Mar 5, 2016

Your Life Is A Garden

Your life is a garden. And it needs constant attention.

Your garden needs water, sunlight, effort, and love in order to truly thrive.

If you treat your soil well then nutritious foods and beautiful flowers will be able to spring forth, or… you can treat your soil badly and it’ll feel like nothing ever really blooms or flourishes in your world.

Be mindful of who you allow to plant seeds in your soil. The wrong people can plant the wrong seeds and it can harm the quality of your garden in no time. If you aren’t mindful of who you allow into your garden, it can sometimes become unrecognizable in a matter of weeks.

Your deeply rooted beliefs are the thick tree trunks that seem impossible to remove. But it’s worth it to try.

Maybe someone once carved “You aren’t good enough” into the bark of one of the trees and it stares at you constantly, even when you aren’t looking in it’s direction. Remember, excavations are possible. It’ll be hard work, and you’ll work up a sweat trying to uproot it… you’ll likely want to give up out of sheer frustration… but there’s more sunshine when the trees are gone and the decaying leaves aren’t blocking all of the sunlight.

Be ruthless in pulling out the weeds from your garden. Remove whole plants regularly. It’s all up for questioning. Every single part of it. Nothing is sacred in your garden, other than what you deem to be.

Maybe you used to love roses, but now you’re kind of over roses and you want something a bit more unique. That’s fine. You’re allowed to change your mind.

Remember that no matter how beautiful and brilliant and awe-inspiring a certain floral display is, it will change. Usually much sooner than you want it to.

It will constantly be changing. The trick is to let go of the expectation that it will stay the same one day after the next, and loving it wholly when you stumble upon it’s marvellous, momentary beauty.

Above all else, remember that it’s your garden.

You get to do exactly what you want with it.

Jordan Gray
About Jordan Gray

Jordan Gray has been a sex and relationship coach for over 15+ years, with his work reaching over 200 million people worldwide. His writing has been featured in Vogue, GQ, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, and countless other publications around the world. When he’s not working with 1-on-1 coaching clients or writing a new article, he’s most likely to be found reading, chopping wood, or spending time with his wife on a little island off the west coast of Canada.

Blog

Related

See All
The Best Way To Get Unstuck (The Compass Exercise)
May 18, 2013
Jordan Gray
The Best Way To Get Unstuck (The Compass Exercise)
I often create verbal and written exercises for my clients to discover new things about themselves.  I came up with this one a few weeks ago and it has been giving a lot of different people a bunch of break throughs. Give it a shot and you just might learn something about yourself (Introspection YAY!) Heads...
Continue Reading
How Perfectionistic Parenting Affects Children Later In Life
Feb 26, 2017
Jordan Gray
How Perfectionistic Parenting Affects Children Later In Life
Did you grow up with overly strict, controlling, or perfectionistic parents? Was familial conversation strained and limited? Did you frequently feel like you weren’t allowed to be yourself or express certain emotions? Every child experiences invalidation growing up. This is natural and unavoidable....
Continue Reading
How I Overcame Sexual Addiction
Sep 25, 2016
Jordan Gray
How I Overcame Sexual Addiction
"My name is Jordan, and I'm a sex addict." As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt like a total impostor. The men and women seated around me, legs crossed and arms folded, draped over orange plastic chairs, would see right through me any second now. Even though I was staring down at the floor, I...
Continue Reading
How To Make Your Breakup Painless
Jul 1, 2014
Jordan Gray
How To Make Your Breakup Painless
Most people think that breakups have to be traumatizing, awful events where one or both people are left crying and feeling empty afterwards. After recently having gone through the most painless breakup of my entire life, I wanted to share some of my biggest takeaways in order for you to have more...
Continue Reading
What Most People Get Wrong About Happiness
Apr 26, 2016
Jordan Gray
What Most People Get Wrong About Happiness
The date was December 31st, 2015... While taking a weekend vacation in a cabin in the woods, I sat across from my girlfriend as we wrote down our goals for the coming year. When we revealed our sets of goals to each other, they couldn’t have been more different. My goals all had numbers attached to...
Continue Reading
10 Ways To Be Deeply Devoted To Your Partner
Apr 9, 2021
Jordan Gray
10 Ways To Be Deeply Devoted To Your Partner
How is your relationship to relationships? For most people, it’s highly selfish and egoic. It’s all about what they can get, versus what they can give. They operate more like entitled, co-dependent children than responsible adults. Here’s some general advice for life: Don't be like most...
Continue Reading