Eliminating the Weeds of Negative Thinking

It’s 6:30 in the morning. It’s cool, it’s quiet, and I am pulling weeds in my mother’s back yard. I just dropped my son off at the high school for football practice and spontaneously decided to swing by and do the thing I love to do most – not! In Florida, during the summer we do most outdoor activities (like football and weeding) earlier in the day to avoid the intense heat and humidity that comes later on.

As I am yanking the undesirables, I’m thinking about a conversation I had recently with my cousin Steve. “What determines the difference between a weed and a plant?” we pondered. “I mean, why not just let the weeds take over since that’s what they do anyway? Unlike the other plants they don’t require any work and before you know it they are profuse! Why don’t we just give up the struggle over tending to the other plants and allow the weeds full reign?” I decide to google weeds when I get home and wonder how I ever managed before someone invented googling.

This is what I discover: A weed is a plant considered to be troublesome because of its nature to be invasive and reproduce easily and quickly. Interestingly, it’s an arbitrary judgment whether a plant is a weed or not.

I can’t help but notice what a perfect metaphor weeds provide for negative thinking. Negative thoughts emerge and can quickly become invasive if we don’t stay on top of them by plucking them from our minds. Before we know it they’ve taken over, crowding out the positive thoughts (the flowers). Soon, they impair our perception of reality because we’re looking at life through a jungle of weedy overgrowth. The weedy thoughts take root, growing below the surface, invading our subconscious, and affecting our physical health and well-being. Similar to gardening, if we allow these negative thought weeds to grow we can soon become overwhelmed when we’ve neglected to uproot them. Like a motivated gardener, we must begin eliminating them one by one.

As a human being, I want to flourish like a beautiful garden. My sister has a gorgeous garden in Minnesota that she works very hard to maintain. Her garden is a metaphor for how I’d like my inner life to be. But, like my sister’s garden this requires nurturing and effort. Simply keeping the weed thoughts pulled is not enough. I also need to plant some flowers (positive thoughts) and cultivate them so that they become prolific and bloom. I’ve pulled a lot of weeds in my inner garden in the last few years and I’ve planted a lot of flowers. It’s taken some effort but it has made a significant difference. My inner garden is now blooming. The weeds continue to pop up here and there, but I’ve become disciplined in removing them before they take over. I enjoy the beauty of the blossoms and my focused attention, like Miracle Grow, causes them to become even more abundant. The more we attend to our positive thoughts the more they propagate. Just as the beauty of a garden makes the whole property look more wonderful, a radiant inner garden causes our perception of life to be more positive and uplifting. Instead of looking at life through the jungle of weedy overgrowth, we look at life through the stems and the blossoms of peonies and roses. To be sure, life will give us some weeds and even rose bushes have thorns, but if we remain proactive in our inner gardening efforts the landscape of our entire life will be more resplendent.


William James: “The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

Bishop Steere: “Do not think that what your thoughts dwell on does not matter. Your thoughts are making you.”

Proverbs: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Buddha: “All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

Romans 12:2 “…be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

Please see the photo below.

My sister Shelley's garden in Minnesota

Depression

I am so thankful that I no longer struggle with depression. It began in childhood as a low-grade, on-again off-again sadness. Later on, as life became more complicated, it became less low-grade and more on than off. As often happens, pregnancy brought about some physiological changes that made it more pronounced. Added to that were some typical life stressors that people experience – unresolved issues from childhood, financial struggles, marital strife, midlife turbulence, wrestling with spiritual beliefs, a death in the family. By the time I was 42 I knew I needed some help.

I recently read a quote by Rona Barrett. She said, “The healthy and the strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it.” I believe Rona is right and I’m so glad that I was able to summon the courage to seek help.

