Seeding Your Future Wholeheartedness

Seeding Your Future Wholeheartedness

Mourning our losses is physically demanding. We may push against our sense of grief or drag ourselves forward in spite of our sense of loss.   Like my spring  garden the grief almost appears too big to tackle. And certainly, is too much labor for one single day. There is no way to “get over” a loss with a simple platitude or two. There is no way to push through the heavy lifting of gardening by shear muscle or an all-day blitz. Although we can try to muscle through our losses, it is actually more like muddling through. 

Both grief and gardening I’ve discovered, require time, energy, persistence, showing up and waiting.

The mystery of both grief and my garden is that what is happening when it looks like nothing is happening.

In the garden, the soil looks more like a muddy mess. Mourning—on a good day can feel just that way – like a muddy, uncertain, a mess. Or, if the conditions are too dry, life can feel equally parched and unyielding. Mourning a loss leaves me wondering if something new will ever sprout from all the pain and suffering. Will there be something else other than what’s sticking to my shoes and a big batch of dandelions? 

Yet a garden also offers us an opportunity to explore abundance. 

In the garden we can be curious about what’s coming up. 

Weeds? Fresh mint? Basil? What seeds did I plant there, I wonder. And what seeds are germinating in my sense of loss. A garden is the perfect place to remind myself that curiosity is as much a tool as is a shovel. I can curiously watch and wait. I can dig in if need be. And I can be an observer of what grief or the garden are teaching me. 

Self- coaching question: 

What do you see in your garden that might also support you in your grief? What seeds can you plant towards your future wholehearted living?