When We Tend To Our Lives, They Bloom
When We Tend To Our Lives, They Bloom
Imagine a garden lovingly tended by a skilled gardener. Each plant, each flower, nurtured with intention and attention to detail. This garden thrives, not by chance, but through the deliberate efforts of its caretaker.
Consider the power of a gardener's touch: how they cultivate fertility, support the physical and soulful aspects of their garden and create beauty from nature’s elements.
What makes for a truly beautiful garden… and what makes for a beautiful life?
I believe we know it when we experience it - from the inside out - even if it’s hard to articulate a felt sense of harmony, vitality and nourishment.
However, a garden can also fall into neglect or become over-manicured. So too, can our lives.
We each have our own rhythms and definitions of beauty and balance - and yet, amidst the challenges of modern life, we may struggle to tend our lives with intentionality and care.
It’s all too easy to move through our lives on autopilot: work, Netflix, sleep, rinse, repeat.
We can lose touch with what really matters to us or, even if we feel anchored to our values and desires, we may struggle to access the energy and courage needed to make decisions, set new trajectories or shift our habits.
This is where the gardening metaphor shines. Just as a thoughtful gardener considers water, light, soil, and spacing, so too can we consider the variables that shape our lives:
What dreams, goals or possibilities are we nurturing? (our seeds)
What unhelpful beliefs or patterns are taking root? (our weeds)
What practices are we drawing on that nourish - or drain - us? (our fertility)
Do we protect time to reflect, integrate, imagine and plan? (our leadership and tending)
As we embark on exploring these themes, keep in mind that tending to our lives is not merely a task to be checked off a list—it is an ongoing, ever-evolving process of growth and renewal.
So, dear reader, I invite you to join me in a 'spring tune-up,' as we cultivate lives that are rich, vibrant, and brimming with potential - even in the midst of challenging times.
What Gets In the Way of Tending Our Lives?
I want to start with where we often find ourselves: in circumstances that don’t feel quite right. With ‘gardens’ and lives that aren’t flourishing the way we might prefer.
In my experience as a coach, along with acknowledging the significant stressors of modern times, I’ve observed two key patterns that can inhibit our ability to tend our lives and thrive.
Let’s play with this gardening metaphor - and get into it!
Over-Functioning Patterns:
Some people struggle with patterns that psychologists characterize as “over-functioning.” This often presents as overworking and overgiving that makes it hard for people to slow down and pay attention to their thoughts, feelings and body’s signals.
It is common for folks who over-function to get caught in people-pleasing, perfectionism, and proving themselves - and they often navigate life with full calendars and full minds. It’s easy for for them to focus on the requirements, expectations and needs of others while neglecting their own needs.
These gardeners typically have difficulty delegating, saying no or resting. Existence may feel like an overwhelming blur of activity, with little experience of presence, ease and receptivity.
Even if their garden looks beautiful, these gardeners may find themselves feeling exhausted, joyless, or stuck in a grind. It may feel as though they’re working so damn hard to create and curate these gorgeous gardens that there’s little time to rest, relax, or actually savor them.
These gardens may be so controlled that they feel sterile: these over-functioning folks may be so used to leading that it doesn’t cross their minds to leave space in their garden for ‘volunteer plants’ or unexpected grace.
They may also be vulnerable to: overcrowding, fragility and depletion - without attention to restoration, fertilization and the essential need for fallow periods to punctuate growth seasons.
If you relate to this pattern, how might these conditions show up in your life?
(Psst…. for further support, check out my “Safe to Rest” free audio guide and worksheet. I’d love to help you feel safer to slow down and relax a little more).
Under-Functioning Patterns:
Other people struggle with “under-functioning” patterns: procrastination, paralysis, and passive behaviors (e.g. anything that might help you soothe or numb yourself, such as: scrolling, gaming, or comfort eating). If these patterns ring a bell, you may have difficulty believing in your dreams and goals and it might feel more comfortable to spin in thoughts and feelings than to move into action.
Picture a gardener who loves to flip through seed catalogs, sketch out ideal future gardens, read gardening books, endlessly talk about gardening - but then doesn’t get down to the nitty-gritty work of weeding, pruning, planting, harvesting. They might not roll up their sleeves or get their hands in the dirt!
Another scenario here might include that the gardener keeps second-guessing their vision and continually uproots their seedlings - so, the garden fails to mature and reach its ultimate fruition. This gardener may then compare themselves to others with more productive plots or stew in self-criticism and shame.
Folks who struggle with under-functioning patterns often experience an overabundance of caution or don’t trust themselves to cultivate the lives they want. They may have so much fear of ‘getting it wrong’ that they struggle to make decisions, commitments or to complete things.
In these cases, people often experience overthinking and overwhelm - and struggle to develop their gifts and turn their goals into reality. The greater the gap between their fantasies | unactualized potential and the lack of tangible results in their lives, the greater the frustration or bewilderment at feeling stuck.
If you relate to under-functioning patterns, how do you see these impacting your life?
The Impact of Our Protective Patterns
If you relate primarily to one of the above patterns - or to both - there’s a good chance you’ll feel frustration, disappointment or the sense that more thriving and joy is possible for you.
