By Dr Nikki Judge
The right garden is the one that is right for YOU!
The gardener now takes the time survey their garden. The garden has been properly planned and the soil is ready to receive the seeds that will soon be sprouting with bright green hope for a future harvest. The gardener now goes back to the earlier planning of deciding what to plant and finalizes mapping out what is going to be planted where. Each plant has a preference for full sun, partial, full shade, etc. and these genetic prerequisites dictate where the plants should go in the garden for the greatest success. But the gardener – having chosen the plants for the garden – is planting the garden that is right for them.
Choices
In our Spiritual Garden of the Soul it is time for you to begin making the choices that are right for you! As the gardener gets to choose their favorite veggies to plant, the spiritual gardener knows that we get to make choices that are right for us. Now this doesn’t mean we get to dispense with reality – as the gardener is constrained by the genetics of the seed so are we constrained by the reality of the physical world.
Imagine YOUR Spiritual Garden of the Soul. Do you prefer a formal garden like those around castles or is your garden more free form? Is it filled with roses (family)? Herbs (friends)? Veggies (good health)? A mix? What pleases you? What makes you comfortable (financial security/emotional security)? Do you prefer a rigid straight row structure or do you come close and call it good (where you don’t have to make many major choices/you feel confident making choices)? You can make it anything you want to be – it is YOUR garden!
Appreciate & Accept
In our Spiritual Garden of the Soul we want to plant it with those things that will bring us joy, challenge us, teach us, and allow us to experience the life we are living in a positive and uplifting way. In order to do that we have to be able to appreciate and accept that not everything is sunshine (happiness) and lollipops (good times); we each have our own rain (problems). Part of the purpose of the Spiritual Garden of the Soul is to help develop and grow a happy and fruitful life for ourselves…if we don’t do it just who is going to?
Decisions
Once the gardener has reviewed their garden plot, checked their earlier goals and selections, they are now ready to make the final decisions as to exactly what their garden is going to be. We have to make decisions about our Spiritual Garden of the Soul as well. We have to look at the choices we have found available for us and decide what we want to grow in our Spiritual Garden of the Soul. Remember…what you plant in your Spiritual Garden of the Soul is going to have a direct impact on your life so it is worth the effort to take the time to review choices and make decisions that make YOUR Spiritual Garden of the Soul the right garden because it is truly the one that is right for YOU!
Next week we will look at the second piece of our Planting phase – Timing, Location and Using the Right Tools.
