2025 – drjuls

05May

Flower garden with yellow, purple, red and pink flowers

Julie LyleBeautiful Life, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, The Journey of Life

How does your{self} garden grow?

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Manon, Ballerina

As March quickly “marched” off the calendar, April arrived at our doorstep with contrasting crisp, clean breezes, fresh blue skies muddled with our coastline dew and sluggish foggy mornings. Now, savoring these “Winnie the Pooh” blustery days, we have disembarked at May’s station!

Connection to others as well as greeting our inner self brings with it reward and risk. To experience spring is to face the challenges of winter. To bloom in the moment of today is to risk what must be left behind or will be no more.

Spring nudges us to shake off the residual chill of hunkering down in winter’s silence of expectations and open our eyes to the lavender carpeting the hillsides and freeway exits alive with a pallet of blooms. Buttery yellows, ruby reds and magnificent purple hues all sit in wait for us to glance their way and give a nod as nature wakes up. Will we push the snooze button or sit up and get growing?

I love English gardens, splendid landscapes where each stem seems to have a designated purpose, a necessary morsel to complete a masterpiece in nature. The magical array of blooms at first glance can appear quite random yet closer inspection reveals enviable dedication to the absence of weeds and the beauty in each sprout. It is a sincere labor of love, focused attention, consistent time allocation and willingness to learn. Much like how we humans grow; receiving and giving love, attention, time and learning about others and ourselves.

How will your garden grow? Watchful tending to your health, family, dreams, spirit, mood and relationships is to take note of your life. What patches are demanding that you, the gardener, wake up and pull some weeds, provide more watering care and nurturing?

There is a saying, “If it’s important you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.” How can you make a daily effort to weed out excuses for what is preventing growth? Here’s a few “gardening tips” to consider:

Breathe deeply. Taking 30-60 seconds to breathe in deeply (5-7 seconds inhale, 5-7 seconds exhale) allows for calm regulating of your physical “plant.”
Increase intentional actions to “water” relationships such as focused patience, reducing your judgements and assumptions, smiling more 😊
Use “Inner” Miracle Grow: Compassionate internal dialogue of being kind to yourself and speaking to yourself as you would to a friend.

Here’s wishing you a season of tenderness to flourish and grow.

21Jan

Julie LyleBalance, Beautiful Life, Mindfulness

Gazing upon the Horizon of this New Year – Reflect more, React Less

Reflection is a gift that doesn’t respond kindly to rushing. Take the whole month of January to reflect on (the last year) 2024 if you’d like. There’s no wrong. Enter gently and with care. You are not behind.
—Emily Freeman

The “to do” list for the holidays expands between Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah as a taut balloon we hope doesn’t pop before December 31st. When January 1st arrives, we let go of the string perhaps with mixed emotions; the twinkling of the holiday lights fade and the gifts of time spent with loved ones are now packaged as memories. The season floats away with a bit of melancholy frosted with relief and a filling of anticipation of what is next.

The “in between” days after Christmas and before January are encased in what I consider the “absorb-ignore zone.” Absorb the lingering scent of the Douglas fir, ignore the brittle pine needles falling like dusty confetti to the even dustier wood floor. Absorb the display of holiday greetings from smiling far away family and friends, ignore the envelopes carrying bills. Absorb the pleasure of the last shortbread cookie and the freedom to wear sweatpants, ignore the pile of limp mounds of green, red and glimpses of golf club swinging Santa and surfing reindeers on ugly Christmas sweaters needing a good wash and storage for next year…oops, this year!

Years ago, my wise neighbor gave me a suggestion for holiday cleaning preparation. Deposit stray bills, papers, envelopes and clutter in a large department store handled bag and stash it in a closet to be ignored until January. I did just that, as a Macy’s bag became an instant file cabinet and made countertop room for the charcuterie board assembly line before the holiday party. Come January 3rd, the bag, and its various unopened envelopes were now screaming “Hey, don’t ignore me!”

I attached the new calendar to my office wall and sensed this urgency with the dawn of what was now the 8th, no 10th, wait…it was already the 12th of January! I had SO much to clean, put away, catch up on. I was lagging in my self-imposed productivity, swirling in the overwhelm and anticipated fatigue, I stared at the wilting tree, dust bunnies multiplying and tired decorations asking to hibernate for the next eleven months.

As I was spinning the “Lazy Susan” of “to do” items around in my head I had created this mountain of “new year efficiency” and I was barely lacing up my hiking boots to reach the first summit. My sister witnessed my fevered laments and lovingly shared this opening quote.

I was filling these first thirty-one days of 2025 as a farmer anxiously herding chickens back into their coop! I was the racecar and each day was my track to win to speed around on…for what?

Perhaps, much like the Grinch recognized that Christmas didn’t come in packages and bows, the New Year doesn’t have to come in demanding “get to it” marching orders. Breathing deeply, reflecting on the last year to identify lessons from hundreds of moments and experiences, in essence, downshifting and gliding into this new space of this new year.