The Garden: Emerging From The Soil

My practice is called Mustard Seed Journeys because of the significance of a tiny seed of faith in any life in which it’s planted. Faith, when lived out loud, can spread so quickly and deeply, it becomes a force multiplier in any human effort.

A mustard seed is a tiny piece of possibility the bible discusses as a benign grain which can, with very little effort, invade an entire garden, until everything else withers and dies. We are encouraged to have faith the size of a mustard seed because properly planted and cultivated, this faith can move mountains, change lives, and impact generations of the future. In some places in the world, it is unlawful to bring a mustard seed into a region because it is seen as a “weed” and one which is likely to become so invasive all other “desirable” plants are endangered.

Many find that kind of faith enviable. This suggests anything worth growing in a life is, by necessity, influenced by the spiritual framework under which it grows. Whether we acknowledge it or not, what we believe about ourselves and the existential soil nurturing our roots, provides the garden we inhabit during our living years. There are things growing in our “understory” that may be taking over, slowly killing the “canopy.” In therapy, we examine both sides carefully.

Our lives can be viewed as soil; we are planted when we are born in a setting not of our choice. As we grow, we observe the habits of the “gardeners” around us—our family, mostly our parents. We learn from them what is important, what is valued, and what is desirable or dangerous for our well-being. We learn about “us and them”, biases, assumptions, and opinions that carry the weight of “truth.” The choices our caregivers make for their lives, even before we are born, impact our own lives in countless ways that, until we begin to learn about ourselves and the world around us, again, we accept as “truth.”

However, if we are wise (though often we are not), we will learn to think for ourselves, to decide whether what we have been told/taught are actually “truth”, and we become responsible for our own choices. Critical thinking is a difficult habit to develop, but necessary for growth of relationships with self and others. It must be valued, modeled and reinforced in some context for it grow and prosper and once we reach the age of reason, sometimes, it’s “on us” to value self-governance enough to pursue and express it.

This is the scary part; we are truthfully more in control over our lives than we have been taught to believe.

While we have no control at all over certain events or aspects of our lives, we have absolute control over how we respond to those events or aspects. Things do happen to or around us, but we choose how to respond to those things. Doing things differently than they have always been done even when no one living can tell us why, is a relational risk many are too afraid to take. As a result, things continue to be done for the wrong reasons with harmful results because no one wishes to take the first steps away from the pack. It’s not always what we do that causes the strife, it’s the motivations—the WHY we do what we do, because it reflects the conditions of our hearts, something God cares very much about.

There is a difference between the person who continues to do the same things as everyone he knows because that’s the simplest thing to do, and the person who learns to think for himself about whether choices are wise ones to make and takes the risk to do it differently, hoping for a different result. That difference is where the “locus” or place of their control resides: internally or externally.

Internal locus of control belongs to the one who says, “I may not like the situation I am in right now, but I can make choices which will lead me to a different, perhaps better, place than I am today. Only I have the power to change my destiny by associating with people who are more likely to help me out of the hole I am in now.” It is without a doubt the most difficult belief structure to build if surrounded by those who want him to stay in the hole with them: family, friends, or others who benefit from the status quo (the way things are.)

External locus of control belongs to the one who allows others to make decisions for him. He believes there is “no way out of this hole” and “it’s someone else’s fault I am here in the first place.” He continues to associate with others who reinforce this mindset because they are scared he will break out of that lifestyle and leave them behind. This is the easiest belief structure to build because it requires no effort at all. But it is NOT the belief structure of ANY person who achieves any legitimate success or true freedom in this life.

In life, as in gardening, when you find yourself deep into a hole which has no purpose,

STOP DIGGING! Going around in circles is not only dizzying, but unproductive unless you are a dog about to take a nap!

I believe we are never put into circumstances by “accident”, even though we may experience an unplanned event in life. I believe all circumstances are opportunities for us to learn or teach something important, and sometimes both of these occur. We are in the larger Garden of Life together. We have lessons to learn, things to grow, and weeds to pull in our own, and in the growing spaces of those around us. What we do matters. Love is contagious and Light is the nature of revealing what is true. Darkness cannot stand against it, so being a source of light essentially is equal to loving those around you.

Life is a cycle where birth and death are bookends to what comes between—our idea about the “important stuff” pales when compared to the necessity of relationship. Learning to love ourselves and others as God loves us may be the hardest of those lessons to accept. But there is joy in the living, growing, and learning every day. There is beauty in each day we live and in the day we die; it is my privilege to help others learn to find both beauty and joy in the living years, while I search for it in my own.

HIPAA COMPLIANCE

Early in 2020, as COVID distracted and confounded plans for seeking trainings, I was fortunate enough to find a very worthwhile pursuit–Compliancy Group is an organization whose goal is to help organizations under the HIPAA rules become and stay HIPAA/HITECH compliant, and to be an advocate if the organization is ever audited by the Office of Civil Rights resulting from a complaint or data breach.

After hours of audit questionnaires, consideration of who in my professional life is a Business Associate or simply someone who is around and may be exposed secondarily to client protected information, so that I may be sure to have appropriate agreements in order, signed and reviewed annually, I completed the process and received the Seal of Compliance from the Compliancy Group. It is part of my commitment to maintaining excellence in not only the front side of therapy, but also the back side, where files and data are safeguarded, to continue to engage in annual consultation with the Compliancy Group.