Tend Your Own Garden: The Most Special Thing About Me Is That I Finally Chose to Become Myself

Let the record show that I am still a sunshine butterfly angel princess. ✨

😂

Healing has not taken that away from me.

I still enjoy believing I am magical.

I still like butterflies.

I still like flowers.

I still get ridiculously excited when the universe seems to wink at me.

I still reserve the right to occasionally look around at my own life and think:

Wow. Jasmine is pretty special.

We are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

But lately I have begun seeing something differently.

For a long time, when I thought about what made me special, I looked for exceptional things.

Maybe I was unusually intuitive.

Maybe I was more creative.

Maybe I noticed things other people didn’t.

Maybe there was some enormous purpose waiting for me.

Maybe I was somehow chosen.

I have always enjoyed a good “Jasmine is special” moment.

Let me have my sparkle.

😂

But the deeper I have gone into healing, the more I have realized that perhaps the most remarkable thing about what has happened to me is how completely unremarkable the process actually was.

I did not climb a mountain.

I did not spend forty days in a cave.

I did not become initiated into some secret ancient order.

I did not discover a hidden scroll explaining the mysteries of consciousness.

I sat with myself.

That was basically it.

I noticed a pattern.

I got curious.

I traced it backward.

I asked where it came from.

And then I asked one question:

Who do I choose to be now?

Then I did it again.

And again.

And again.

One pattern at a time.

One wound at a time.

One weird thought at a time.

One overreaction.

One relationship.

One fear.

One ordinary Tuesday.

That was the work.

And somehow, without realizing it, I had started tending the garden of my mind.

Not to make it look like someone else’s garden.

That part matters.

Because for much of my life, I was an excellent mimic.

I watched people.

I learned quickly.

I adapted.

I figured out what was acceptable in the room and became good at reflecting it.

What does a good daughter look like?

What does a good wife look like?

What does a good Christian look like?

What does a desirable woman look like?

What does a successful person look like?

What kind of person gets loved?

Show me.

I’ll learn it.

I was good at that.

But copying someone else’s garden is not the same thing as discovering your own.

For years, I looked over fences.

Her roses are beautiful.

Maybe I need roses.

That person has perfectly straight rows.

Maybe mine should be straight.

That person says this is what spirituality should look like.

Maybe I should plant that.

Someone else thinks this is what a good woman does.

Okay.

Put that in the garden too.

Eventually you can end up standing inside your own mind surrounded by plants you never consciously chose.

And then wonder why nothing feels like home.

Healing changed that.

Not because I suddenly knew exactly what belonged.

Because I became willing to look.

I started walking through my internal garden asking:

Who planted this?

That belief about needing to be exceptional?

Where did that come from?

That fear that someone pulling away means I need to try harder?

Who planted that?

The voice that says rest must be earned?

Who planted that?

The instinct to rescue people I love?

The need to be the most interesting person in the room?

The fear of disappointing someone?

The belief that being good means keeping everyone happy?

Where did these things come from?

Some seeds came from childhood.

Some came from religion.

Some came from heartbreak.

Some came from poverty.

Some came from other people’s fear.

Some came from experiences I survived.

Some were handed to me lovingly by people who had received the exact same seeds from somebody before them.

Nobody was necessarily standing over Little Jasmine plotting:

Today we shall plant codependency.

😂

People pass seeds without realizing they are carrying them.

That is how patterns travel.

And once I understood that, I stopped needing to hate the garden.

I didn’t have to stand there screaming:

WHO PUT ALL THESE WEEDS IN HERE?!

I could get curious instead.

Maybe this grew because something in me needed protection once.

Maybe this plant served a purpose.

Maybe it kept something alive.

Maybe I don’t need it anymore.

That changed everything.

Healing stopped looking like warfare.

I didn’t need to burn the garden down.

I needed to learn how to tend it.

Some things needed pulling.

Some needed pruning.

Some simply needed less water.

Some needed a fence.

Some needed sunlight.

Some needed to be moved somewhere with more room.

Some needed to be composted.

