The Internal Garden

Last week’s newsletter was quite long, detailing the marathon adventure of buying a 40-foot school bus. This week I wanted to write something that feels more like a deep breath.

I’ve never been much of a gardener. I’ve killed more than one succulent (how does that even happen?) and I’m currently in a standoff with a pothos. But, I love green things, especially flowers, and I love the metaphor they offer for living intentionally. For a garden to thrive, you must pluck what’s ready, tend to what’s growing, and plant seeds for the future.

Today’s newsletter includes 3 ways to tend (the watering and weeding of your day), 2 flowers to pick (beautiful things I’ve found in the world), and 1 seed to plant (a question to carry with you).

3 Ways to Tend

• Intentionality Habit: The Window Check
  At some point today, walk to a window or a door and look as far into the distance as you can for 60 seconds. This not only resets your optical focus, but reminds you that the world is bigger than your desk.

• Pattern Interruption: The Audio Fast

  The next time you’re in the car, don’t turn on the radio, a podcast, or a playlist. Drive in total silence. Start with just 5 minutes if you need to. Observe the “noise” in your brain that starts roaring the moment it doesn’t have a digital distraction to chew on.

• A Sip of Good News
  In Doniphan, Missouri, Animal Rescue Corps recently saved 18 dogs, including a pregnant female, from the snow and freezing temperatures during the winter storm sweeping the nation. During the storm, the pregnant dog gave birth to 9 puppies! Seven adult dogs and 11 puppies were transported to a rescue shelter near Nashville. You can read the full story here!

2 Flowers to Pluck

• “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

• “I just try to live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.” - Tim Lake, About Time (2013)

1 Seed to Plant

• If you had to go 24 hours without your phone, laptop, iPad, or TV starting right now, what is the first thing you would do with the silence?

And there we have it! A brief, but hopefully helpful, newsletter. I hope this gives you a little extra light today and this week, whether you’re tending a bus or just trying to keep a pothos alive. Growth, even for flowers, is rarely a straight line.

Until next time, live uninterrupted.

~ Coleman