Art Slam » Food for the Creative Soul

You must weed your mind as you would weed your garden.  ~Astrid Alauda

The mind has often been compared to a garden and our thoughts compared to seeds. If you don’t mind me asking, what kinds of seeds are you planting in your garden? What you think of yourself will eventually come out of your mouth, go into your ears and sink into your heart. You will start believing what you think. Knowing this, why do we not fill our minds with good things, good thoughts and speak those over our lives?

If you knew you only had 30 days to live, you would not tolerate the people around you saying bad things to you. You would surround yourself with positive influences that made you feel good. You would cherish everyday and moment because you knew they were numbered. You would plant seeds of encouragement, hope and love in those you love the most. You would let your light shine because you understand what is really important.

I read a message earlier today that said if you are sad, go out and do something for someone else who is sad. If you are lonely, help another lonely person not feel so alone. If you have been done wrong, go and find someone to do something good for. What I read into this message is the less you focus on your trials, the smaller they become. Instead, when you go and do something good for someone else, you reap the benefits two-fold. You were able to do something for another and you planted a seed in the process.

Can you do this for yourself today? Can you plant seeds of encouragement, hope and love in yourself today? Can you commit to not allowing one negative word about yourself come out of your mouth? I know you can, but are you willing?

Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.

~Mary Anne Radmacher

One area I have set an intention is scheduling a regular bed time. At night, my mind races instead of settling down for rest. I seem to get my most creative ideas right before I go to sleep and I have stayed up trying to record these ideas. As a result, I am not getting the rest I need to get me through the next day. In fact, I have consumed more coffee in the past year because I am not resting. It has become a vicious cycle of replacing healthy foods with carbs and sugar, minimal exercise and caffeine, all in an effort to gain a little boost to get my morning going. I can tell you, none of these changes has made me feel better.

Over the course of this challenge, I am going to bed at a reasonable time that allows me a minimum of seven hours of rest a night. I am cutting out the caffeine and curbing my carbs and sugar and winding down earlier in the evening in an attempt to quiet my mind. I figure these are things I CAN do to cultivate intentional rest.

Tell me what you do to cultivate intentional rest.

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me to read a book, One Month to Live by Kerry and Chris Shook. This book has made me think about how I have been living my life.  Am I living by default, going through the motions? Is this why time seems to go by so fast, because we are not really “living” life at all? The Shooks’ drive home the point that if we only had one month to live, we would live our lives differently. We would live authentically, deliberately and with intention. In the book, they tell the story of visiting a cemetery and seeing how people’s lives have been reduced to two dates and a dash. As they stated in the book, we do not have control over many things in our lives. We do not get to decide when we are born or when we pass away, but what we can control is what happens in between. We can decide how we live the dash.

For the next 30 days, I am living my life with intention. I am going to live the heck out of that dash. Join me if you like. Today,write about how you want your life to be different at the end of the 30 days. I am looking forward to this.