And I love that metaphor because compost is such a perfect picture of healing.

The ugly stuff doesn’t always disappear.

Sometimes it breaks down into something that feeds new growth.

The heartbreak becomes wisdom.

The rejection becomes self-trust.

The fear becomes discernment.

The mistake becomes humility.

The childhood wound becomes tenderness toward another wounded person.

Nothing wasted.

Just transformed.

And then I started noticing something else.

Underneath all those things other people had planted, there were things that had apparently always been mine.

Creativity.

Curiosity.

Humor.

A little bit of mischief.

Okay, a lot of mischief.

😂

Compassion.

A love for beauty.

A fascination with people.

The instinct to ask one more question.

A desire to make things.

A tendency to notice the overlooked person.

An absurd affection for flowers.

Which, considering the evidence from my childhood wardrobe, seems to have been there from approximately birth.

Those things didn’t feel installed.

They felt discovered.

And maybe that is why becoming myself has felt less like invention lately and more like remembering.

I kept thinking healing would eventually turn me into some improved version of Jasmine.

Instead, healing began removing enough noise for me to recognize the Jasmine who had been there underneath it.

The little girl who loved adventure.

The little girl who stole her sister’s sunflower seeds and ran away laughing.

The little girl who sat on the couch at seven years old and decided:

Okay. We are going to be good today.

Bless her.

She had no idea what she was doing.

😂

But she had already stumbled onto one of the principles that would shape the rest of my life:

I can notice myself.

I can choose.

She started with behavior.

Adult Jasmine started asking about the motivation underneath it.

Why am I being good?

Why am I helping?

Why am I apologizing?

Why am I working this hard?

Why do I want this person to approve of me?

Why am I afraid?

Why am I reacting?

And then:

Do I want to keep watering this?

That might be one of the most important questions I have learned.

Because attention is water.

Repetition is water.

Rumination is water.

The stories we tell ourselves are water.

The things we consume all day long are water.

Whatever we repeatedly feed begins growing roots.

Fear can grow.

Resentment can grow.

Shame can grow.

But so can peace.

So can curiosity.

So can gratitude.

So can self-trust.

So can courage.

So can joy.

The mind is not completely under our control.

Random seeds blow in.

Weeds appear.

Birds drop things nobody asked for.

😂

Thoughts happen.

Old programming fires.

Life leaves debris.

The goal was never to create some perfectly controlled internal botanical garden where nothing uncomfortable is permitted to sprout.

The goal is to become the gardener.

To notice.

To decide.

To participate.

That is where freedom entered for me.

I cannot choose every seed that was planted in my childhood.

I cannot change the weather that passed through.

I cannot rewrite every season.

But eventually I became old enough and conscious enough to walk through the garden myself.

And I could finally ask:

What do I want growing here now?

Not what would make people admire my garden.

Not what would make mine look spiritually impressive.

Not what someone else says belongs.

Mine.

What kind of garden do I want to live inside?

I want love.

Plant it.

Curiosity.

Plant it.

Compassion.

Plant it.

Boundaries.

Definitely plant those.

We apparently went several decades without enough fencing.

😂

Play.

Plant it.

Creativity.

Plant an unreasonable amount.

Rest.

That one took some convincing, but plant it.

Truth.

Self-respect.

Kindness with a backbone.

Presence.

Humor.

Joy.

And peace.

Lots and lots of peace.

Then tend them.

That’s the part people sometimes skip.

We say:

I want to be peaceful.

Wonderful.

Water it.

Practice it when you’re annoyed.

I want better boundaries.

Wonderful.

Water them.

Say no.

I want to trust myself.

Water it.

Make a decision without polling twelve people.

I want to stop caring what everyone thinks.

Water it.

Allow yourself to be misunderstood without writing a seventeen-page defense brief.

😂

We become what we repeatedly tend.

And maybe this is why I accidentally became what I jokingly call a philosopher.

I stopped asking everyone else what I was supposed to think.

I started sitting inside my own garden long enough to notice what was happening there.

Every pattern became a question.

Every question became an opportunity to choose.

