Watering the Lawn

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Watering the Lawn

As many of you know, we recently relocated to North Carolina and purchased a new home. This past week, the landscape company came and laid sod in the front, back and side yards. Last night, I was watering the sod with the garden hose on the side of the house. It is very sloped so I was watering uphill as I slowly moved backwards down the hill.

It was interesting to watch the water as I doused the strips of sod – when I watered the middle of each piece, the water actually ran out of the middle, down the sides or in between the strips, onto the hard packed clay around the sides, then proceeded to run quickly downhill. It reminded me of skiing in the Rocky Mountains; if you roll a snowball down a ski slope it will always follow the path of least resistance, just like the water was.

Oddly enough, our brain does the same thing. Our brain does not like conflict and will always take the easy way out of tension and conflict. However, motivation comes from the tension and conflict that come from the gap between where we are now and where we want to be. What an interesting irony of life.

You have probably heard me say it before, but I think it bears repeating – when we set our goals in place we naturally set all of our obstacles in place also. The obstacles create patterns that engender tension and conflict in the following ways; mentally (our beliefs), emotionally (our feelings), physically (how we care for our body), and spiritually (our religious beliefs; engaging hope, faith, optimism, belief in the future). So, the brain will always take the path of least resistance to get us back to our comfort zone.

The irony about watering sod is that the grass does not need as much water in the middle as it does along the edges. The best way to water the sod is at the seams, the lines between the rolls of grass. It is at the boundaries that sod needs the most water, not deep in the middle. What a great lesson to take to heart in creating change in life. Sometimes, a person does not have to go deep down into the center of their psyche to clear up deep emotional things from the past. You don’t need to always take massive, life altering steps in order to enhance your life. Often, if you simply “water” around the edges more consistently, you’ll begin to see growth.

We generally speak with the same words, think the same thoughts, feel the same feelings, eat and drink the same foods, and engage our faith and spirituality in the same way everyday. By taking the small, peripheral steps of using better words, thinking better thoughts, feeling different feelings, making a healthier eating choice, or engaging a little more hope and faith in life, the results may seem small at first, but over time there will be exponentially large results.

These changes will alter your state and help you:
• Go from “I’m OK” to “Getting better by the moment,” to “OUTSTANDING!”
• Go from “I can’t do this!” to “I can do this if I just slow down, focus and take it a piece at a time.”
• Go from “I feel tired and crabby and need my coffee” to “I feel better and better as the day goes by as long as I keep my chin up and am productive.
• Go from “I love that Big Mac Supersize Value Meal” to “I choose to take the healthiest eating choice for me for this meal.”
• Go from “This will never happen, I don’t know what to do” to “I don’t need to know exactly how to achieve my goal, but as long as I engage in the most meaningful task I can think of right now, I’m going to have hope and faith that somehow I will achieve what I desire.”

If you do those things, your mind and your grass will stay green for a long time! So, water around the edges today!

If you need help watering the lawn inside your head, give me a call to set up your coaching session for Success. (919) 792-0085. CALL NOW!