Our inner condition doesn’t simply affect us as an individual. It impacts those around us as well. When we help ourselves, our loved ones also reap the benefits. There’s some truth in the saying, “if mom ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” (You can substitute dad, your child, or whoever.) Help is good. Why suffer and bring suffering upon those around you if there’s something that can be done about it? I struggle to sympathize with those who are miserable and yet refuse to take any action to alleviate the situation. Ultimately, it seems they’re being selfish because their misery is contagious to those around them. That being said, I realize there are those who are in such a state that they simply can’t summon the wherewithal to get help for themselves. I also know that in some cases, refusal of help is actually one of the symptoms of the illness and I do sympathize with those people.

In my case, I responded very favorably to the anti-depressant medication and the little bit of counseling I received. It helped me immensely and it felt like it gave me my life back. After five sessions with a wonderful counselor, she declared me “good to go” but the process didn’t stop there. I have continued to do a lot of inner personal work and am just now weaning myself off of the medication. Today, I can honestly say that I have an abundance of inner peace and joy and I’m thoroughly enjoying life. Not everyone has the same experience with depression. I realize there are those whose experience and issues are much more challenging than mine. There are volumes that can be written about this topic and it isn’t my intention to cover all of the issues about it here. The gist of my post is this: I was depressed, I got help, I got well. My hope is to encourage others who may be struggling with the same thing.

Having said all of that, I would encourage you not to take yourself too seriously. Here is a poem that I wrote some time after I started taking the medication. It’s meant to be light-hearted so I hope you enjoy it.

Washin’ down my Zoloft with some Diet Coke,
hopin’ and prayin’ my life is not a joke.
In my heart-of-hearts I know it isn’t true.
So, “why?” I ask my shrink, “am I forever blue?”

Hurricanes & earthquakes, tsunamis & tornadoes,
Drought & famine, erupting volcanoes.
Terrorists, torture, gangs, & war.
Enough. Be quiet. I can’t take any more.

Drugs & addiction, violence, abuse.
Crime & broken homes. Oh, what’s the use?
Watching CNN is enough to make me sick.
Quick, change the channel & choose some other flick.

Stressed & oversensitive, seeking perfection.
It’s no way to live, seek another direction.
Yoga, meditation, aromatherapy, too.
Being one with nature, eating tofu.

“I’ll try anything once,” I’ve been known to say.
I’m continually optimistic that there’s a better way.
“Live your best life,” says my Oprah guru.
“When you know better, you’ll do better,” adds Maya Angelou, too.

Life is a mixture of good things and bad.
So suck it up now and don’t always be so sad.
Count your blessings; you’ve got quite a few.
(That idea is certainly nothing new.)

Thank God above for Zoloft, thank God for Diet Coke.
Thank God for revealing that my life is not a joke.
Thank God for humor, for family & friends.
Thank God my list of blessings really never ends.

Thoughts on Turning 50

What is it that’s so tasty about turning fifty? To me it seems so delicious. I think it must be the seasoning.

All of the things I’ve been through, both good and bad, feel like the herbs and spices that have served to enhance the flavors of my life. I could not say that I feel like a fine wine aged to perfection. No, I feel more like ground beef that’s been through the meat grinder and is now enjoying the warmth of the grill and all of the salt and the seasonings that have been sprinkled upon it!

Our life experiences and how we deal with them are a part of what makes us who we are. Mistakes and failures that we suffer through, as well as successes and achievements that we are proud of, provide our life’s enhancements. They give us depth. We can turn fifty and be sad that our youth is behind us or we can turn fifty and look back at all we have done and enjoy a sense of accomplishment at the journey we have taken. For some reason, mourning the end of my youth was not an option or even a temptation for me. For one thing, I still feel youthful and I know that age is just a number. If I told myself I was “old” I know I would soon become “old.” Quite the contrary, I feel like I’m just getting started and I’m excited about what lies ahead.

When I turned forty I thought I was entering the best decade of my life. Now turning fifty I feel the same way, even more so. If life were a four course meal, I’d just be getting to the entrée. Bon appetit!