Soil, it appears, is no respecter of seeds. Good soil will grow whatever is planted in it – be it weeds, tomatoes or grass. It’s not really particular about how the seed gets there either. It can blow in, be dropped on the surface, planted, and transplanted or root from a vine that creeps down from a planter. Soil has one job – to provide nutrients to what is sown.
It’s a lot like the human brain that way. Whatever thoughts, bias, beliefs, words or concepts are blown or sown into our awareness, through books, movies, video games, conversations or friends – the brain will nurture those things, grow them and make sure we reap what we have sown – for good or bad.
By consistently weeding my garden this summer I’ve kept the plants I didn’t want – the crabgrass, clover and whatever – out, and allowed the plants I did want, tomatoes, squash, peppers and herbs, to flourish – at least until the squash bugs invaded.
Sowing and reaping has become a metaphor for me in other ways. I’ve watched my fears; my doubts, my confidence and my habits grow just as easily as my garden has. What I’ve learned of course is that the old clichés are true – what you water grows, pluck out the bad or undesirable thoughts before they have a chance to grow and so on. But I learned something else I did not know:
What vegetables you plant next to each other impacts how each plant grows. By planting basil next to my tomatoes for instance, I inadvertently helped both plants grow bigger and stronger and increase the flavor of both plants!
The pungent odor of marigolds keeps certain diseases and bugs off of tomato plants.
I learned that I shouldn’t plant fennel next to tomatoes because it inhibits their growth – which is true in the corner where I planted one tomato plant next to fennel. It is the smallest plant in the garden.
There are dozens of combinations of plants you should or should not plant next to each other. Some combinations include providing shade for a plant at a critical growth stage; others involve plants that compete for the same nutrients versus plants that give back beneficial nutrients.
It’s all very fascinating and complex to me, a new gardener. But it occurred to me that by combining certain habits and thoughts in my life I can also inhibit or support the thoughts and habits I’m planting. By combining exercise and breakfast, working out early instead of waiting until my sleepy afternoon energy lull, my exercising has gone so much better because it’s actually easier to go in the morning and nap later rather than sleep in.
By making the phone calls and doing the things I don’t enjoy doing after I eat lunch instead of on an empty stomach, I’m less likely to be grouchy and impatient and more likely to be calm and relaxed. Those are the obvious things. But when I made the connection around environment, energy, mood, habits and other things I realized that by grouping certain things with other things (no matter how bizarre it may seem to other people) I can get more done with less effort.
If you’ve been in the profession any amount of time you know that who you schedule as your first or last appointment can set the tone for your day, or for your evening. Not many LCSW want to come back from lunch to their most non-stimulating client of the day if they tend to be sleepy after lunch.
If client placement in your day is so important to conserving energy and attention, what about the rest of your life? Do you really think about how you group things like dinner? Paperwork? Meetings? Exercise? Self-care? Vacations? Dating or time with your spouse?
Married friends of mine have a regular “date night” once a week so they can get away from the kids for a few hours. The dates had been mostly stressful and filled with talk of the kids and non-romantic things and not going very well. They even talked of stopping the practice. Then their work schedules one month forced them to change date night to a Wednesday night instead of the usual Friday night. What they found was they were less stressed in the middle of the week and had more energy. Date night became fun!
They realized that by going out on a Wednesday instead of a Friday they weren’t thinking of the next day and all the soccer games, kid’s sleepovers, laundry, cleaning and chores they had to do over the weekend. They could relax and enjoy each other’s company, knowing all they had the next day was work. The restaurants they liked were less crowded, almost empty, as were the theatres and other places they typically visited on a Friday night. The trade-off was they were up later on a work night, but realized they slept better with a mid-week break so the change worked.
The added bonus was that instead of date night with each other, Friday nights became date night with the kids, enabling them to spend time with their children watching DVDs, eating pizza, playing games and just hanging out before they all went in six different directions the next day – a Saturday.
You’re going to reap what you sow, so why not plant your life in a way that what you reap is the best it can be?
