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Creating the Life You Love3 Ways to Improve Health & Well-Being from the “Inner Gardeners"
Diane Glass and Debra Landwehr Engle are the co-founders of Tending Your Inner Garden®. Here, they describe 3 ways to improve your perspective & create the life you love.
Diane Glass and Debra Landwehr Engle's program of spiritual growth and creativity is called Tending Your Inner Garden®. Through it, they encourage women to discover their creative gifts and address their fears. They offer retreats, group study kits, and online newsletters. At the end of this article is a direct link to their The Inner Gardener website. Here, Glass and Engle tell you how to improve your health and well-being by connecting with a higher power, investing in your own interests and gifts, and practicing random acts of courage. 3 Ways to Create the Life You Love1. Connect with a higher power. Journaling, meditation and other spiritual practices help us strengthen our connection to the voice within and our awareness of a greater spirit. Spiritual exercise is like physical exercise. It strengthens our selves and our relationship with God. Nature can be an especially gentle and symbolic way of listening to the guidance of a higher power. Mary was in her early 30s when she came to our Tending Your Inner Garden® program. She had a four-year-old daughter and was still grieving the loss of her mother 25 years earlier, when she was about the same age as her daughter. She realized that her unresolved grief was interfering with the joy she wanted to experience in her relationship with her daughter, but she didn’t know what to do. At a winter workshop, with snow on the ground and in a barren landscape, she went for a mindfulness walk and saw a tree that still had its leaves from the previous fall. When she came back to the group, she said, “I realized that I’m like that tree...I’ve been holding on too long, and it’s time to let go.” With this acknowledgement, she was able to start healing her long-held feelings of sadness. A desire to connect with God is key. The sacred is all around and within us. When we express our intention to have a stronger connection, it begins. Susan says that the only time she feels at peace is when she’s doing yoga. Through yoga, she began to realize how much she disliked working as an attorney, and she’s now taking steps to change her career path. That’s the value of developing a relationship in which you can feel the peace of God. Once you become aware of what peace feels like, you become more aware of what in your life disrupts it. 2. Invest in your interests and gifts. The word “invest” suggests that you’ve identified something of value within you. Maybe you’ve discovered a talent, an interest, or a gift, and you want to validate it. Investing in it means you’ll put resources toward it with hope that it will blossom and grow. Janet invests in herself by choosing one day each month for a personal retreat. She blocks out the whole day away from family and friends. She may go to a retreat center, walk a labyrinth, or spend time in an area of her home where she’s gathered art supplies for drawing and dreaming. Women are great at investing in other people’s needs and desires, but spending time or money on themselves can seem like too much of a luxury. When Sarah paid for her ex-stepdaughter’s wedding but wouldn’t buy herself a new laptop computer, she realized her sense of self-worth was out of balance. Through an activity in which she could see how she valued other people above herself, she was able to make some changes. She bought herself the computer and set up a savings account for a new car, realizing that she could make incremental changes and honor herself along the way. 3. Practice random acts of courage. We all live within certain beliefs and behaviors that may limit us and keep us from creating our heart’s desire. Taking healthy risks allows us to step outside of those beliefs and behaviors where we can see them more clearly. Then we can make decisions about whether or not they support us in being who we want to be. What looks courageous to one person may not look that way to another. Each of us gets to define that for ourselves. For example, when challenged to do something outside her comfort zone, Martha decided to call her estranged sister, who lives in another state. The two hadn’t spoken for several months, so Martha set herself up for success. With an intention to limit the phone call to about 15 minutes, she called in the middle of the day, when she could gracefully use work as an excuse to end the conversation. Also, she was realistic in her expectations; her desire was to establish a connection, not to completely heal the relationship. The phone call went reasonably well, and Martha ended the conversation not only a step closer to her sister, but aware that she can do more than she might have thought before. For more information about Diane Glass and Debra Landwehr Engle’s program of spiritual growth and creativity, visit Tending Your Inner Garden®. If you found Creating the Life You Love helpful, you might enjoy:
The copyright of the article Creating the Life You Love in Psychology is owned by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen. Permission to republish Creating the Life You Love in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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May 25, 2008 11:35 PM
Melody Wright Joseph
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1 Comment:
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