Declining The Call To Harden Your Heart 2:Tending Its Garden

Hey y'all.

This is part two of my Declining the Call to Harden Your Heart series.

In the previous meditation,

We worked together to decline the call,

That familiar call,

To harden our hearts when life gets tough,

When we feel betrayal or things just get hard.

Hard beyond our imagination.

Today we continue that journey,

Keeping our hearts soft and open as we enter the gardens of our hearts.

This garden is a strange and sacred place,

But it is where forgiveness takes root.

This space reflects your heart space.

This reflects your inner emotional world.

This is a space for forgiving yourself.

Most importantly,

Again,

But also for forgiving those who have harmed,

Abandoned,

Or neglected you.

And this isn't the kind of forgiveness that will absolve them of those wrongdoings.

This is the kind of forgiveness that clears out the gardens of your heart,

To make room for new growth where old people have taken root,

Where old trash has been left behind.

There are times when folks come into our lives,

They mishandle our hearts and leave us feeling so torn apart.

Their actions leave us clouded in our thoughts,

Judgments,

And actions.

And it makes sense.

Our nervous system gets out of whack when we've been hurt,

When we've been traumatized.

And it can feel like pollution has been left inside of us.

We can feel so unfamiliar in our bodies.

We can stop hoping for things that God promised us so long ago.

We can stop dreaming dreams that we know hold the key to our greatest desires.

Our wildest dreams and our deepest hopes.

So today we are going to do the work of clearing out the things that no longer serve us.

This moment is for you.

So allow space to leave your things that you need to handle behind.

Trust yourself that you'll come back and handle them after this meditation.

This is really important.

It is really important that you examine these things that have not served you for a long time.

So let's take a deep breath in.

Inhale for three seconds.

For three,

Two,

One.

Now hold your breath for one,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Now exhale for one,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

And six.

Very good.

Let's do that one more time.

Inhale for three seconds.

Breathing in three,

Two,

One.

Hold your breath for four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Now exhale for six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

And one.

Allow yourself to get comfortable.

If you need to adjust yourself at any point during this meditation,

Feel free to do so.

You must prioritize your comfort.

Or as meditation instructor David G.

Says,

Comfort is king.

We're here doing beautiful,

Important,

But hard work.

So make sure that your body is supported throughout this process.

Take another deep breath in.

And I want you to start letting the picture of a lush backyard garden come into your mind.

Let the entire space fill out around you.

Notice the trees,

The type of flowers that are planted,

Even the wildflowers that are growing.

Notice the fence.

Is it a metal fence?

Is it a privacy fence?

What kind of fence secures the borders of your garden?

Imagine it in great detail.

Maybe you see plots of vegetables and fruit growing.

Maybe some of your favorite animals,

If you like animals,

Are peacefully roaming in your garden.

Not bothering your fruit,

Just their existing.

This is the garden of your heart,

And it belongs entirely to you.

Take a moment to really see the breathtaking landscape around you.

And know that all this beauty you see has been inside you forever,

And it's never left you.

Notice how vibrant the flowers are,

How their colors pop in the sunlight.

You see purples and blinks and blues and oranges and yellows.

You see plump vegetables,

Cucumbers,

Tomatoes,

Beautiful fruit that you don't even know the name of,

But you know it's good.

Feel the warmth of the sun touching your skin as you move throughout your garden.

And as it does,

Your shoulders begin to drop.

You take another deep breath,

And tension begins to flow out of your body.

Bring in the warmth of the sun and let it loosen any tightness inside of you.

This garden is here to hold you,

To restore you,

To bring you peace,

To be a place of escape.

This garden is hidden under God's wing.

This garden is protected by angelic forces.

But sometimes we let things in.

It's okay if some areas of this garden feel messy or overgrown.

If there are parts of your heart that you haven't been tending to,

Or parts of your heart that have felt too big or too heavy to hold,

There's no judgment here.

This is where forgiveness begins.

I want you to whisper this affirmation to these neglected areas of your heart.

Say,

No matter how much I have neglected these parts of myself,

No matter how much I have not seen them,

I see them now.

I embrace them now.

I love them now.

I forgive myself for the ways I have let other people's neglect cause me to neglect the most sacred,

The most beautiful,

The most God-inspired,

The most God-reflective parts of myself.

Notice that even beyond the areas of overgrowth,

Even beyond the good fruit that is in your garden,

There are some other areas that need your attention and your attention.

I want you to continue walking through the garden and notice any other areas that need tending to.

Any weeds that need to be pulled or leaves to be cleared away.

Let these weeds represent old hurts,

Grudges,

Fears,

Outdated beliefs.

Let these weeds and these leaves represent all of the things that have been on your heart for so long that you want to clear away.

Give them a name.

Give them a meaning.

