By Dr Nikki Judge
Continuing with our sub-section on nurturing this week we will focus on three very important factors for both the summer gardener and the gardener of the soul: patience, kindness, and thinning. Each of these aspects of tending a garden of any type is integral to the garden’s success.
Patience (with ourselves, with others and with situations)
The hobby gardener knows that patience is required when working in their garden. In the physical garden the gardener has to show patience waiting for the right time to mulch, cultivate or weed. Through the exercise of patience the gardener knows their plants and what the needs of the plants are. The gardener learns the individual plants and can better tend them for it.
One of the things we forget to apply to ourselves a lot of the time is patience. In the Spiritual Garden of the Soul it is important that we apply patience to ourselves as well as granting it to others. Sometimes we need to exercise patience and give ourselves time to think something through, sometimes it is being patient with ourselves when we are learning a new skill, sometimes it is taking the time to really exercise patience and allow our plans time to come to fruition.
The final factor of patience we need to be aware of in our Spiritual Garden of the Soul and that is patience extending outside of ourselves: having patience with others and with situations outside of ourselves. We’ve all been there – that situation where there wasn’t a darn thing we could do but be patient and let it play out; that traffic jam we have no control over requires our patience as well. The soul that understands patience is truly blessed.
Kindness With Self (being kind may also mean being clinical)
The gardener knows when it is time to take a break and rest sore muscles, pacing themselves so that they are able to continue to care for their garden in the way they want to. In the Spiritual Garden of the Soul it is important that we are kind with ourselves. That is not to say that we should be turning away from the lessons we have earned for ourselves. Sometimes a clinical review is the kindness we need to extend to ourselves.
When something goes wrong in the garden the gardener gets very clinical and has a checklist to go through. Are there bugs? Are there molds? Is the soil ok? What about the water? Is there the right amount of light? When something goes wrong in our lives we should take the time to take a step back and, as best we can, remove the emotionality of the event and see why it happened. Did we miss warning signs? Where could we have made other choices? Were we dealing with people in an appropriate manner? By being a little clinical with ourselves we can, like the backyard gardener who learns tricks of how to care for the garden, we can find ways to keep the same issues from repeating in our lives.
Thinning (letting people in to different levels)
Out in the garden are lots of beets and carrots growing. The gardener makes sure to thin these plants at the appropriate time so that the plants have room to grow. Plants need appropriate space between each other to grow healthy and strong. While a nearly overgrown garden looks lush, it is the regulated garden that allows the light of the sun to more of the plant and allows for enough room for the plants to grow. The properly spaced garden normally bares larger and more vegetables.
In our Spiritual Garden of the Soul we may need to do some thinning in our lives. Sometimes we grow apart from friends, a little space from a neighbor or coworker would be a welcomed relief, there’s that family member that seems to be a walking talking ball of negativity. Or a myriad of other descriptions of people who just seem to be rubbing us the wrong way!
Think of personal energy as a bulls eye target. The innermost circle is us. The rest of the circles are the various levels of trust and connection we have with others. Those in our lives may ebb and flow as to whether they are closer or further from our center at one time or another; we can choose how close or how far we are keeping someone and how much we are allowing them to influence us.
Next week we’ll complete our subsection on Nurturing our Spiritual Garden of the Soul with a focus on weeding, choosing courses of actions, and pruning.
