A valuable life lesson from my mom

Photo by Letty Mehrwein (my mom)

My mom is a gardener, not by profession but completely through love.

Being her son, I’ve known this for quite some time, but in the last few days I got to see first hand her love for gardening shine through.

Last weekend I visited my mom in the San Francisco Bay Area. As is usual with many kids who visit their parents, my mom asked me to help her run some errands.

First, we stopped by the 99-cent store because she wanted to get a few terra cotta plant pots that were on sale. 

We brought the cart down the aisle and she eyed the pots. She took a stack of four, examined them to make sure they weren’t broken and then handed them to me to put in the cart. 

Then she looked at another stack of four, examined them just like before, and gave them to me. This went on as she looked at some different kinds of plant pots.

In total, we ended up getting over 50 plant pots!

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Seeing her smile, I knew she was in her element. Gardening is her deep passion. She intimately knows what her plants, flowers and trees need, and she attends to them as if love were instinctually guiding her every move.

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Later, we headed to Lowe’s Home Improvement Store because she needed some dirt. 

Once we walked in, the salesperson greeted us with her “Welcome to Lowe’s!” My mom immediately replied, “Where can I find the cactus dirt?”

After being directed to the big bags of dirt at the farther end of the garden center, I asked my mom, “Why cactus dirt? How is that different from any other kind of dirt?”

She stated authoritatively, “Cactus dirt doesn’t absorb the water like regular dirt, so the plants don’t get overwatered.”

We picked up 2 big heavy bags of cactus dirt, and added another heavy bag of steer manure that she would use for fertilizer.

As we made our way towards the cashier, my mom stopped to look at the small succulents and different kinds of cactus on display. She grabbed two of them and had a big smile on her face as she placed them in the cart.

“I don’t have these. I’ll add them to my collection,” she beamed.

Seeing her smile, I knew she was in her element.

Gardening is her deep passion. She intimately knows what her plants, flowers and trees need, and she attends to them as if love were instinctually guiding her every move.
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Joselito Laudencia (me) and Letty Mehrwein (my mom)

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What if everyone in this world lived their lives a little bit more engaged in their deep passion?

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Whether or not you realize it, you also have a deep passion in your life.

Your passion may not be gardening, but it may be technology, or cooking, or acting, or finances, or speaking, or spiritual growth, or something else that sparks your joy.

Your passion shows up as those things that you’re naturally drawn to engage or learn more about. 

You find evidence of it in the time you spend, sometimes to the point where you don't realize where all the time went.

People close to you remark how natural it seems for you, and you think to yourself, “Doesn’t everyone know how to do this?”

What if everyone in this world lived their lives a little bit more engaged in their deep passion? 

Imagine the joy lighting up in each person! 

When you engage your passion, your joy begins to ground your everyday interactions.

With this in mind, here’s your coaching assignment for this week:
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• Take a moment to scan your life to find evidence of your deep passions in life. 
  Where do you spend your time? What are you drawn to engage or learn more about? What do people close to you say seems so natural to you? It’s okay if you have more than one passion that comes up.

 

• Now, pick one of those passions and take stock of how you engaged your passion.
  Look at this last week, or last month. Did you do anything? Did it feel like the right amount or did you want a little bit more?

 

• After reflecting on this, consider one way that you might want to honor your passion this week. 
  This could include a silent prayer of gratitude and blessing for being able to engage in your passion. Or it could be taking one step to engage a little bit more deeply with it.

At the heart of this week’s assignment is expanding your own awareness and engagement to how life is calling forth your joy.

Here is the spiritual truth underneath all this:

Life is ever seeking a greater expression of Itself, and your passion is the vehicle by which Life can more easily flow in, through and as you.

A couple days after I flew back to Los Angeles, my mom sent me a text with a picture of all the pots we bought now filled with dirt and succulents. 

Along with the picture was a simple message.

“I need more pots.”

All I could do is laugh. Gardening truly is her life's passion.

Her joy is an inspiration and wake-up call to both me and to you.

Where in your life are you being called to fill your own pots with your passion?

Abundant Blessings and Namaste.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about today’s post. Please leave a comment below.

And if you’d like to talk with me one-on-one to help uncover your passion or see how you can express more of that passion in your life, I offer a complimentary life coaching consultation where we can chat. You can set up your life coaching consultation by clicking here.
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