And watch yourself fill up a trash bag with those weeds,

With those leaves,

Clearing them away.

Take your time or go as fast as you want,

But be gentle when you're pulling them up.

You might also notice pieces of trash that have found their way into your garden.

Old receipts,

Old love letters,

Old ideas that came from places of fear.

You see so much trash,

Words that hurt,

That stayed in your heart.

It's time to pick it up.

It's time to throw it away.

Let this trash represent outdated beliefs you've inherited from painful experiences.

These beliefs have not served you and will not serve you moving forward.

Old beliefs that tell you you are inadequate,

That you need to be something other than what you are in order to earn love.

In order to be loved,

You don't need to earn love.

Maybe these beliefs are things that you have never spoken aloud,

That you've never shared with anybody that you struggle with.

But you've repeated them quietly to yourself.

You've repeated them to yourself in the mirror.

I want you to throw them away.

Take your time throwing this trash away.

You don't need to rush,

But be intentional.

As you clear this trash away,

Clear the leaves away,

Remember to support yourself with deep breaths,

Breathing deep into your belly.

Supporting yourself with breath,

Transforming yourself with breath.

Once you've cleared what no longer belongs,

I want you to picture yourself now holding seeds.

These are the seeds that you will plant in your garden to help you forgive.

With as much clearing as you just did,

Now we need to replace it with some good things.

We'll start by planting seeds of peace.

I want you to drop a seed of peace into a little plot that was prepared for you ahead of time.

This seed can look however you want it to look.

It can be vibrant,

Dull,

Brown,

Earth colored,

Earth tone,

Sky blue.

But this is your seed of peace.

Now drop it in your garden.

Next,

I want you to plant a seed of joy.

This seed is bright pink and it is filled with all the possibilities.

It is filled with opportunities that will manifest in your life that will bring smiles so big,

So long that your cheeks will start to hurt.

This seed of joy will manifest as laughter.

This seed of joy will manifest as good times with good friends.

Drop it into your garden.

Now I want you to imagine three more seeds in your hand.

These seeds,

Again,

Look however you want to imagine.

But I want you to think for a second and think about what you want to plant in your garden.

Assign meaning.

Give these seeds a name.

Give them a meaning.

And when you're ready,

One by one,

I want you to plant each seed in your garden.

Seeds of forgiveness.

Seeds of hope.

Seeds of possibilities.

Seeds of a renewed confidence in yourself.

Seeds of truly allowing yourself to start over and be transformed by new ideas,

New affirmations,

New teachers,

And new thoughts.

Let these seeds be what they need to be.

These might be new beliefs to counter the old ones.

Whatever feels important to you and your spirit to plant inside your heart right now.

Plant these seeds with faith.

All you need is a little.

Enough.

The size of a mother's stir seed that these seeds will manifest and become good fruit in your life.

This garden holds so many lessons for you.

It holds so many treasures for you.

So many treasures from your best days,

From your most positive experiences.

And sometimes this beautiful place can get filled with stuff that no longer serves us.

So know that you can come here and tend to this garden.

Know that you should come here and tend to this garden often.

I want you to let this garden teach you that forgiveness is a cycle.

One that we come to often.

As we experience new levels of joy,

We uncover new levels of trauma.

New things for us to forgive.

New things that we excuse when we didn't want to for us to forgive.

Each time you encounter a weed,

A thought,

A belief,

Trash from someone else,

Fear that no longer serves you,

You can come back here and clear it out and plant new seeds that serve you.

New seeds that edify you and lift you up.

I want you to look at this garden again.

Look at how much better it looks now that you've tended to some of the weeds or all of the weeds,

Depending on how your visualization went.

Look how the energy flows through this garden now that you've cleared out all that trash.

The words that never were yours,

But became core beliefs.

Take a deep breath in,

Breathing in appreciation for this work that you've done.

Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Watch them manifest in your life.

Trust that the fences around your garden are strong.

These represent your boundaries.

And it is your right and your duty to enforce them,

To enforce the boundaries that protect you,

To enforce the boundaries that keep you soft,

That keep you safe and that keep you sacred.

You must revisit the garden of your heart often to tend,

To harvest,

To plant,

To grow,

To rest,

To dream,

To just be.

I want you to begin to feel your way back into your body,

Back into the room where you are.

Wiggle your toes.

Wiggle your fingers.

See if you can wiggle your nose.

And let's take one final deep breath in.

Hold it.

Now let it all go.

I hope you got what you needed.

I hope this supports you as you continue to decline that call to harden your heart.

As you continue to fight to be soft,

Fight to be a gardener.

When the world wants you to be nothing but a warrior.

You've fought enough wars.

You've beat enough enemies.

Now it's time to just pour into yourself,

To just tend to your heart,

To just love on your garden.

You deserve it.

I love you.