Reflection on a Journal Prompt “If Your Life Were a Garden…”

By Lianne Pettipas/Guest Blogger

Prompt: If your life were a garden, what would it look like? What is thriving, struggling, or needs tending? What seeds are you planting this season? What habits will you start, hopes to nurture, and thoughts to refrain from?

If my life were a garden right now, it would be covered in lots of greenery, weeds, and foliage that is turning brown to represent what is dying off and leaving me. I feel great remorse for those dying leaves, but I also wait patiently for them to finish the cycle, drop, and be cleared away from what is developing. I caress each brown leaf with sadness and gratitude for what they gave me in my journey: the sustenance they provided and the way they stood tall, holding me up with strength and beauty even when I didn’t realize it. My hands turn sticky with the remnants of what was as I say goodbye to the dying leaves and stalks, and I am reminded that change is messy. I no longer need to wash the mess from my hands but rather sit in it, observe it, and remember that it’s OK to feel the disorder and remorse of a goodbye that I never knew I needed. I find myself thanking the old leaves for their help, efforts, and beauty of what once was, and I am grateful. I am mourning the loss, but I am grateful, and it’s OK to feel both.

I brush aside the brown leaves to reveal little seedlings growing proudly with hope and desire for what they can become, given the chance. I don’t even know when half of the tiny plants were grown from seed, and I’m surprised to recognize the journey of their commencement when I think about it. How did they start? Where did they come from? Did I set them into growth with my own actions, or did luck and chance allow them to sprout? I find that an answer is not required, and I will accept them with gratitude and thanks that they’ve sprouted, regardless of why. They represent creativity, peace of mind, depth of character, a slower and more fulfilling life, and, most importantly, the ability to see myself as a whole even when I feel less than.

I look ahead to the coming season of growth and foliage with hope and the desire to feel better and more in control of a life that has served loss on a silver platter over the past seasons, and it makes me smile. How a simple smile can offer comfort after a long and treacherous journey comes as a surprise, but I accept it with open arms because it offers me comfort, calm, and a quiet, resilient strength that I never knew I possessed. Saying you are strong and living a life of true strength are worlds apart from each other, and the concept is not lost on me.

In tending my garden, I will continue to tend to my mind, heart, and body the best that I can. I will learn, fail, and grow again with every new experience, and when I fail, I will brush aside the brown, sticky leaves of those times to embrace the opportunity of reflection and learning until my eyes can glance over yet another sweet pea plant that I am allowed to hold and embrace. I realize that there are endless ways for my tiny seeds of hope to grow as long as I never give up and continue to nourish, hold, and guide them (me) on a new and different path. With that, I wonder—is my garden ever failing, or is it, as I suspect, changing when I give it space?

The upcoming season brings planting, watering, and guiding new ideas, new hopes, and, most importantly, new acceptance. The more that I lean into accepting where I’m at and making peace with the parts of my garden that have gone on to compost, the better my understanding of who I am and what my ever-growing garden is capable of moving forward. I will continue to dream, to sow those dreams, and to enjoy the fruits of my labour with an open mind. My dreams can always be a reality, and if they fail, I will consider it a learning opportunity. So, if I plant the same dream, it can be modified with better care and attention for a different outcome, but I will not call it a failure. Like a farmer with crops that fail one year but then plants the same hearty corn the next, I will replant the seeds that matter most to me and move on from those that no longer serve my garden well.

My life is a garden, and I get to choose what to do with it in every moment, every season, and every decision about what to grow or allow to die off. I know that my ability to let go of the past needs tending to, and I will try. Nothing more—only try—and give myself the grace I need to do so for as many moments of time and effort as I require. I am the farmer. I am the gardener, and I am the beautiful human in charge of my growth and destiny. Let me say farewell to the old me and “bonjour” to the newer and more peaceful me. Let me continue to feed and water my developing heart of acceptance and open freedom so that the tiny shoots of learning and seedlings of quiet acceptance continue to grow. Let me open my hands to the things that don’t grow and give them space to just be. No judgment. No sadness. No feelings of actual failure, but rather an open space of warm soil, sunshine, and all of the water and kindness needed for the next steps of my planting season.

I deserve nothing less, and I will give myself and my garden another chance over and over. Despite pain and despite the sometimes poor growing conditions, I choose to believe and then believe some more. Just watch me.

Lianne Pettipas

About the Author: Lianne Pettipas is a creative dreamer that believes in kindness, laughter and living an authentic and vulnerable life. Years of suffering with mental and physical health have led her to work hard every day to accept others as they are, always choose kindness and to try to ‘live life despite pain’ (one of her favourite quotes.) A simple girl from Nova Scotia that enjoys a good cup of coffee, watching birds in the yard and the company and connection of her loving husband, three wonderful grown children and sweet, senior goldendoodle, Betty Boop.