Every choice became another little vote.

And eventually those votes started forming a person I actually recognized.

Not perfect.

Not finished.

Not somehow above humanity.

Just increasingly mine.

That may be the part that excites me most.

Because if this required something uniquely special about me, then all I could do is tell you my story.

Cute story.

Good for Jasmine.

Moving on.

But if what changed my life was awareness, curiosity, honesty, and repeated choice?

Those doors are available to other people too.

You do not have to become me.

Please don’t.

One Jasmine is plenty.

😂

The world does not need seven billion identical gardens.

That would be horrifyingly boring.

I don’t want everyone to become the same flower.

I want people to become conscious gardeners.

I want you to look around inside yourself and ask:

What is growing here?

Who planted it?

Do I still want it?

What have I been watering without realizing it?

What have I neglected because somebody told me it was silly?

What naturally grows in me when fear isn’t pruning it back?

What do I want my garden to feel like?

Maybe yours is quiet.

Maybe it is loud.

Maybe it is structured.

Maybe it is gloriously chaotic.

Maybe you need roses.

Maybe you need vegetables.

Maybe you have an entire field of sunflowers.

Maybe you are apparently some kind of cactus person.

Again: mind your own prickly little business.

😂

The goal is not sameness.

The goal is consciousness.

And maybe that is where my old desire to be special finally found somewhere healthier to land.

I do still think I am special.

I hope everyone gets to feel special.

But perhaps what makes me proudest is not some mysterious thing I was born possessing.

It is that eventually I became willing to tend what was mine.

I stopped blaming everyone who planted the early seeds.

I stopped demanding someone come fix the garden for me.

I stopped trying to copy the garden next door.

I picked up the tools.

I started looking.

And when I found something growing that I didn’t want to keep feeding, I asked:

Who do I choose to be instead?

Then I planted accordingly.

Some days I still water the wrong thing.

Some weeds are persistent little bastards.

😂

Sometimes I forget I’m the gardener and stand in the middle of everything complaining about the landscaping.

Then awareness comes back.

Welcome back.

There are the tools.

There is the soil.

There is another choice.

Maybe healing was never about becoming extraordinary.

Maybe it was becoming responsible for the little patch of consciousness I have actually been given.

Maybe that is enough.

Because a tended garden affects everything around it.

It feeds things.

It shelters things.

It becomes somewhere butterflies can land.

Seeds travel.

Beauty spreads.

People rest there.

And maybe somebody walking past sees what is growing and thinks:

I wonder what I could grow in mine.

That’s the ripple I want.

Not:

Look at Jasmine’s beautiful garden.

But:

Go home and tend yours.

Find out what was planted there.

Meet it without shame.

Keep what belongs.

Release what doesn’t.

Plant something new.

Water it.

Protect it.

Let it become unlike anyone else’s.

Because healing was never about turning yourself into a better version of somebody else.

It was learning to tend the garden of your own mind until the life growing there finally felt like yours.

And yes—

I am still a sunshine butterfly angel princess.

Obviously.

😂🦋

But the woman I am proudest to be?

The gardener.

Closing Reflections

Take a quiet look around the garden of your own mind.

Not to judge it.

Not to compare it.

Just to notice what is growing there.

Ask yourself:

What beliefs were planted in me before I was old enough to choose them?

What thoughts or patterns have I been watering simply because they are familiar?

What part of my personality is truly mine—and what part was built to survive, belong, or earn approval?

What naturally grows in me when fear is not pruning it back?

What deserves less attention?

What deserves more?

What kind of internal garden do I actually want to live inside?

Maybe you want more peace.

More play.

More courage.

More creativity.

More honesty.

More boundaries.

More rest.

More love.

You do not have to uproot everything today.

You do not need a perfect garden.

Just notice.

Choose.

Tend.

Then choose again.

Because healing is not about making yourself look like somebody else’s idea of beautiful.

It is about becoming conscious enough to decide what belongs in your own soil.

And maybe that is the real invitation:

Stop staring over the fence.
Go home and tend your garden.