Sunday Meditation: Guard Your Heart

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Proverbs 4:23

Our thoughts, speech and actions settle into our hearts and, if repeated often enough, find a home. At certain points in my life, I have found myself off course, or on a bad course. It is hard to see it when we are in it, but looking back I can see the thoughts, speech and actions that led me off track. I am learning how to guard my heart above all else to purse the route that I believe leads to a fulfilling, authentic life.

I have learned what road to travel by going down the wrong ones. And I speak from experience when I say that thoughts determine direction. More specifically, thoughts, when acted upon, can lead us to good or bad destinations. We must guard our hearts from these destructive thought patterns that lead us to negative behaviors and outcomes.

To guard something is to protect against damage or harm. The following are some thought patterns, many times unconscious, that try to take root and grow. We must guard against them, to prevent damage and harm to ourselves and our journey.

Thought weeds that require constant pulling

• Comparison, the “thief of joy,” pops up constantly, especially when engaged in activities such as scrolling through social media feeds. Comparison leads to “if only” thinking. If only I had this, or went there, or looked like that. Comparison robs us of contentment in who we are, and stifles our happiness for others.
• Escapism, the tendency to seek relief or distraction from reality through unhealthy means or fantasies. It robs us of our ability to be mindfully present. It leads to filling ourselves with emptiness. When we employ behaviors like numbing to escape, we fail to learn how to persevere through life’s challenges and cannot enjoy life’s blessings.
• Judgement, or thinking we are in some way better than an individual or group. It leads us to feel better than, which inevitably makes us feel worse. This one is especially insidious, as most of us wouldn’t admit to being judgmental, but the reality is that each of us are in some way, on some level. Judgement steals thoughts of acceptance and empathy.
• Anxiety, especially over that which we can’t control, can grow in any condition and loves to choke out healthy, rational thoughts. It leads to living small, playing it safe and staying stagnant in our circumstances. Put honestly, this leads to wasted life.
• Complaining may start off small and slow, but likes to grow until it overtakes our heart. Complaining leads to, or stems from being self-centered (kind of like the question of the chicken or the egg). When we complain, we are in our head, thinking only about ourselves and our circumstances. Complaining likes to choke out gratitude.

True to their nature, these “weeds” need constant pulling so they don’t find a permanent home in your heart. If they do find a home, we find ourselves on a path of misery, self-indulgence, and sickness.

The good news is that if we are vigilant in keeping the weeds out, we can also invite fruitful, life-affirming thoughts into our hearts. We can nourish them, water them, and coax them to grow.

These fruitful thought patterns include contentment, mindful presence, acceptance, trust, hope and gratitude. When these patterns take root and grow abundantly in our hearts, there is no room for weeds. The following are suggestions for growing fruitful thoughts in our hearts in a world that encourages comparison, selfishness and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Encouraging Fruitful Thought

• Start your day with God. Read scripture and daily devotionals. Journal, pray and reflect on all that you are blessed with. This sets the tone for the day and invites fruitful thoughts to call your heart home. It establishes the only connection we truly need, and changes our mindset from serving the self to serving the world around us.
• Limit screen time. I had been in a funk all week. Feeling blah and discontent, yet I couldn’t put my finger on why. I get an automatic screen usage report on my phone each Sunday and learned that, for some reason, I had spent WAY more time on my apps and social media than the previous week. What had I been doing? Allowing all the weeds to grow: comparison, escapism, judgement, anxiety, complaining. Screens are fertile ground for negative thought patterns. Try putting down the phone, and engaging in real life. Set a limit, or a reminder. Your heart will thank you.
• Choose wisely who you spend your time with. This isn’t as much of an issue currently, as most of us aren’t interacting with a wider circle in a regular basis. But this might be a good time to examine the relationships you do have, and gracefully back away from the ones that encourage gossip, numbing (filling with emptiness), comparison, judgment and complaining. Think about the person you are when you are with that person, and decide if the relationship is bringing out the best, or worst in you. Act accordingly.
• Monitor your thoughts. Sometimes, when I go about my day with less awareness, I notice I’m in a funk. Then I realize it’s because I’ve been letting my automatic thoughts have free reign in my brain. We need to repeatedly monitor our thoughts and be aware of harmful or stinking thinking. Then, without judging ourselves for having these thoughts, let them go. We cannot control what thoughts run through our minds, but we can choose to identify them as unhelpful or untrue and release them. We can then tune our minds to more positive, helpful thought patterns.
• Spend time in nature. There is a lot information from the human world fighting for our attention. Ninety-eight percent of it is negative. All you need to do is look outside, into the world of plants and animals, to see beauty, cooperation and co-existence. Next time you feel the urge to escape, do so in nature. Even if it’s only to your backyard or a park down the street. It will calm your anxious thoughts and invite contentment and mindful presence into your heart.
• Take care of yourself. Not by being self-centered, but by practicing self-love. Simply because you need to realize your worth to see that your thoughts matter. And that you are worthy of staying on a path of wellness. If you nourish your body with (mostly) healthy food, exercise or get some kind of intentional movement in each day, and establish an adequate sleep routine, you are internalizing the message that you are worth taking care of. That your heart is worth guarding. And that you deserve the the fulfilling and authentic course of life that you are choosing.

So today may be your first step or your millionth step on your journey to wellness. Or you may just be thinking that it’s time to correct your course and get back on the path. The important part is that you are aware and open to pursuing what you deserve. Wherever you are, I hope I’ve encouraged you to guard your heart from damage and harm, and instead choose to allow in love, acceptance and light.