You might be looking at all your seed catalogs, seeds, tools and piles of garden sketches with tears in your eyes, determined to finally create an actual goddamn garden.
Or maybe you’re burnt out, gazing at your unwieldy, overgrown garden, worried about your ability to sustain this pace - and wondering how the hell you could do this differently, with more ease and joy for YOU.
Sometimes at this point of self-awareness, it’s hard to trust yourself and your ability to do something differently and create new results. It can feel like the forces you’re up against or the inertia of your well-grooved patterns are so deep that you don’t have the agency or creative power needed to truly make a change.
You may feel discouraged - even defeated - by past failed or foiled attempts to shape certain aspects of your life.
So, what can you do? How can you tend your your life in ways that feel more generative, abundant and joyful?
Let’s explore that…
How Can We Be Powerful, Creative Gardeners of Our Lives?
Tending our lives begins with giving ourselves attention. Just as a gardener pays attention to the elements of their garden, we have to start where we are and be willing to examine our current reality.
Without attention, not much else can happen. It sounds simple, but in the midst of our full lives, it’s not easy to carve out and protect reflective space to get brave, curious and to look deeply.
With attention, we can listen to ourselves and get curious about the conditions of our lives. We can learn to discern what is true for us and better understand what’s at the root of what is going well and what is difficult.
With new insight, we can be more intentional. We can access capacity to make new choices and, as we experiment with expansive and unfamiliar ways of being and doing, over time we can evolve our habits, capacities, patterns, identities - and lives.
Of course, learning to trust ourselves, to grow and heal is profound, challenging, rich and never-ending. As a shorthand, I share this:
if you struggle with over-functioning patterns, the antidote will often be in learning to feel safe to slow down and connect with your internal landscape: your emotions, thoughts, desires and your mattering
if you struggle with under-functioning patterns, the medicine often comes in the form of taking brave, uncertain, imperfect action - before you feel ‘ready’ - and building self-trust and new clarity through doing
In Buddhism, teachers often talk about the ‘middle path’ - and so with our gardens, our lives, there is something to be said about learning to find the sweet spot: tending in a way that is ‘not too tight, not too loose.’ Not too much effort, not too little. Not chaotic, not rigid.
Integrated, grounded, committed yet relaxed. What would it be like to garden - to live - like that?
It also deserves to be emphasized again: we live in challenging historical times. Some call this an era of polycrisis, as we navigate climate chaos, wars, humanitarian catastrophes, political destabilization, social fragmentation, and economic precarity. Our gardens will be vulnerable to a lack of planetary wellbeing. Is it reasonable to expect thriving in a world characterized by significant macro collapse and genuine threat?
Yet, it’s powerful to consider how to make the best use of our lives. How can we flourish as much as possible, amidst challenge? How might our tiny plots contribute to the health of the whole?
Some dare to hold faith that these times may yet yield collective evolution and awakening. What if our inner stability and peace and the harmony of our lives matter more than ever?
If we think of a garden: how might we rewild our small lawn, build a rain garden to prevent local flooding, create sanctuaries for the pollinators and animals, and create beauty - even if what we steward seems like a small effort? Perhaps we have moments where we judge our scrappy, imperfect garden. “I just have a few pots on a balcony!” Yet, a few new seeds here, a little weeding there: it makes a difference!
Our life is the only one we have to live. It’s our responsibility and privilege to make the best of it. If we dare to tend our lives more consciously, we can cultivate more growth, meaning and fulfilment.
It’s Spring 2024 - and if you want some further support to tend your one wild and precious life, join me for an upcoming free workshop in mid-May. It’s a Spring Tune Up, designed to help you nurture joy and renewal amidst challenging times. Details below:
One last thought. You know, in this era of social media, there can be so much emphasis on perfection and achievement - but gardens are potent reminders that we don’t have total control. We may want a veggie garden but don’t have enough sun for one to thrive, and need to work with shade-loving plants. Or we plant seeds and tend them thoughtfully but a dry season results in some sprouting while others don’t.
Tending beautiful gardens requires us to work creatively and responsively within constraint… and the invitation is to experience more joy in working with what we’ve got.
When we tend to our lives, they bloom.
P.S. If you’re curious about how coaching could support you better tend to your life, please set up a free 60-minute consult with me. I’d love to help you feel more vitalized and fulfilled - let’s get you blooming!
P.P.S. Already have some fledgling projects and goals on the go? For encouragement and wisdom on how to protect your emerging new realities, check out: “Creating Change? Tend Your Seedlings With Care.”
Nicola Holmes is a Change & Transition Coach who helps people turn their potent questions, dreams and goals into inspired action. With warmth and wisdom, she’ll guide you to untangle constraints and cultivate courage to create a more aligned and joyful life. She has a BASc in Human Development, an MEd in Adult Learning and spent two decades working in the non-profit sector. Along with coaching for 16 years, she’s mama to two spirited kids and devoted to Buddhism. Having recently experienced long-Covid and a move, she brings empathy to others exploring how they’ve changed and who they’re becoming in turbulent times. Check out Nicola @nicolaholmescoach or join the email party for encouragement to fuel the changes you want (including free coaching opportunities).