Thrive!

I dumped the appendages into the trash bin, and went back for more. Dismembering is a lot of work.

I used a big pair of loppers.

Snip, snap!

I had to break out the sawzall on some of the bigger ones.

When I was done, no dead things remained, only living things, bright green leaves — orange, yellow, red and purple flowers.

I had cut, trimmed, lopped and plucked all the dead branches, dead leaves and dry flower heads from every plant in my back yard. And I had mucked out my backyard pond, dragging out the green algae and dead water lily leaves.

Done! Only good things remained.

The whole thing now looked a bit like Monet’s garden — the effect stunning — green, red, yellow, purple efflorescence everywhere.

And this is how it is.

What is dead and dying is best cropped, lopped and dumpstered, so what is alive and growing can thrive.

It’s the same with my thoughts. They need lopping.

My mental pond constantly needs mucking out. And my mental flowers constantly need dead-heading. I beautify by cutting off my old fears, dumping my regrets, lopping off my unrealistic aspirations, dumpstering my inveterate dissatisfactions, dismembering all my unforgivenesses, beheading all of the negative unlovelies dying on my eager-to-thrive green branches.

Today I spent some time with someone who needed help getting her head filled up with true thoughts, with mental beauty commensurate with her value. We talked. It helped. We were pruning her thoughts. I hope she can keep hauling out the lies and telling herself the truth and when I’m not there. Maturity lies in the ability to garden ones own mind.

Mental beautification — for all of us — it is so much about making the dead things go.