There I was on my couch reading the Moon Guide to Costa Rica. Kabobble the cat curled up in my lap. Late afternoon sun streaming through the big maple outside. Rich smells of Phad Tai being cooked for dinner by David the Wonderful Husband. And Yours Truly dreaming about swimming in tropical waterfall pools in Monteverde...
All of a sudden I was drowning in a choppy ocean of anxiety instead of floating in a forest pool. Kabobble sensed my tension, looked up at me in alarm, and leapt off my lap in search of more tranquil pastures.
Heilige Scheisse! What happened, Batman?
Breathing slowly, I surfed the wave of anxiety back to solid ground. What just happened?
Then I heard in my head: You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Oy! Oof!
More thoughts quickly followed: You’re only entitled to so much happiness. You’ve maxed out: wonderful husband and daughter, cherished friend, work you love, beautiful house, deep spiritual life ... What’s this about a dream vacation, too? You KNOW this is too much happiness. Something terrible’s coming ... Happiness isn’t free, you know ...
David called me for dinner. Phad Thai trumped figuring this out.
Later in my rose-scented bath (what better place to work and play?) I returned to the thought-nasties.
Sisters, I’ve been imaging my life – and my sabbatical Mind/Year – as a lush garden. But there in my rose-bath, I realize I’d left out an important piece of gardening:
Weeds.
Yup. I used to hate them, cursing them as I yanked them out. I groaned when they returned. I yearned for that perfect, weed-free garden.
I never found it. I never will.
Sometime after 50 I decided it’s easier to accept weeds as part of the landscape. I pull them now knowing that they’re just a part of things. I know I’m out of balance when I start calling them names that couldn’t make it past your spam filter. When I return to balance, weeds become just weeds again.
Back to my rose-bath. I remembered that cutting edge science claims that so-called “negative thinking” is simply part of what our brains do, constantly scanning the environment for what could go wrong. My brain doesn’t know it can quit looking for mastodons or marauding Vikings.
So ... what if I treated my thoughts about “happiness entitlement” as thought weeds? Just that. Nothing more.
I decided to say hello to my thought weeds. Greetings, thoughts about impending doom, I said as I sank up to my neck in the steaming water. Ah, there you are, story about how much happiness I deserve, as I inhaled that luxurious rose scent.
Just thought weeds. I didn’t have to fight them, argue with them, or club them to death with affirmations.
Or make myself wrong for having them, any more than I’d bludgeon myself for dandelions in my flower beds.
So there, up to my sweet neck in rose-scented bathwater, I realized there are four steps to weeding, both physical weeds and thought weeds:
1. Awareness. First step: I gotta know a weed’s a weed. With thought weeds: acknowledging that I’m having thoughts (rather than being inside their drama), and naming them (oh, there’s that thought about me not deserving this much happiness) is a big step towards my inner garden flourishing.
2. Acceptance. When I find dandelions in my lawn I don’t call the National Guard. I don’t waste precious energy demanding that God send down a dandelion-specific plague upon the world. With thought weeds: Knowing that thoughts are just that — simply thoughts, neither Inner Oracle nor The Voice Of Authority — allows me to accept their presence and not get derailed by them.
3. Action. Once I see a dandelion I’m gonna dig it up and throw it in the compost bin. With thoughts weeds: I act, too: Say compassionately, “not helpful, this thought about not deserving this much happiness.” Then take several deep slow breaths to bring myself back into the present moment, and my own heart.
4. Attention. Once I throw that dandelion in the compost, I don’t stand over it to make sure it does what I want it to do. (I guess I could, but that’s not my idea of a good time.) I turn my attention back to what I love, gardening. With thought weeds: I consciously turn my attention to something that is life-giving in the present moment: the warmth of the bath water on my skin, the sweet sounds of David closing up the house for the evening.
How wonderful to know that my thoughts are no more The Enemy than are dandelions. I can have a relationship with both that is simple and life-giving. Sisters, this much closer to the end of my life than its beginning, that’s news worth reporting.
I stepped out of my fragrant bath, dried myself with my favorite turkish towel and lay down on my bed, luxuriating in this new relationship to my thoughts.
Since then, of course, those thoughts have come back. It’s just what my brain does. I’m starting to recognize them as old friends, just as I suppose weeds in my garden are after 45 years of gardening.
Sure makes life easier.
Sure makes dreaming about being on the Manuel Antonio beach in Costa Rica a whole lot more enjoyable.
You know, sisters, we’ve earned something delightful simply by dint of having walked this precious earth for a half century or so. We can drop the struggle, the chaos, the muscularity of trying so damn hard. Life can be a whole lot sweeter than we ever thought possible.
If you ask me, that more than compensates for saggy breasts and fuzzy memory.
Right now I’m heading outside to say hi to the real weeds, escort them to the compost bin, and enjoy the garden.
How about you? What are your thought weeds? How would it be to let go of struggling against them? Ready to end the war?
Come join me in the garden.
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