This morning, I stepped into my new garden—a garden I planted to welcome the weed seedlings that float onto my property. Instead of seeing them as unwelcome pests, I’m learning to think of them as a source of food. They come anyway, so why not nurture, and eventually, eat them? It’s a new concept, but really not so new. Foraging is what we humans did before we began to farm. It’s what we knew, forgot, and now remember again. So, the “Welcome Weeds!” garden is a repeat of something tried and true.
Today, the Welcome Weeds Garden is doing what my other gardens have done for eons in September here in the Midwest: to prepares for winter. Seeds are made. Leaves turn brown. Its plants go dormant. What we repeat in the garden is much like what we repeat in our minds—both need attention and care.
It rained again early this morning, but now the sun is shining. The garden is drying out. Again. A few beetles are on the stinging nettle flowers, and I see some cup plant flowers about to bloom. Others have a small nub where their blooms would be, because of hungry deer. That beautiful amaranth seed head—bright maroon-red—was here one day and gone the next, thanks to these fellow foragers with long legs and black noses. What we repeat in nature is part of a cycle, and it reflects the cycles within us.
But the truth is, not every weed that floats in is welcome. There are poisonous weeds—poison ivy is almost always an “ouch” for any unsuspecting garden visitor—and weeds that take over because they’re not from this region. Have you ever noticed that “creeping” always seems to be part of these pesky non-natives’ names? There are weeds that will become trees and shade out the garden; and then the garden is not a garden any longer.
I love walking through my garden, checking the soil for newly sprouting seedlings, especially in the spring. Discerning which plants to nurture and which to uproot is essential. I have to be selective in what I allow to stay and grow into something that will seed out for a repeat performance. I weed, and weed often. Learning some foraging skills has allowed me to include more weeds into my circle of “welcomed” plants. Wild lettuce, stinging nettle, plantain, and other plants I once pulled routinely have become part of what I use as a way to consume energetically alive, nutrient-dense plants.
But this post was not intended to be written with the garden and it’s repeated phases as its entire focus. So I’ll step off the garden path and walk down another that puts me squarely into an “inner” terrain, and one that I consider just as important as the one with the plants that greet me each morning. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke once said, “The only journey is the one within.” I can’t deny my love of food and gardening, but my daily journey within has become a very helpful echo of the morning stroll through my garden.
As a therapist, and someone who struggles with anxiety, I’m acutely aware that we repeat in our minds: we allow with repetition of what has “floated in” like a wisp of a seed and landed, looking to plant itself. In the soil, it waits for the just-right conditions to help it to burst forward into something bigger and more pronounced. As weeds in the garden, this, too, will requiring discernment and selective weeding, on repeat.
We think, over and over:
- I’m not good enough.
- I’m not safe.
- I’m so stupid (or something I did was stupid).
- What will others think?
- I can’t (Fill-In-The-Blank).
- I have to… (What? Do I?)
I find myself on the little set of pavers that run through my mind, pondering what repeats there. I give my mind recommendations. “Go ahead and repeat,” I tell it:
Sadness, but not too much.
Happiness, but not in pursuit of it too fervently.
Nourish my body and ego, but not excessively.
Weed-like thoughts, beliefs, and emotions—just enough to aid self-understanding and growth.
What I’ve learned in my garden is to be judicious. Allow pests, wind, sun, rain, a few weeds, and a little trampling and stealing. The most important lesson is tolerance—avoiding judgment and outlawing. The origin of the word “blessing” is “blood.” There is no blessing without wounding. This is true in the garden and in the mind.
Weeding contents of the mind: Yes, you weed in your mind, too! (And if you don’t, you can!) That is your best, repeated practice. It invites balance.
Noticing what repeats, understanding what repeats, using what repeats, but judiciously. Sometimes I interrupt what repeats, pulling it out, root and all. And sometimes I find a way to turn what repeats into a blessing. Have you ever made a change that was good—surprisingly so? There is no doubt in my mind that this change was proceeded by a change in what you repeat in your mind. You did a lot of “this is not so good” before you switched over to “this feels great; let me repeat this!” Even then, you probably goofed up and went back to “this isn’t good” a few times before the change became more tangible, more frequent, and, eventually, the new “this feels great!” was on permanent repeat.
A goof-up isn’t really a goof-up. It’s more of an “I forgot to weed.” We let those weedy thoughts take over in our minds—the least useful of all the weeds. The poison ivy of thought. In this case, nature doesn’t know best. We’re meant to intervene. We can get locked into patterns that need interruption. That interruption is what weeding is for us. We can (and should) routinely examine whether a thought or emotion is repeating too much. Is it so repetitive that it becomes harmful, stealing joy or keeping us from engaging fully in life?
There will be times when the garden seems overrun with weeds and the mind with negative thoughts. It might feel like giving up is the only option, letting everything go wild. This is how it can feel when dealing with depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Depression can make it seem as though all efforts to weed out negative thoughts are futile, as if the garden of the mind is too overgrown to save. With OCD, the same unwanted thoughts might keep repeating, like weeds that grow back no matter how many times they’re pulled. We are tricked into feeling that it’s too dangerous to banish thoughts and actions that seem to keep us safe. In those moments, it’s easy to feel defeated, to think that the garden will never thrive again.
Instead, we remind ourselves to return to the practice of weeding, both in the garden and in our minds. It’s about choosing what to nurture and what to remove. We can repeat this process, knowing that it’s an ongoing cycle, one that requires constant attention and care.
In this practice, we find peace. We’ve learned to accept that not everything will be perfect, that some weeds will always find a way in. But we also know that we have the power to shape our garden and our minds. We can choose what to repeat, what to let grow, and what to remove. And in doing so, we cultivate a space that nourishes both body and soul.
As I stand in my garden, I take a deep breath. The sun is shining, the rain has passed, and the garden is alive with possibility. Just like my mind, it’s a work in progress—a place where weeds are welcome, but only those that contribute to the greater good. Here, in this space of balance and harmony, I find a sense of calm. And I know that this practice of weeding, of tending to what repeats, will continue to serve me well, both in the garden and in life.
