt us.As part of the soul hunt, we need to kill that which protects us:our protector (ego), which then becomes a sacrifice to recover our lost soul in order to have a thriving soul and experience our Self again.
In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, it is sometimes necessary to trim the old branches of the trees in our garden within in order to strengthen and enhance the vitality of the trees for the longer term.
The soul hunt is a method used to overcome our past hurts and traumas and to expand our sense of self by connecting with the higher self.As the result of experiencing our higher self and the experience of a vast expansion within, the magnitude of our traumas shrink drastically relative to the expansion experienced.Experiencing and connecting with our higher self provides an awareness of vastness that is beyond our imagination (think of changing one’s perspective from close up to 20,000 feet).With such an expansion of consciousness, our traumas resemble a small pebble in a large ocean to us.The poem below describes my emotional state before, during and the day after the soul hunt.
Soul Hunt
Before the Soul Hunt
I am nervously counting down to tonight.
Two more hours left to the ceremony…
Tonight I feel I am going through a mini death.
Tonight I need to slay the ego part that
has been filling the vacant space
in my being
due to a soul part lost
for my own protection.
Ego’s job is finished.
My ego part needs to relinquish its responsibility.
Tonight I need to welcome that part of me that has been away for so long.
Tonight I am going to meet my higher self.
Tonight I will have a glimpse at the one that
many people face at time of death.
I feel the fear of the unknown in my gut.
I can taste my fear.
I am seeking an imminent death of my ego part.
The ritual of cleansing my body and wearing a white cloth
creates more churn in my stomach.
It makes it more real and serious.
I can feel the fear.It is strong.
It is like being sentenced to death
with only hours left to the execution.
The fear is the fear of death of part of my ego.
It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between “me” and my ego.
The part of my ego, my close friend,
has been my protector for many years.
I feel close to him.
He has done a great job protecting me.
I need to slay a part of him.
I am nervous to meet my higher self.
I feel closer to my ego than my higher self.
I feel anxious and nervous.
I must
and I will
go through this journey.
This is the right thing to do.
I need to sacrifice a part of my ego
to keep my soul alive.
During the Soul Hunt
It is perhaps fifteen minutes into the soul hunt.
I have asked my higher self to show itself in a form of an animal.
A beautiful, large, brown eye of a horse appears to me.
I heard a voice say,
“This is all BS.Just observe.”
The voice reminded me that all my apprehensions were due to illusions and
I just need to observe what is frightening me.
My breathing started becoming deeper and deeper.
I was breathing deeply with my entire body.
I felt a huge expansion inside my stomach.
I felt there was a Universe inside my stomach.
Feeling of expansion was tremendous.
I felt a sense of vastness,
much more than my physical body can hold.
Day After the Soul Hunt
I feel sad for the loss of my companion, my long time partner, my ego part.
I am also happy inside that I have re-connected to my soul part.
My sadness is a tribute to the relationship I had with part of my ego for so long.
My ego has protected me for so very long.
My ego part was an obstacle for allowing my soul to return from the void within.
Goodbye, my ego part.
Thanks for being with me for so long as a protector.
You served your purpose.
Do not worry about me.
I am now more than what I used to be.
I now have more courage.
I can grow through future challenges and traumas with more ease.
Dreams are one of the important tools mentioned in Tending to Your Garden Within that you can use to tend to your own garden within. Dreams are an aid to connect with Spirit, or higher Self, and utilize the messages received to know self, and to create a more beautiful garden within.
It is important that we document, understand, and honor our dreams.
Documenting a dream is as simple as writing down our dream as soon as we awaken.
Understanding our dreams may take time at first, until we get familiar with the meanings of the symbols in our dreams. Sometimes, to better understand a dream, I share my dreams in a dream group and listen to the feedback of the other group members who state their interpretation as “if it was their dream”. I then accept those potential meanings that resonate within me.
Honoring a dream is doing something meaningful to acknowledge and thank the Universe for the dream. It could be a reminder by your desk, displaying a picture of a flower that brings back a memory of the dream, or a call to your friend.
I had a dream some time ago which I would like to honor by sharing with you. I believe it has a message for every reader which highlights how our limiting thoughts and beliefs are holding us back in our own prisons.
Prison Guards
The prisoner enters the prison.
He does not know why he is going to prison;
he does not question it.
The entrance door is wide open;
there are no guards.
He thinks
the guards are surely somewhere watching
the entrance and the prisoners.
The prison is very crowded.
Everyone is trying to survive
and not upset the guards.
The prisoner has a good heart
and is helpful to others
in the prison.
The prisoner tries to make the best he can with his situation.
One day …
The prisoner, during a walk around the prison
has a new awareness.
He notices many prison cells with bars.
He notices many prisoners busy in their cells,
their cell door open.
The prisoner still does not see any prison guards.
He walks out of the prison and wanders in the street.
