We plant seeds everyday through thoughts, speech, and actions . The question is, what kind of seeds are you planting?
I’ve been in stages where my garden of life was muddy, gloomy, and perhaps even rotten. My mind was full of judgemental thoughts and my speech was really negative. It took people who loved me to tell me how I was being and a lot of self reflection to fully understand how I became that version of myself. And then it took a lot of work to clean it up and find a new way of being, but I’m so glad I did! The experience gave me a lot of compassion and understanding for others and also reinforced why meditation practices are important for a life of well-being.
Speaking from my own experiences, if you’re struggling with this, I would start with cleaning up your thoughts. I think that it’s more challenging to have a blossoming, colorful, kind state of mind and do or say mean things. On the other hand, I think it’s easy to do or say nice things, but on the inside be thinking unkind thoughts. So today, I’m offering a meditation practice that is intended to plant thoughts of love. Try it out for a week and please feel free to share your experience with me!
Meditation practice: planting seeds of love!
- Set aside a time to observe your thoughts. You can commit to doing this throughout the day or at a designated time/during a specific activity.
- Filter your thoughts through these three questions:
Is it kind?
Is it compassionate?
Is it joyful? - If it isn’t, decide to be done entertaining the thought immediately. You can even visualize throwing it in an imaginary trash can.
- Redirect yourself to think thoughts that bring life to you and others; think about the good things about that person or situation; count your blessings; reminisce on the kindness others have shown you.
I truly believe this practice is really important right now. I utilize it often, because it only takes one political article or some social media post that can have us spinning mentally. I’m not saying that we should ignore what is going on in our world or that we can’t hold tight to our beliefs. But if it’s our hope and goal to see a beautiful world, then we have to take accountability for how we are contributing. We have to be willing to sit with an idea, action, person… and not immediately jump to a negative conclusion. We have to think and speak words of life, not death!