Most people are searching for more of something.
More wealth, more success, more social status. Underlying these drives are meanings; stories told.
If I just do this, then I can get that.
If I have this, then people will adore me.
If I follow these people, I’ll never be lonely.
This can be true, until it’s not.
These setbacks happen all the time, because these perspective lenses rely so fickly on physicality, and the whims of human relationship.
If you put all your faith in one person, what happens when they feel disgusted with what you have done?
Or when the way you are, emerges a childhood pain in them that makes them feel hatred, vengeance, or envy towards you?
In these moments, it’s best to have an inner compass.
An awareness of the soul within you; your core foundational aspect. To be able to sail the windy emotional seascapes and remain centred and grounded in who you are.
To know that sometimes their actions aren’t a reflection of you, or the fact that you lost physical things; a house, a job, a car, doesn’t make you inherently worthless.
When you can get to that point, you start to emerge into the space I want to talk about today.
Tending to the garden of your heart
To stay connected to soulful Self amongst the wonder, joy, turmoil and chaos of life.
To start tending to the inherent gifts and talents that you uniquely have.
Gifts from the Universe, from God, however you like to call that energy of higher power.
It may be music, or dance, or caligraphy. It may be architecture, systems thinking, social care, or something so specific that only your life experiences could converge on that passion.
I talked to one of my friends the other day whose passion is to map the sea floor more accurately using AI. I had no idea, and that’s the beauty of it.
Human beings are best when they are tending, gardening, cultivating.
A physiological state of being that is often dormant in the modern world, because we are all so stressed out, rushed off our feet, and we spend our downtime reading articles that are intellectually stimulating.
Not that I want you to stop doing that.
The intellect is a good slave, a poor master.
The ancient Chinese scholars talked this way because the intellect is a great discernment tool, but it needs something to discern. The body sends message up to the brain at four times the rate that the brain sends them down.
We are interconnected and effused with the body, despite the foundational philosophical underpinnings of our Western societies, that stipulated the mind and body are separate.
Lack of information for the intellect leads to over-extended stories, a feedback loop of mental chatter.
So how do we tend to the garden of our hearts?
The Soil
Tending the garden of the heart starts with the soil.
What makes up the conditions of the soil?
What nutrients are there?
What has your life been like? Emotionally, experientially, physically?
The composition — is it chalk, clay etc.
What are the reasons your life has been this way? The composite parts, what relational patterns do you have? What have you sought from life? What’s your ontology (the meaning system that you perceive life through)?
What do you believe you are worthy of?
The weather systems involved — where is it situated in the geography.
What circumstances has your life involved?
It’s easy to get stuck analysing this stage, and it is totally essential to understand. If you’re planting a seed in a hostile environment to that seed, it won’t grow.
And that’s the thing.
Every seed is different
Roses love mulch, and rich manure.
Cacti won’t grow in that, they love desert conditions.
These plants evolved in conditions, they need those conditions to thrive.
The Seed
Knowing what you want to cultivate in life is like knowing what seed you want to plant.
A spark of intuition often comes from the heart.
It is up to us to follow that spark with curiosity, exploration, openness and skilful cultivation.
Navigating the planting of a seed takes faith and care, and a knowledge that the right conditions are present so that the seed can survive.
Faith in the Process
After you’ve planted a seed in the Earth, there is a time where faith is required. It is not in your control if the seed survives. You have done your part to tend to the conditions to favour that seed, now you must wait.
An anxious mind would want to dig up the seed to see if it has rooted, an anxious mind destroys the bonds that the seed has made with the Earth.
No, you must wait patiently with faith.
This is superstition but I believe it to be true: if you send a seed love, it will grow. It is more likely anyway.
I heard a story of a mother who planted a rose when her child was born, and every day she tended to it, by the time her child was 18 it was a rose bush twice as tall as her. Her love for her child had bloomed.
In the opposite way, if you seed malice in your heart, all will be destroyed over time.
New Shoots
Sometimes when a new shoot has burst through the Earth, it is at its most vulnerable stage. When we are birthing new lives in ourselves, and they surface into the world, they will be open to scrutiny.
They may be vulnerable to attacks from people in your life who like the old you, who want the status quo to come back. They may even come up against self-doubt and self-judgments designed to endanger them.
There may be new people in your life, who you are excited to meet, but the trust relationship is new, and you’re not sure about it fully.
New shoots need strong and trusting spaces.
New shoots need the right conditions.
Make containers for your new shoots to thrive in.
Cultivating Next Stages
Once the new aspects of you are shining through, or the soulful self is integrated and connected through your heart and your discerning mind. You get to play with the next steps.
It is incredibly joyful to express yourself soulfully in the world.
And the intentionality of knowing that you’re authentically connected to who you are, and that will never change, can build so much self-trust and self-respect.
Just be careful to stay humble and always thank the higher power.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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