Planting the Seeds

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

~Robert Louis Stevenson

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I need a lot of reminding.

One of the things I have been working on in my life, for many years, and it will likely be a lifelong process, is changing the message on the tapes that play in my brain.

Do you know what I mean? The tapes in your brain that tell you what you think of yourself, how you feel about yourself, what you believe about yourself, if you are smart or pretty or fat or ugly or dumb. These are the messages we tell ourselves every day. I call them tapes. Some people call changing the tapes affirmations.

I just refer to it as changing the message on the tapes.

My old messages were not nice. I believed many negative things about myself. I, in fact, convinced myself daily, with my messages, that I was weak, lazy, dumb, incapable and more. I said many, many not nice things.

Oh, you would never have known all the negativity going on in my head if you knew me in 3D. On the exterior I am happy, smiling (even having been called "the smiley one"), laughing and appear to be confident and secure in myself...from the outside.

On the inside, in my brain, where I tell myself what I believe about myself, I was not nice. These messages defeated me in living my life before I ever took one step toward living it. I would awaken with negative thoughts about my body, I would go through the day with negative thoughts about my abilities, I would go to bed with negative thoughts about all of the things I wasn't and could never be.

It is an exhausting way to live.

Somewhere along the way my brain was penetrated by the idea that these were MY tapes and *I* held the power to change the recording. The messages I told myself were within MY power to change.

This blog and the ideas and words in it are a physical manifestation of me changing my messages. Over time I have changed many of my thoughts. I try to reframe old thoughts into new ways. Instead of being a drill sargeant and yelling at myself to get something done or to stop doing an unhealthy behavior, I try to look inward and see why I am doing it. I try to record a new message. I plant the seeds of positive messages. I tell myself I can. I tell myself I will. I tell myself that I am amazing and wonderful and unique...because I am all of those things. And so are you.

The messages that play in my brain now are more frequently those of positivity, of support and encouragement. I tell myself I can do things. I tell myself to listen to my own needs. I tell myself to wait. I tell myself to rest. I tell myself to work. I tell myself I have great talents. I plant the seeds of positivity and strength and power and light in my brain daily. I read positive things. I talk to positive people. I seek support and guidance.

Sometimes, though, I need reminding.

Last weekend I went through a very difficult emotional process. In the aftermath, in my hindsight, I see that part of what happened was that in an emotionally charged situation all of my old tapes come flooding back to me. It was as if they had never left. I was telling myself an amazingly horrible amount of stuff that was NOT TRUE. It may have been true at one time, in another part of my life, but it was NOT true in my current life. I succumbed to those old tapes in the blink of an eye.

One day I was posting here about the universe is whispering in my ear and I listen and LIVE and a scant 48 hours later I am in a fog of negativity, doubt and downright lies.

Why am I telling you this and what does it have to do with seed plantings and harvests?

I am telling you this because it is important to continue to plant the seeds of positivity even after earlier sprouts have started to grow. It is important to continue to plant the seeds of power even in the midst of the growing season. It is important to continue to plant the seeds of light in the middle of a storm.

The seeds...seeds of positivity, power, and light...they are what will get you through that storm! They are what will pull you up from the depths. You never know which seed you plant will be the one to poke up through the dirt of your mind, just when you need it.

We can't worry about harvesting of the seeds. We can't worry about the day we are done planting. We can't be consumed with how great the harvest will be. We have to believe. We must have faith. We must KNOW that if we keep planting the seeds, daily, we will someday be able to harvest them. The harvest may be one individual plant at a time, and not an entire field. But someday, that little seed, the new message on your tape, the positive things you tell yourself, it will bloom and grow and play back on repeat for you and you will believe it.

But you might need to be reminded that you believe it. So you have to keep planting new seeds, and recording new messages, especially while you are standing in the midst of a field full of harvest.

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