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Garden Your Mind: Recognize, Remove, Replace
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"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end."--Proverbs 19:20
OBJECTIVE: Learn to manage your thinking by relating the management of your thinking to the management of a garden.
MOTIVATION: Wouldn't you agree that it would be nice to have a clear and easy way to understand how to improve your attitude? Don't you agree that by improving your attitude, you improve your life by improving at least your problem-solving and coping abilities?
GARDEN: The first thing that you must understand in order to be an effective gardener is the difference between weeds and plants. Else, how can you make good use of the soil?
Therefore, the first principle is RECOGNIZE. If you cannot recognize the problem, you certainly cannot either problem-solve how to fix the problem or learn to cope effectively with the problem.
Once you can recognize the difference between weeds and plants, then you need to remove the weeds. As any gardener can tell you, weeds steal the resources that your plants need and weeds will even choke out and kill your plants.
Therefore, the second principle is REMOVE. If you cannot remove the problem, you certainly cannot keep from having the problem over and over again.
Once you have recognized and removed the weeds, you then need to replace the weeds with plants. There is not much point to having clean soil if you are not going to plant in it. The fact is, if you do not plant in the clean soil, then the weeds will find their way back into your soil.
Therefore, the third principle is REPLACE. If you do not replace the weeds with plants, then the weeds will gradually come back.
ANALOGY REVIEW: The weeds are the self-defeating thoughts and scripts. The plants are the helpful and productive thoughts and scripts. The clean soil is the quiet and empty mind. The recognizing is the awareness of the short- and long-term results that your thinking provides: "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."--Matthew 7:20. The removing is disputing or talking yourself out of the stinking thinking. The replacing is the planting and nurturing of practical, factual, logical, positive, problem-solving, coping, risk taking, etc., thinking that helps you to achieve your healthy goals. The replacing is making good use of your mind by devoting it to healthy and helpful thinking styles.
BRIEF SUMMARY: You need to RECOGNIZE the weeds in your mind, to REMOVE the weeds from your mind, and to REPLACE the weeds in your mind with productive plants. That is, recognize and remove your hurtful thinking and replace it with helpful thinking.
SELF AND GARDEN: You are the garden NOT the weeds or plants in the garden. You are the mind, NOT the weeds or plants in the mind. The weeds and plants come and go, but the garden remains constant. The weeds and plants grow, develop, and change, but the garden remains the same.
3 Stages of Switching Counseling
QUOTATIONS GARDENING
"In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful."--Abram L. Urban
"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt."--Anonymous
"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling."--Mirabel Osler
QUOTATIONS VARIOUS SOURCES
"A fool is only a fool because he won't see he is a fool."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."--James Joyce
"Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 206
"When receiving correction, the wise seeks to learn and the fool seeks to justify with excuses."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:"--Proverbs 3:11
"Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die."--Proverbs 15:5
"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."--Hebrews 12:6
"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"--Hebrews 12:7
"But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."--Hebrews 12:8
"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism."--Norman Vincent Peale
"By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 194. Order A Guide to Rational Living
"If we eliminated all errors, we would also eliminate much discovery, art, insight, learning, and creativity that results from facing errors."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart."--Julien Green
"When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves."--Anthony J. D'Angelo
QUOTATIONS SCRIPTURE
"A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:"--Proverbs 1:5
"Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety."--Proverbs 11:14
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise."--Proverbs 12:15
"Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil: but to the counsellors of peace is joy."--Proverbs 12:20
"Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established."--Proverbs 15:22
"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end."--Proverbs 19:20
"Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war."--Proverbs 20:18
"Take counsel, execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth."--Isaiah 16:3
"Extol not thyself in the counsel of thine own heart; that thy soul be not torn in pieces as a bull [straying alone.]"--Ecclesiasticus 6:2
"As timber girt and bound together in a building cannot be loosed with shaking: so the heart that is stablished by advised counsel shall fear at no time."--Ecclesiasticus 22:16
"Give not over thy mind to heaviness, and afflict not thyself in thine own counsel."--Ecclesiasticus 30:21
"A man of counsel will be considerate; but a strange and proud man is not daunted with fear, even when of himself he hath done without counsel."--Ecclesiasticus 32:18
"And let the counsel of thine own heart stand: for there is no man more faithful unto thee than it."--Ecclesiasticus 37:13
"Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action."--Ecclesiasticus 38:33
"Gold and silver make the foot stand sure: but counsel is esteemed above them both."--Ecclesiasticus 40:25
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