Lesson 7 // Nurturing the Garden
RE LEARN
Before you begin: let’s take a few deep, grounding breaths. Place one hand on your heart and the other on your stomach, close your eyes, breathe in deep, hold, direct your awareness to your heart, and release. Repeat until you feel centered and relaxed.
Based on the nature of your thoughts, it may feel as though you are at war with yourself. It certainly feels this way when the voice in our head is telling self-deprecating, limiting, or negative stories. It doesn't have to be or stay this way. We can use our thoughts to keep watering ourselves, to keep ourselves growing. Throughout this workshop, we have discussed perspectives, practices, and tools we can establish and use to continually shift our state of mind and our mindset. We can end the internal war by befriending ourselves and acting in alignment with our inner knowing, our unique path, and our vision for our lives. Because when our thoughts, words, actions, habits, and character are all aligned in this direction, it becomes our destiny.
Instead of being at war with our thoughts and our mind, we can be a team, working together to pull out the weeds of closed, limiting thinking and plant more flowers. We are the captain of this team; it's up to us to fuel our team with the nutrients it needs to perform its best, especially on the days when we feel even more challenged to do so. When we master our minds, we are able to use them as tools for our own purpose instead of being enslaved by them. Mastery is the result of continued practice, trial and error, awareness, space, gentleness, and continually going within and watering ourselves.
Remaining connected with our hearts and our internal guidance is essential. When we practice awareness, pausing, and opening, we can be sure to align our mind with our heart, our actions with our internal guidance. Through consistent reflection and practice, we cultivate a heart-centered mindset, a mindset aligned with and empowered by our heart and internal guidance. You - your inner knowing, your internal guidance, that voice deep inside of you - is one of your greatest assets. When listen to this voice and knowing and we are aware, open, and optimistic, we are connected to the vast, limitless potential within ourselves and throughout our lives.
Thus, the key is consistency - consistently nurturing the garden of our minds, and in doing so, the garden of possibility for our lives and the world. As we remain attuned to the micro and macro adjustments being called for from within, knowing the voice and queues of our inner guidance, we take action that nourishes us to flourish. It's not even as big and overwhelming as it might sound. That's because it all comes down to our small, daily actions.
The more we break it down to the micro level and micro adjustments, the less overwhelming the task at hand is. Thus, we nourish our mind by actively setting and resetting it throughout the day with deliberate tools and practices that meet our needs for that day and season of our lives. With our consistent awareness, and pauses, we choose what we set our mind to. The previous lessons taught us ways to set our mind in the most productive, peaceful, and empowering place. In doing so, we can be more present and less caught up throughout the day; we can deeply enjoy life, in the present moment, with its inevitable ups and downs. With a mindset that is our own choosing, there is nothing we cannot face and overcome.
To grow a garden in our mind instead of weeds is an active, daily practice, and so, it begins each morning when we wake up and continues throughout the day when difficulties arise. On the days we lack motivation, we use our discipline as a way to give ourselves what we need, knowing that on these days, we need our daily practice even more.
1. Gratitude:
There are many thoughts that may flutter into your mind as you open your eyes. Actively make one of those thoughts a thought of gratitude. There are many things you may be grateful for, one obvious one is: I am grateful I woke up, that I’ve been given another day to live. You can go a step further and set intentions for the day by saying, "today is going to be a good day (or the best day)!" And just give yourself some space to allow those feelings to sink in and energize you.
Beginning your day with gratitude sets the tone for your day. How can you take the day for granted if you consciously acknowledge how grateful you are to have another day to live? Something as simple and small as expressing gratitude and setting an intention for the day fuels us to move through the day with excitement, openness, gratitude, and eagerness to make the most of the day in the direction of our choosing. This is a small, daily action that reverberates and empowers our active role in our day.
As you move through your day, if things start to feel chaotic or overwhelming, remember your gratitude from the morning (or express gratitude regarding your present moment) and let it fill you with the perspective granted by appreciation. By aligning your attitude with gratitude and optimism, it aligns you with the truth that - it's not so much what we look at, as it is what we see.
2. Positive affirmations:
After you say your gratitude, use affirmations to fill yourself up and actively and intentionally exercise your muscles of openness and optimism and connect with your heart and inner guidance.
Having a list of affirmations somewhere you can easily access them (in your notebook) or memorizing a few that really empower you allows you to actively set the tone for your day in the direction of your choosing. This empowers your centeredness and perspective throughout the day, regardless of what may arise. Furthermore, each morning we repeat these affirmations, we are reaffirming our alignment to them, solidifying them as part of our mindset and experience.
