6 Tips For Weeding Your Mental Garden

I love gardening, tilling the soil, planting little seeds and watching them grow. A few weeks ago, while picking crabgrass from the kale, I found myself thinking about my clients and their concerns about bone health. I was thrilled to think about the extent to which mental and emotional stress robs us of both happiness and bone health. With this thought in mind, a “Garden life” metaphor came to mind. The metaphor was simple and applies to backyards as well as mental landscapes. The metaphor is: “Nourish the desired and remove the unwanted.”

Two weeks later, after attending the revival of Acharya Shunya Roar like a goddess workshop, I was inspired to write this one 6 tips for weeding your mental garden. They are simple “Acharya Shunya-inspired” self-awareness exercises that you and I can use to create inner peace and a mind that works for us, not against us. (In case you haven’t heard of her work, Acharya Shunya is a leading spiritual leader of our time, a best-selling author, a Vedic scholar, and the first female custodian of a 2,000-year-old Vedic wisdom lineage. I had the great fortune to recently interviewed her at the Omega Institute. At the end of this blog, you can learn more about her work and how to enjoy this wise video interview.) Susan Garden 4

This is how the story goes and here are your 6 powerful tips for creating the bone strength and destiny you desire:

Every spring, six of my friends and I plant a beautiful vegetable garden in the backyard. While none of us are expert gardeners, we enjoy watching the bloom of life and thinking of ways to nourish this new life with fertilizer, water, sunshine and our love. We also keep an eye on weeds as unwanted visitors can easily take over the entire garden if not kept in line. The more we care for our garden, the more beautiful and fruitful it becomes.

The garden-life metaphor

What I realized was that we plant “seeds” in our minds with every thought, belief, desire, and intention. These ‘seeds’ can be life-sustaining positive thoughts that carry an energy of appreciation, happiness, contentment or even love. Or the thought may carry an energy of negativity, blame, anger, worry and even fear. In our mindscape we fertilize these ‘thought seeds’ by the attention we pay to them. Whether we are aware of it or not, what we focus on becomes more powerful in our daily lives and in our mental garden.

Just as we can produce a richer and more beautiful garden if we limit the weeds, we can with awareness control the unwanted “mental weeds” that take up space and spread their vibration throughout our entire mindscape.

And what exactly are ‘mental weeds’?

“Mental weeds” are repetitive thoughts and beliefs that invade and disrupt the natural, calm, peaceful, and happy feelings in our minds. These weeds are disruptive, negative, voluntary mental pop-ups that include fear, self-doubt, anger, worry and anxiety. The mental and emotional negativity of this “thought weed” has been well documented as a contributing factor to many chronic degenerative diseases, including osteoporosis (as described in the Better Bot Solutions Course and my blog, How bot responds to danger).

This mind-body connection is well established. The Bible says that, for example “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the spirit bones.(Proverbs 17:22) Even more striking is the 5,000 year old Ayurvedic wisdom that Acharya shared with me. She said that in our conversation another word for ‘health’ in the ancient Vedic texts was ‘happiness’. The crowning achievement of all this came at the end of our interview, when Acharya Shunya applauded me for discovering that worry and fear damage the bone. She talked about the fact that ancient Vedic texts mention this Bone is the strongest material in the body, the strongest, but the only thing that can erode it is negativity. Thinking about those pearls of wisdom fueled my motivation to increase the level of my mental/emotional gardening!

6 tips for weeding your mental garden

Inspired by the Vedic scholar Acharya Shunya

Take inventory of your thoughts.

Experiment with focusing on one thought and recording the “feel” of the thought. Was the thought associated with a feeling of well-being or even contentment? Or was it critical of others or yourself? Was it humiliating to yourself or to someone else? Was it a good feeling?
Ask yourself, “Is this a thought or belief that I want to continue and influence in my life every day?” Or can I just let this article pass?
Be aware and remind yourself that the thoughts you repeat over and over become the strongest weeds.

Do some mental housekeeping.

Remember: you are not your thoughts. You are the witness of your mental wanderings.
With practice you can create a little distance between yourself and your thoughts.
You can become a witness to your thoughts. You can realize yourself as the consciousness behind your thoughts.
As a witness, you then consciously choose which thoughts you want to strengthen and which thoughts you want to let through.
Once again, remember that what you focus your attention on will become stronger in your life.
Remove the thoughts and associated feelings that you would rather not have in your life.
Moreover, you don’t have to hold on to every thought; you have enough left.
In fact, you have about 90,000 thoughts a day, most of which passed through your mindscape yesterday.
As spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle suggests, it’s a good habit not to take your thoughts so seriously.

Meditate on the wisdom of this ancient Vedic observation that Acharya taught me:

Every action leads to habit.
Every habit builds character.
And character leads to fate.
As she suggests, don’t give space in your beautiful mind to a single thought without purpose.

Make your mind your servant, not your master.

When your mind is in turmoil or overshadowed by worries, stop whatever you are doing.
Take a few deep breaths and shift your attention to what it feels like to breathe in and out.
Creating even a small space between you and your worrying thought calms the mind.
Then ask yourself, “Can I acknowledge this thought and the associated feeling and then let it go?”
Or should I do a reality check to verify whether what I think is actually true?
Or is it time to gather my sovereign power and address the situation?

Be kind and gentle to yourself and others.

Remember that it is the nature of the mind to move quickly, just as it is the nature of the monkey to jump from branch to branch.
You can’t always control your monkey mind.
However, your sovereign self can witness the thoughts, and you realize that you are not your mind.
You can create a gap between your thoughts and emotions and your deepest self.
As you repeatedly rest in this gap, gently sow the seeds of your desires and imagine the mental landscape you desire.

Check your mental/emotional tone every morning when you get up.

Where did your thoughts wander during the night, what are your feelings?
When I wake up cheerful and happy, I am grateful to the great goddess for a refreshing sleep.
If I wake up less cheerful, I immediately call on one of my inspiring spiritual teachers, consciously setting a higher vibration.
You might start by asking yourself: What vibrational tone do I want for today?
Consciously determine the tone you want to spend the day.
And then ask: what can I do to move my energy field in that direction?
There are countless activities that are cutting edge, and the choice is yours. Options include meditation, prayer, reading or listening to uplifting speakers, wisdom teachings or scriptures, taking a sunrise walk, hitting the yoga mat, music, chanting. The tone options are endless. Enjoy it and see what works best for you.

In closing, let me say that this is easier than you might think. As Acharya reminded me, it takes some time to change the constitution/organization of the physical body; you don’t change the bone fragility score overnight. But the constitution/organization of the mind can change in a flash. If you change your mind, you immediately change your life!

So let’s all get started! Do the work, start designing a mind that serves your bones and your greatness! I’ll be there next to you.

Join my upcoming video interview with Acharya Shunya on YouTube on October 5 by clicking Notify Me on my YouTube channel

Acharya Shunya and Dr. Susan Brown

Acharya Shunya’s website: awakensself.com

The books of Acharya Shunya:

Ayurveda lifestyle wisdom: A complete recipe to optimize your health, prevent diseases and live with vitality and joy, Sounds true, 2017.
Sovereign self: Claim your inner joy and freedom with the empowering wisdom of the Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, Sounds true, 2020.
Shout like a goddess: Every woman’s guide to becoming unapologetically powerful, prosperous and peaceful, Sounds true, 2022.