Director's Message: Tired of the drought; the seeds of thought you sow

Kristine Hodsdon, RDH, introduces dental hygienists to the concept of mind management through a farming metaphor where the reader gets to decide what type of crop will be grown.

I’d like to introduce you to the concept of mind management through a farming metaphor where you get to decide what type of crop you would like to grow.

Activity #1: Imagine for a moment that each of you have been given a farm with hundreds of acres of land on which to plant, grow, and harvest whatever fruits and vegetables you would like with the stipulation that you can only choose three items to plant — a primary crop and two secondary crops. What would you choose to grow and why?

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Activity #2: Let’s pretend now that you have the know how to grow your chosen crops. You possess all the right equipment you will need, and you have checked the Farmer’s Almanac, which is predicting ideal weather conditions during the upcoming growing season. As a farmer, what mindset of character, temperament, and outlook would you additionally need to possess to ensure growing a successful crop?

Did you respond with: responsibility, discipline, attention to detail, focus, perseverance, determination, prioritization, planning, resource allocation, ability to work with others, etc.

The Garden of Your Mind

As with any endeavor, success includes many factors, and obviously a person’s quality of mind will have a definite impact on the outcome regardless of how favorable all the other elements may be.

Let’s look more closely at this idea of our “quality of mind.”

I’d like you to consider the idea of our mind’s being like gardens with unlimited potential for influence and creation. When we explore the power and potential of the human mind and how this marvelous instrument of ours can greatly impact the quality of life we are experiencing from moment to moment.

The purpose of this article and activities is to use the image of a garden to help you explore some of the most important aspects of the mind. The key message is through our thoughts that we create the worlds we live in.

We can alter our worlds by simply altering our thoughts. If we change our thoughts, we can change our lives. From this perspective, our minds become our most crucial resource — an incredibly rich, fertile piece of land where we can plant and grow whatever we like. If we can become aware of and master the mind’s power, we can consciously determine much more of our degree of happiness, sense of abundance, and the feeling of freedom in our lives. It all begins with our minds. If we can really start to see that it is our thinking, which is the cause behind all effects we experience, we can discover how much actual control we have over what is happening to us in our lives.

Moment by moment, thought by thought, each of us is that farmer, planting seeds for a harvest yet to come. We do this work actively or passively, but either way, we have a tremendous influence on what will show up for ourselves in the future.

I invite you to actively plant “empowerment seeds” of thought into your fertile mind by joining me, and 14-plus luminary speakers at the upcoming Dental Influencers Empowerment Series 2012. Click here to register for free and listen via your phone or computer.

Kristine A. Hodsdon, RDH
Director, RDH eVillage

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