Repeat your affirmations out loud as you visualize and feel them energizing you with what you are affirming. You can also look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and say them. This is a powerful way to feel like you are lifting yourself up and that you are on your team rather than fighting against yourself. If you notice you’re struggling with a specific detrimental thought or belief, come up with an affirmation in the moment to counter it.
You can carry your affirmations with you throughout the day and utilize them whenever you feel yourself closing. Doing so allows us to keep going, to be the captain and cheerleader of our team.
3. Moving through the day with Awareness:
As we discussed, awareness is the first step in cultivating our mindset. Whether it’s strengthening our awareness through the practices offered with each RE DO throughout the workshop or simply (and importantly) noticing the nature of our thoughts and speech, bringing awareness to these things throughout the day is empowering.
It is our awareness that provides insight, gives us space to pause, and allows us to reposition ourselves throughout the day in alignment with openness to nurture not only our garden, but everything we do and everyone we cross paths with.
4. Taking a pause:
With this heightened awareness it may become apparent that there are external sources of negativity in our lives as well as internal ones. Anything outside of ourselves and our actions is out of our control. We can control our actions and responses, such as who we follow on social media, the news we choose to consume, and the people we choose to spend time with. Simply notice and take inventory of the external sources of negativity in your life. When you experience negativity, how does it make you feel? Does it make you want to continue to allow negativity to live inside of you and disturb your inner peace or does it empower you to continue cultivating your inner sanctuary and shifting away from all sources of negativity within and around yourself? How can you make a game out of these experiences, challenging yourself to respond differently and see a lesson to be learned each time?
When your awareness brings you face to face with thoughts, beliefs, or patterns that no longer serve you, pause. Take some deep breaths to center yourself, refrain from reacting, and instead, invite yourself to see things through a new lens - one of objective honesty, compassion, and curiosity (this could be for yourself or someone else). If you’re not ready to look through that new lens, just giving yourself space and time to sit with it is enough. From here you can recalibrate your response in accordance with the openness that results from your introspection. Pausing allows us to put enough time and space between what happened and how we act so that we can see things with a clear perspective and respond instead of reacting out of habit or unconscious patterns and beliefs.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” - Viktor Frankl
5. Explore & Open:
As you move through your day, present and aware, taking pauses as you notice yourself about to react rather than respond or making unconscious, mindless decisions and actions, take a moment to explore what's going on in your mind and body. Allow yourself to explore, feel, and understand what you’re experiencing. Ask yourself those inquisitive questions:
What else can I see about this situation?
Based on my awareness and reflection, what changes with that thinking, narrative, and perspective as it shifts towards openness?
Use those insights to guide you to open in that situation; and then shift to openness. Feel the release as you choose to open. Use your presence, awareness, and pauses to remain open and present throughout the day. Respond and act differently when your awareness indicates a pattern surfacing that no longer serves you or those around you.
6. Movement:
Movement is a gift we give our bodies that helps us connect with ourselves in our bodies. It also is a gift to elevate our mood. Our bodies are not meant to be sedentary for so many hours of the day. Treat yourself to a daily walk outside, start your day dancing through your morning routine to your favourite music, stretch, try new forms of movement, and do whatever form of movement that feels good to you.
Making it a point to have a form of movement for the day releases chemicals that make you feel good and nourishes your well-being, which will help as you balance and rebalance your mind throughout the day.
7. Gratitude:
Ending the day with gratitude is a great way to reflect on the day and see good in whatever happened. Again, it’s not what we look at, but what we see - challenge yourself to see good, to see a lesson. Some days it’s easier than others, but there are always at least two things we can find from our day to be grateful for. When we shift our perspective and attitude to empower gratitude, we witness our world open up to us and expand in every direction. We witness how blessed and abundant with miracles our lives truly are.
It’s also a great way to put the day down and let it go. Tomorrow is a new day, full of new opportunities, and new discoveries. Processing the day as you need allows you to leave yesterday to yesterday so that you can be present and open to all that today has to offer!
*A note on rest: As we grow increasingly more present and conscious in each moment of our lives, we may feel as though we need more rest. We may simply be more mindful and aware of our bodies’ communicating to us their need for rest that has always been there. Whatever it is, be sure to make space for stillness, without stimulation, to get the necessary rest throughout your day. Rest is productive; it keeps us from burning out and supports our well-being and work as we nourish the garden of our minds.
REFLECT
Answer the following questions in your notebook, a piece of paper, or record yourself talking through your answers on your phone and read over or listen to your answers when you’re done.
