Do you want to attain your heart’s deepest, dearest desire? First, you need to be able to imagine it! How to do that? One metaphor that can really help is the Heart Garden, as set forth in Sonia Choquette’s wonderfully helpful (and heartwarming!) book. When we can imagine protecting and nurturing our tender desire-seeds in a Heart Garden, we take a great first step toward helping them grow to the full harvest of attainment. But one problem we all face is that we have inner voices (and sometimes outer ones!) that attack our desire-seeds as soon as they start to sprout.

Find out how to envision your own Heart Garden, and what to do about those varmints and pests, so that you can truly achieve your deepest heart’s desires, right here:

1. Plant the Seed.
Identify your deepest heart’s desire. Imagine this as a seed planted in your Heart Garden. Fertilize your garden by feeding it with input that nourishes your dreams. Read things that support your creativity, or look at visual images that depict what you want. Meditate and pray.

2. Worry Weeds.
One of the big weeds to watch out for is worry. Worry-weeds can spread like lightning and choke the life out of your Heart Garden. Recognize the inner worry-voice (which often starts with the words, “Yeah, but. . .) and simply recognize them as your fear, nothing more. Or perhaps your worry weeds take the form of “logic”–in reality, just others’ opinions. Imagine yanking out every single worry-weed and making a great compost heap of them! Choquette shares the story of one client’s favorite weed-busting technique: she filled a spritzer with lavender water and every time a worry-weed popped up, she spritzed a bit and said, “Die, weed, die!” It’s fun to take physical action to attack those worry-weeds (and the client reported that she gradually came to associate the smell of lavender with feeling in charge of what grew in her garden.)

3. Fence Your Garden.
There are people who will try to squash your dreams or steal them away. Protect your garden from the blight of negative people! Don’t share your dreams with anyone who will discourage you.

4. Daily Care and Feeding.
Be sure to nourish your Heart Garden every day with daily doses of love and imagination. Imagine yourself with a watering can sprinkling the garden with water every day. You will just about be able to see the new, healthy plants grow in front of your eyes.