After a while
loud bells signal
it is time to go back to his cell.
Something inside the prisoner’s head tells him:
“Be a good model and go back to your cell,
do not make the guards upset.”
He walks back into the prison.
There are no signs of guards at the prison entrance.
If someone asks you what desserts you like the most, you can probably recite a list easily. If someone asks you what you cherish in life the most, after a little thinking, you will list some items such as health, family, friends, money or work. You may also list things that you love a great deal, but would hope to do more of, such as exercising, reading, laughing, writing, playing music, walking, etc.
In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, we cherish cultivating our most desired types of flowers and fruit trees in our garden within. It is very important that during the planting and growing seasons we remind ourselves many times of what we desire in our garden within, and perhaps ask ourselves if our efforts are toward those goals.
It is very important that we remind ourselves of what is important to us on a weekly or even daily basis. It is easy to be on cruise control and spend all our energy unconsciously on things that we do not consider essential (not on the list that we most cherish in life). It is important to keep our focus on the desserts in our life and not fill ourselves (expend our energy) on things that are not essential to our well being, growth and joy. The poem below illustrates how we may focus on the desserts in our daily life.
Dessert
Have you observed someone at dinner
waiting to order their favorite dessert?
Perhaps yes.
They are careful and conscious how much they eat,
be it the best steak or a hamburger,
an exotic mushroom dish or a veggie burger.
Their attention is on the end goal.
To have enough space left in their tummies for what they love:
Dessert
What are other desserts in our lives?
Perhaps it is our mate, children, friends, family, pets,
or even self.
Are we careful and conscious enough with what we do
so we have time (space) for the desserts
in our life?
Do we dissipate all our energy at work
so that there is nothing left for
our mate and family in the evening?
Do we give away so much of our energy to others
that our bodies are depleted and empty of vibrant energy?
Do we give so much of our attention to distracting things
that we forget what is really important to us?
What desserts do we want to experience today?
Will you have enough appetite (energy and attention)
One of the gardening tools used in Tending to Your Garden Within is mirroring. It is a mechanism to look at experiences in our daily lives and investigate their deeper meanings. Many times, what we feel and experience in the outside world has meanings for us inwardly, and can be used to know ourselves better.
A couple of months ago I met a very nice lady who was an associate minister at a local church. I then attended two programs outside the church setting which the lady also attended; but I did not recognize her. At the last meeting, during an informal conversation, she described her work as an associate minister; then I remembered. I was totally shocked that I was blind-sided by my expectation that an associate minister would not attend such a meeting; therefore I ignored my previous knowledge of knowing her due to my thought process and expectation.
This experience made me think about an important issue. What other things do we “not see” when it does not fit our expectation? What are our beliefs doing to limit our “seeing” what is out there? What if our belief in happiness is limited? What if our belief about prosperity is limited? What if our beliefs are limiting our experience of what is really out there?
Mental Trap
Look in the mirror.
Observe a man
like you and me.
The man is educated and logical.
The man is searching everywhere.
He has a common mental trap.
The mental trap says
prosperity has a golden color and special sparkles.
To quench his thirst for prosperity
the man only looks for something golden.
The mental trap says
love has a certain logo.
To quench his thirst
the man only looks for a certain logo
he cannot see anything else.
The mental trap says
angels and guides can only have wings.
To get connected
the man only looks for something with a wing.
The mental trap says
God has a white beard and a deep voice.
To quench his thirst for God
the man only looks for someone
with a white beard and a deep voice.
The man may be exhausted.
The man may not be joyful.
The man may be frustrated and disappointed.
The man has eyes but does not fully utilize his eyes.
The man has ears but does not fully utilize his hearing.
The man is trapped by his mind and expectation of his beliefs.
Dreams are messages from our personal, collective, and/or the Divine subconscious to us. Personal dream messages that we receive may not initially be clear and sometimes may require practice to develop insight in understanding them. This is perhaps due to the encryption of messages (use of symbols) by the Divine to by-pass our ego’s filtering mechanism which is blinded to other realms of reality.
Dreams are one of the important tools mentioned in Tending to Your Garden Within that you can use to tend to your own garden within. It is an aid to connect with Spirit or higher Self and utilize the messages received to know self, and to create a more beautiful garden within.
It is important that we document, understand, and honor our dreams.
Documenting a dream is as simple as writing down our dream as soon as soon as we awaken.
Understanding our dreams may take time at first, until we get familiar with the meaning of the symbols in our dreams. Sometimes, to better understand a dream, I share my dreams in a dream group and listen to the feedback of other group members as “if it was their dream”. I then accept those potential meanings that resonant within me.
Honoring a dream is doing something meaningful to acknowledge and thank the Universe for the dream. It could be a reminder by your desk, displaying a picture of a flower that brings back a memory of the dream, or a call to your friend.
