It’s no secret that I love flowers and being in a garden. There is something magical about flowers that just breathe incredible joy and life into me. I watch with great anticipation each spring for the first sign of growth and when the first flower appears it’s like a glory hallelujah! Yes, put me in the middle of a field of flowers (especially daisies) and I shall be content for the rest of my life. With one exception, I want to be picking them not pushing them up. And by the end of each day I want to proudly display my freshly picked bouquet of psychologically inspiring daisies.
As we move through the various seasons of our lives, and face continuous changes and challenges on both a professional and personal scale, life can often leave us battle worn and stressed to the max. We must decide how we are going to respond. We can speak and breathe life or death into every situation or person(s) we come into contact with. In other words, we can either pick the daisies by choosing to include a dose of light, love and laughter in our responses or we can engage in dead on arrival thoughts, words or actions which will leave us pushing up daisies emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. The latter can wreak havoc on our health. I for one prefer to respond to the daily stressors of life by picking daisies for the health of it!
When I find myself in a stressful environment or having to deal with a difficult situation or person I pause first and think about my field of daisies; and it reminds me to respond in a way that will not cause detriment to my heart health, decrease my ability to have emotional space available for others, cause me to be disrespectful to others and to remind me to guard my tongue before I speak to ensure that I am building people up and not tearing them down. However, let me be clear about one thing; picking daisies in no way lets others off the hook for their unacceptable actions or behaviours. Instead, it is a simple reminder to communicate in a way that is likely to build bridges instead of walls and to foster accountability instead of shame. I have to admit this isn’t always easy for me to do because often times my tongue kicks into gear quicker than my brain but I intentionally work on it each and every day.
Starting today, when a particular thought comes into your head in reference to a difficult situation or person, the first thing I want you to quietly ask yourself is “ am I going to respond by picking the daisy (life) or am I going to get caught in that trap of pushing up the daisy (death)”? Recognize that if you choose the latter you are giving away your health or as I like to put it, giving away your heartbeats. On average our heart beats faithfully for us approximately 100,800 times a day, that’s a miracle indeed. It’s our job to ensure that our heart continues to beat faithfully for us daily. One way of doing that is by choosing to simply spend time in our psychological gardens taking care of our daisies and picking them when we need to show grace and love.
Respectfully yours!