Dig Deep. Be honest. Be compassionate. Be objective. Take responsibility and accountability. It is of no help for us to be judgmental of ourselves or direct blame elsewhere. You got this!
1. When is it hard for me to "befriend" myself? How do I put myself down, limit myself, talk to myself in ways I wouldn't speak to anyone else? When am I a friend to myself? When is it easy for me to "befriend" myself? How can I nurture my friendship with myself more? Why will this positively impact my experiences, relationships, and life?
2. How connected am I to my heart and internal guidance? Do I check in with them constantly or do I wait until the pings of my heart/internal guidance become sirens that I can no longer ignore? When has it hurt me to not listen to and act in alignment with my inner guidance? When have I benefited from listening to and acting in alignment with my inner guidance? Do I balance logic and my inner guidance? When could I call on logic more? When could I call on my inner guidance more?
3. When and how do I struggle with consistency? When am I too loose with holding myself accountable and remaining consistent? When am I too tight? How can consistency, discipline, and compassion help me to find the middle balance?
4. How can seeing each moment throughout the day as an opportunity to practice my active, daily nurturing of my mindset, awareness, and openness shift how I move through the day? What do I need to do more to support this? What do I need to do less to support this?
5. Which of the seven practices (morning gratitude, affirmations, awareness, pausing, exploring & opening, movement, and evening gratitude) do I feel most drawn to practice? What do I need more of in my day? Why is it important and impactful to practice these things throughout the day? How will I (and those around me) benefit?
6. How do I tend to describe my day, my feelings, and my experiences (negatively, positively)? How might practicing awareness and openness throughout my day shift this?
7. What are the negative influences in my life? (Remember we are as much ourselves as we are the sum of the 5 people we spend the most time with! You have every right to decide who has access to your energy.) What boundaries do I need to set and honour throughout my day in order to feed my well-being and evolution?
RE DO
Morning & Evening Routine (and Practices)
First take a moment to consider:
What are my habits when I wake up in the morning? Do I honour that space and time for how important it is in setting the tone of my day, my attitude, and my mind? What do I do in the morning that feeds gratitude, positivity, awareness, and openness? What do I do in the morning that undermines those things, the foundation for a strong center throughout the day no matter which way the wind blows?
What are my habits in the evening before going to bed? Do I honour that space and time for how important it is to process and end my day and come home to myself? What do I do in the evenings that feeds gratitude, connecting with myself, awareness, and reflection? What do I do in the evening that undermines those things, my foundation?
Now let's do something different!
(Write down the following in your notebook to bring with you into your PM & AM routines, so you don't need to check back here with what to do)
Tonight, wind down and get cozy in bed at a reasonable hour to set you up for a restorative night's rest:
1. Leave your phone (computer, tablet, etc.) in your bathroom or another room (or in a drawer... out of sight, out of mind) so you're not tempted to interrupt this vital you-time. (If you need an alarm, make arrangements so that you can still hear it and you will have enough time to move through your morning with ease and peace without the interruption of your phone – remember, solutions, not excuses.)
2. Express the two things you’re grateful for that happened today. You can start a list in your journal where you'll write them down for the entire month.
3. Write out a list of positive affirmations that you can say in the morning that make you feel empowered. If there is a quote that you think reading in the morning will help set your day up well, write that there too! Let these come from your heart, from what you're welcoming into your life, what you feel you need more of.
4. Connect with yourself before falling asleep. This is your time to put the day down, however you might need to, to write and reflect (what made today great? what could I have done better?), to connect back to yourself, to imagine and dream, and to drift off into a restorative sleep.
5. If you find you have trouble falling asleep (some factors you might find are relieved by the routine above such as anxiety - as a result of journaling and reflection helping put it all down for the night or no longer being on technology before bed - the light disrupts our sleep rhythm): do a body scan. Starting at your head, with your eyes, your ears, your nose, and your jaw, imagine, feel, and release tension as you envision sleep washing over each nook and cranny of your body as you move all the way down to your toes.
*Note: be honest with yourself about the balance you need with your technology. Everyone is different. As Prince reminded us in 1999, “It's cool to use the computer, don't let the computer use you.” Some of us need to be more tight with this during our routines as we establish healthy boundaries, others already have a balance between themselves and their technology. You can also re-empower your technology as a tool that works for you by listening to different frequencies during this time! You can find these in our Spotify playlist Presence or on our Pinterest board Watch. There are 9 different Solfeggio frequencies you can listen to that serve different purposes - enjoy and explore which resonate most with you each day.
