Mindfulness: Pruning Your Spiritual Garden - Week #35 of The Awakening Journey

A spiritual garden is a metaphor for your spiritual journey. When pruned properly, it is a powerful tool to put in perspective the work that needs to be done in order for you to awaken your leadership.

My story

In 2017, I embarked on a vision quest on sacred grounds in New Mexico. It was quite an experience and included limited food and seven days of camping alone out in nature. As it was my 42nd birthday, a sacred number as I was told by my vision quest leader, I was challenged to come up with 42 words that resonated with who I am in the world. I made a list and wrote them in my journal. 

I then chose objects from nature that I imbued with these qualities. I then formed these objects into a shape that took on its own life. What resulted was a heart-shaped boundary from objects of nature imbued with my forty-two qualities. For example, some of the words were authentic, real, and present. 

And inside the heart-shaped object were all the things that matter most to me. For example, family, relationships, my future/higher self, and my purpose. 

Outside the garden “walls” were the things I would no longer tolerate in my life. Things like anxiety, fear, sarcasm, shame, victim, persecutor, rescuer, etc.

This was my spiritual garden and the beginning of my bringing conscious awareness to my spiritual garden.

This simple garden so profoundly transformed the way I operate in the world as a human being.

The impact of a spiritual garden

Though I left the objects I had imbued with my qualities back in New Mexico, when I returned home, I could feel that I was different, something had shifted inside of me. 

I purchased some poster board and markers and re-created my garden on paper and with words. This visual would serve as a powerful reminder for me for the next several years of exactly what my boundaries were and what I was allowing in my garden. 

Things were all of a sudden so very crystal clear: I was no longer accepting of the lack of authenticity in an important relationship in my life. I declared to that person exactly what I saw as our reality & exactly what I would no longer tolerate. I gave that person a choice to clean this up with me or we could move on from the relationship. 

Ultimately, this person attempted to resist the invitation, then attempted to clean it all up. It didn’t work because it wasn’t authentic - one of the stones of my garden walls. 

I moved on from this relationship and haven’t looked back.

A couple of reminders about your Spiritual Garden

1. You have a spiritual garden whether you are aware of it or not. 

2. It isn’t about making it wrong or bad. 

3. Just like a garden in nature, we are constantly pulling weeds and pruning to make way for healthy plants, flowers, trees, etc. Also, in a spiritual garden, it is constantly in need of your pruning to keep it healthy. 

We forget this critical piece of pruning. We have our boundaries, we have our garden, and we must constantly tend to it. Cultivate it and prune it. Bring Grace and Love to this process much as you would to any planting you would put outside that you want to thrive.

Who plants your garden?

You may not have planted this garden. You may have items inside your garden that were put there when you were growing up, by your parents, family members, or teachers. 

When I was creating and pruning my garden, one of the most powerful aha’s I had was that I was holding onto growths in my garden that weren’t even mine.  For instance, I noticed that a fierce drive to do, accomplish, achieve and succeed was in my garden. These very much resonated as being planted there by someone else in my life, a mentor from my younger life. 

You might look inside this garden and see that, whoa, even though it is important to you to be included by other people, this might be something that was more important to your mother or sister. And when you look deep inside, you see that it is not your own need for inclusion, but rather, a weed that has been allowed to grow unconsciously in your garden.  

Time to weed that out!

Weeding your garden

For me, once I got clear about what defined my garden, what was inside & what was outside, I was able to set strong fences around my garden and communicate with people in my life about what I would and would not let into my life.

The result has been healthier & happier relationships, clearer boundaries, and more success in my life. 

This week’s challenge

Write a list of words that describe you.

Draw your garden.

What are you allowing in your garden? Write it inside. 

What are you absolutely not allowing in? Write it outside your garden wall. Put an x in it.

Next, we will talk about Manifesting, in the meanwhile remember the present moment is where your best life happens.

With love, presence and gratitude,

Darla