Your Mind Is A Garden That Only You Can Tend To

Perhaps you have heard this reference and it is a powerful image. There is no greater metaphor for the mind and our thoughts.

There is a quote by William Wordsworth that comes to mind

“Your mind is the garden, 

your thoughts are the seeds,

the harvest can either be flowers or weeds.”

Think of the subconscious mind as the soil in which you plant your garden. It offers a foundation for seeds to grow and take root, providing the plants with nutrients and water. It gives them a place to thrive. However, it also offers a wonderful place for weeds to flourish and multiply. The soil doesn’t discriminate; its purpose is to create and support plant life of all kinds—beautiful and ugly, bitter and sweet.

the conscious mind—is your everyday mind. It’s made up of the thoughts you have about the things you hear and see and ultimately do. In our garden analogy, your conscious mind would be like the seeds that you plant in your garden. Every thought you think is a seed.
A conscious thought which reappears often will eventually make its way into your subconscious mind, where it will grow into a permanent belief. When we plant a seed in our garden, it always grows into what the seed was meant to be. If you plant roses, you will reap roses. If you plant pansies, you will reap pansies.
And just like the seeds you plant in a garden, the thoughts you think also grow into what they are meant to be. If, for example, your thoughts are predominantly about scarcity, you will build permanent beliefs of scarcity into your mind at its deepest level. Do you think that might affect your life? You bet! Your outer reality will reflect your inner thoughts and beliefs with great precision.
Gardeners know that if they do not plant seeds of their choosing, their garden will grow seeds that blow in on the wind, such as dandelions and other weeds. In other words, the garden will grow into a wild, unrestrained, weed-filled mess. In the same way, when you allow your mind to think whatever thoughts blow into your mind, without checking and scrutinizing those thoughts, your mind will become a wild mess, and so will your outer world.

The mind naturally leans toward negative thoughts, and without your intervention, it will lead you to negativity.
So many people don’t make conscious choices when it comes to their thoughts. They allow their thoughts to run rampant, unchecked, and uncontrolled.

“An unattended mind can create havoc for you because your mind is amazingly receptive to whatever suggestions may be dropped into it. It has been said that the subconscious mind cannot take a joke. This simply means that whatever belief is introduced to it, it takes seriously as an instruction to grow that thought-seed into a full-blown plant–be it a rose or a weed, and it doesn’t care. Just like soil in a garden, it says, “yes” to all seeds planted, positive or otherwise. When you stop and consider how many thought-seeds are blown, dropped or purposefully planted in your mind on a daily basis, it may cause you to tend to your mental garden with a bit more regularity. In addition to all the seeds that were planted in your mind before you knew you even had one, as you listen to the radio, watch TV or even sit in a restaurant where others are talking, your mind hears it ALL, irrespective of whether you are conscious of it or not. Given what’s going on in our world today with all of the talk that comes from fear and anger, this is a vital point to grasp.” – Dennis Merritt Jones, D.D.

So, how can we cultivate our own garden?

We must be mindful. Be skillful in the seeds that you plant and in how you nurture them. Fleeting thoughts are like seeds blown in from a breeze.  They do not get planted, watered and nourished unless we chose to do so. When you repeat thoughts, you reinforce and reaffirm them and in turn, they grow stronger and deeper roots. They take up more space in your garden. But when you step back to observe and analyze your thoughts as they come, you can decide which you find beautiful and which you find destructive and you can choose to remove those that don’t serve you. You can encourage the growth of those you’d like to see more of.

It is your responsibility to seed and fertilize your inner garden with the plants you want, or it will seed itself with weeds. Remember, the subconscious mind does not discriminate between thoughts. It grows the seed that is planted, the thoughts you think and feed—irrespective of whether those seeds are helpful or harmful.
there is a significant penalty for neglecting your inner garden: a life not of your choosing.

“Your life is your garden; keep the weeds out because that is one way in which you can personally beautify our world. You owe that much to yourself and to those who receive the benefit of the seeds you drop along the way.” – Dennis Merritt Jones, D.D.

To start off, make a real effort to observe your thoughts and see exactly what it is that you’ve been planting in your mind garden. At first it will be quite difficult, but keep in mind that we are learning something new and any time you learn something new, practice is the only way. You don’t learn to speak a new language or play violin flawlessly overnight! It takes dedication and effort, but eventually it becomes second nature. You will begin to see the patterns in your thinking, recognizing the thoughts that repeatedly flash across your mind. These are the seeds that you are nourishing. Are they what you want them to be? Are they harming or helping you? As you become more and more aware of negative thoughts, you begin to consciously cultivate your garden, you choose to step in. Suddenly, you realize that you have more power than you ever imagined; You can say, “No. I will NOT plant this weed in my mind. I will consciously choose to plant something better.”

The results are truly spectacular and life-changing.

TO START YOU OFF:

MINDFULNESS PRACTICE FOR TODAY: Here is an exercise devised by Dennis Merritt Jones, D.D.

He says,

“Keep a journal for the next 24 hours. Make note of ALL the different thought-seeds that become obvious to you throughout the day. By this I mean repetitive or habitual thoughts, either positive of negative. Don’t judge what you find, simply write it down. At the end of the day, sit quietly and review your findings. If you discover thought-seeds that are growing beautiful experiences for you, see yourself planting even more of those seeds. If you notice any pattern of thinking from which “weeds” will grow or are currently growing, simply visualize yourself plucking the thought-weed from your mind and immediately plant a thought-seed that supports the idea of wholeness. You may have to do this any number of times, but it is your garden…and you are the only gardener who can tend to it.”