When I was a kid there a lot of games whose very names were warnings: Don't Break the Ice! Don't Spill the Beans! and even Kerplunk! whose premise was not to let the marbles fall. I never really liked those games; the fact that nobody actually won because somebody lost, was not fun, and trying not to do what the rules directed was very stressful.
As a teacher, I learned back in grad school to phrase directions positively. For example, rather than tell students not to be late, it's more effective to remind them to be on time. That construction takes the whole idea of tardiness out of the conversation. Likewise, stop talking becomes please listen quietly, and so on. We remove even the thought of what we don't want and focus on what we do.
I thought of that today in my garden as I chose to shell the beans there and compost the husks right away. It was an exercise in mindfulness as I stood in my windswept plot under swirling skies with only the goldfinches for company and strung and split each pod, emptying the beans into a pint container I set on the little storage unit by the compost bin. More than once I knocked the square bin with my wrist, threatening to tip it over and into the top of the shed.
"Don't-- !" I warned myself, and then paused and reframed my thinking. "Keep the beans in there!" I encouraged myself. And you know what? With the exception of a few errant legumes, which I quickly retrieved, I did it!
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