When you wake up:
1. Take a few deep breaths. Don’t be in a rush! Maybe even remind yourself, "there is no rush." This moment is the only moment you're in - live it fully, be present for it.
2. Express your gratitude. State your intention for the day.
3. Take a few moments to connect back with your body and stretch, feel the life pulse into your feet, your legs, your stomach, your heart, your arms, your fingers, your head, behind your eyes, your ears.
4. If you’ve placed something by your bed to read - go ahead and read it slowly, savor every word, and take it to heart. Allow its meaning to fill you with meaning and purpose to move throughout your day with.
5. Say your affirmations out loud. You can sit on the floor or in front of the mirror, whatever resonates for you. If you have a meditation practice or would like to begin one, this is a great time to do so (hint: you’ve done a meditation exercise with our “thinking” practice. you don’t even need an app - just use your breath and repeat that practice).
6. Pour yourself a glass of water, bring it outside, and take in the new day. Connecting with nature is a great way to feel good and start the day. Practice distant looking - all day we look at the things right in front of us, our phones, our computers, books, etc. (in a way, this closes us off to all that expands beyond) so start your morning by looking out, observe the trees, the horizon, the sun, the clouds. This helps us feed openness and nurture an open perspective to all we encounter throughout the day. (Practicing distant looking at the end of the day or at night is a great way to, again, reconnect with this calming perspective.)
*Most importantly, give yourself at least 30 minutes before you check your phone. If you want to play music in the morning, change your notification settings so that they aren't tempting you to check them. Setting boundaries that work for you is so important. This time is sacred. It’s setting your energy, mindset, and foundation for the day. What is really more important? What can’t wait until after that?
By building a foundation of intention, gratitude, positive affirmations, and connection within, you are setting yourself up to move through the day with this solid foundation. (Whereas if we start our day by reaching for our phone, we are immediately taking in what everyone else has to say, we are at the will of everyone else rather than empowering ourselves to start our day with a solid foundation in ourselves.)
As you move through the day, implementing the seven practices (morning gratitude, affirmations, awareness, pausing, exploring & opening, movement, and evening gratitude) you've decided to utilize, make note (in your notebook or on your phone) of what's working and why, how it makes you feel. This can help solidify these practices as consistent ways to nourish and support your well-being, especially when you feel yourself slipping off them.
If you find you're really struggling with your thoughts and negative self-talk, try keeping a thought journal – write down your thoughts throughout the day. At the end of the day you will have an objective representation of your thoughts, you can notice patterns, triggers, etc. As you look over your thoughts, get curious, ask yourself, “Is this the environment I truly want my head to be in? What do I need to feed to shift these thoughts? What is at the root of these thoughts? Where do they come from?”
Nurturing a garden is the result of intention, presence, and conscious living. Take those pauses to check-in with yourself throughout the day, no matter how small a decision or action might seem, to ask yourself if this is really what you want, strengthens your intention and conscious actions. From maintaining the health of your body by choosing nourishing food for energy and movement to keep to engine running smoothly to spending less time on your phone and more time in your physical reality, use your awareness to notice, be compassionate and honest about what's working and what's not, and act in alignment with what you know.
At the end of the day: reflect on how you felt having a day full of intention and awareness.
Determine what worked, what didn’t work so well, make adjustments for tomorrow and continue to establish and evolve a solid morning and evening routine that nurtures your foundation within.
Here are some brilliant reflection questions from Brad Falchuk you can ask yourself as you lay in bed at the end of the day:
Have I contracted or expanded because of my thoughts and actions today?
Has my family contracted or expanded because of my thoughts and actions today?
Has my community contracted or expanded because of my thoughts and actions today?
Has the world and humanity contracted or expanded because of my thoughts and actions today?
"The secret to your future is hidden in your daily routine." - Mike Murdock
Don't forget: consistency is key.
In Your Day-to-Day
Mastering your mindset is the result of continually nurturing the garden in your mind with your practices, when you need them and when it feels like smooth sailing
Use the 7 practices (morning gratitude, affirmations, awareness, pausing, exploring & opening, movement, and evening gratitude) and be open to new practices to actively nourish your mind and well-being, setting and resetting it throughout the day
Just as in RE DO, establish a morning and evening routine for your well-being to take full ownership of the essential, active role you play in your life, presence, and intentionality
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle; use your awareness and be decisive about what you do (and think), empowering your well-being and evolution with aligned actions and thoughts and weeding out what antagonizes you