I had a dream several months ago which I would like to honor by sharing with you. I believe it has a message for every reader.
Light Up the World
Light matches with your heart.
Even though
a match may not have much light.
Light matches with your love.
Make the world a little brighter.
Light matches with your heart.
Light matches with your soul.
Sooner or later a spark will ignite something combustive.
See the swift moving fireball
surfing over the big body of water.
Be the source of fantastic fireballs
engulfing unstable structures
built on fear and greed.
We have made it to the end of another year. This time of the year is typically used for goal setting and projecting our positive energy forward. It is also a time to let go of things that are not needed and to create an environment to welcome new things that will serve us in the upcoming year.
In the gardening within metaphor it is pruning time
(http://tend-to-gardenwithin.blogspot.com/2009/12/tending-to-garden-within.html). It is a time to pause and reflect on our fruit trees within and focus on those fruit trees and flowers that we truly enjoy and benefit from. Also, it is a time to acknowledge, honor and prune the branches of those fruit trees, bushes and flowers that have served us well or need to develop deeper roots.
One metaphor for the rocks, which impact the growth of fruit trees and flowers in our garden within, is our beliefs and thoughts. Our thoughts manifest themselves in many ways in the physical form. One form of manifestation of our thoughts is the objects we attach ourselves to due to many factors such as fear and insecurity. We can sometimes follow our attachments to these objects to find out the source of the thoughts and beliefs that drive those attachments.
How do we find out what thoughts and beliefs do not serve us any purpose and therefore we can let go of? How can we prune our thoughts and beliefs like we do a tree?
Perhaps we need to observe our invisible attachments to objects. One example of observing our invisible attachments is to look at our closets, garage, photo albums, or desk drawers. We may find many things that we have not used in many years but cannot let go of them. We may justify holding on to these objects based on a perceived future need or lack of time to organize.
We need the book we have not read in 30 years. We need the dress that does not fit us and we haven’t worn in 10 years. We need the picture of our childhood friend that we have had for 30 years but have not taken the time to give a call. We need the exercise machine that we have not used in five years.
Why not actively use the objects that we think are still valuable, or extend their life by giving them to someone who may receive immediate benefit from them? Why not provide intangible (get conscious control of thoughts) and tangible benefits to ourselves by loosening our attachments to unneeded items? What are the invisible thoughts and beliefs behind resisting letting go of those attachments?
Perhaps it is the comfort of the old things that we can recognize and relate to. Perhaps those objects still have not provided us what we need and we are hoping someday they meet our needs. Perhaps somehow these attachments define who we are. Perhaps we do not want to consciously choose what is important to us. Perhaps we do not want to accept that things have changed, or that we are getting older. Perhaps we do not trust our judgment and prefer someone make the decision for us.
If we believe that we should not fail in anything, then we may resist letting go of the old exercise machine. Letting go of the exercise machine may signal to us that our goal of getting healthier did not succeed (the voice says you failed again). This by itself creates an uneasy feeling that we may not want to deal with. Instead of moving forward with a new way to reach our goal, we hold on to a symbol that we tried to be healthy or may try the same approach again when there is time. Of course another way of looking at this issue is to understand why that equipment was not suitable for us, learn from our selection process, and make a better decision next time instead of allowing fear of “failure” freeze us in time and space. It is also important that we get rid of the exercise machine and make physical and energetic space for something else that will help us in reaching our goal of getting healthier.
If we are raised to feel guilty for being wasteful or rejecting someone’s gift, we may not let go of gifts or even our own purchased items that we do not use. We resist letting go, or getting rid of things because we do not want to deal with the voice of guilt in our head. Or sometimes, simply because we don’t want to deal with the feelings and emotions that are stirred up if we were to let something go.
If we do not want to admit that our body, taste or style has changed in 20 years then we may hold on to old clothing. We hope that perhaps one day we will magically fit in the clothing, or we hope to look youthful again, and believe that our taste will be the same. Resistance to letting go of the clothing may be the denial and fear of our natural aging process, lack of comfort with ourselves, or resisting change and the natural process of life.
How can you start to think about letting go? Make a list of objects that you have not used or enjoyed for a long time, but feel you cannot let go of them. Write down, without judgment, the belief/thought sources that are causing the attachments as they come to you.
You may really be surprised at what you may find out. You may have to plan closure with many issues from the past as the result. You may realize that you want to cherish or honor some neglected objects more.
You may visit many beliefs and thoughts while doing this exercise. Do you still believe in those thoughts? Do they still work for you? Can you prune some of these thoughts and beliefs that you no longer need? Can you thank the objects, thoughts and beliefs for serving you and let go of them?
I am author of a book, Tend to Your Garden Within, in which I have documented my
thoughts, emotions, and inspiration, through poems and short articles to hopefully help with your personal journey.
I am committed to sharing my experiences to help you in taking your personal journey to know self and experience more joy.
