“Image your mind like a garden and your thoughts are the seeds. You get to choose what seeds you plant in it. You can plant seeds of positivity, love and abundance. Or you can plant seeds of negativity, fear and lack. You can also spend time trying to take care of everyone else’s garden, or you can work on making yours beautiful and attract other beautiful people to your garden. ~~ Jake Woodard

We try to cultivate a feeling of peace and relaxation at home – both homes. This past week has brought frustrations and exasperation at the stupidity and ignorance of people with whom I (and now we) are forced to deal.

It couldn’t be as easy as dropping off one kid for a lengthy visitation and a shorter visitation for the other kiddo. Not even. It turned into a clusterf*ck with whining (never attractive in adults), accusations and then threats. Perhaps the aforementioned behavior is why the other visitation was shorter by that child’s choice. This is not new behavior, it is a perpetual problem that will never change. It’s an attempt to manipulate and control, and when that doesn’t work, it becomes anger spilling over and erasing any semblance of common sense. It’s an adult throwing a temper tantrum worthy of a 2 year old.

The problem is that while the one spouting and sputtering and threatening does so out of anger, he then moves on and moves forward. If he’d take a moment to look back at the effects his actions have caused, he’d see a wide swath of destruction spanning several years.

My life, and the lives of our immediate family is a garden that I am carefully cultivating to radiate peace, harmony, happiness, contentment and wonder. I have worked ardently to weed out contention, drama, upheaval, and fear. This weekend, I was angry over the drama and possible upheaval the unfounded accusations could have. To be honest, I did not like the turn my thoughts were taking, so rather than let them run out of control, I took them back under mine.

I got up the morning after I got home and had slept — I put a combination of my favorite oils in the diffuser. I had a nice warm shower with a good scrubbing of the loofah. I got dressed in an outfit that was cute and a little sexy. I called and made an appointment with a counselor to discuss what had happened.

And just like that . . . SNAP . . . I weeded the garden of my mind and my home and threw out the stinkweed that tried to creep in. It’s up to me to cultivate what characteristics I want in my life and in myself. None others need apply.

Take your stinkweed and go, and don’t let the garden gate hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!