I have worked with many people over the course of my career. And this morning, as I reflect on all those who have transformed their lives, one thing has become clear. During their journey, there was a point in time when they choose to act in accordance with their values rather than in accordance with the expectations of others. For at that metaphorical fork in the road, they encountered a choice point, i.e. a moment when they choose to move toward the person they wanted to become. Once they did this, a significant shift took place, resulting in a transformation, and a new beginning that lead them to where they are now.
The poet Mark Nepo understood this choice point concept when he wrote: “Once on the other side of my cancer journey, I realized that the things we suffer and the things we love provide us with an Inner Curriculum. When we least expect it, it is working with what we’re given while staying close to what we love that is a constant teacher.”
By choosing to work with their inner curriculum and by choosing to be true to their values, they began a healing process and a transformational process, all at the same time. Yet, from the outside, these choice points may not appear dramatic. They do not always look like some Disney movie where the hero rises to the challenge, overcomes the obstacle, and goes the distance. Instead, they may seem to be pretty insignificant. However, for that particular person, that choice was a moment when they stayed close to what they loved and believed. Even if it did not make sense to others, they moved forward. And by moving forward, the choice, the actions, and results that followed became “a constant teacher.”
For me, the day I decided to create my first flower bed in the back yard was a choice point. On one level, I just wanted to look out the kitchen window while doing the dishes and to see flowers. I knew that all I had to do was remove the sod, plant perennial flowers, and then mulch them so they would grow, flourish, and bloom from spring straight through to the fall. But on inside me, there was a larger process taking place, one that would transform my life on many levels.
During seminars, I would often joked that 96% of the families in the United States were dysfunctional and the other 4% were in denial. Then, I would tell people that I grew up in the 96% zone. Thus, the work of leadership and change was often more difficult and challenging as I did not have many role models or experiences of healthy choices. Instead, I grew up with misaligned default choices, expectations, and understandings of how people engaged with life’s challenges.
As my life journey unfolded before me, I had to come to grips with the overwhelming pain and anguish that I experienced growing up in a dysfunctional family of origin. At the same time, as my work was expanding, I was traveling every week, gaining new clients, and experiencing success in ways that I never thought were possible.
And yet, while I was managing a growing business, plus engaging with a loving partner and a growing family, I was struggling on the inside, because the outer story of success was not matching the profound inner turmoil that I felt. So one day, I engaged my support network for help and perspective. Next, I followed their advice and counsel, and worked with an experienced counselor who understood my life experience and knew how to help me. This was a powerful first step in my healing journey, and I am profoundly grateful for the decades of work that we have done together.
Then one morning, I felt called to create a flower bed outside our kitchen window. Now this sounds dramatic, but it was not. I just could see it in my mind’s eye, and I knew it would be good for me to create it. So on that day, I measured up the flower bed, and removed the sod. It was hard physical labor. Once the sod was all gone and the soil was all prepared for planting, I was hot, tired, and covered in sweat. I also was happy, and my inner turmoil was significantly reduced. I felt a degree of inner calm that had been missing for quite some time.
What followed the prep work was the planting of perennial flowers, mulching, watering, and routine care. I also got to enjoy seeing flowers grow and bloom outside the kitchen window. But most important, I felt like I was recalibrating my inner process, and discovering an on-going capacity to stay centered, attuned, and healthy, for lack of a better term.
Of course, I continued my work with my counselor. And I continued to do my work as a consultant, executive coach and trainer in the fields of leadership, strategic planning, and organizational change. I also continued to be a husband, father, and friend to my marriage, family, and community.
But, now I had something else that I looked forward to that rejuvenated and balanced me in the midst of my inner journey, namely the planting and growing of perennial flowers. So, slowly, I continued to dig, prepare and plant flowers. I expanded my first flower into a second and a third flower bed. Over time, I combined some, and enlarged other flower beds. I also divided plants that I had, and spread them into new areas, and into new combinations.
As a result of this on-going gardening process, I found myself learning a lot about me and how I worked. I learned about my strengths and my weaknesses. I learned about what level of chaos I could and could not handle. I learned how to see the entire flower bed before I ever put the shovel in the ground. But most of all, as the beds expanded, merged and transformed, I realized that I also was doing the same thing. My understanding of who I wanted to be expanded and transformed. In short, my initial choice of creating the first bed had activated an internal process that was changing me, not just changing the landscape around our house.
Now, many decades later, we have over an acre of perennial flowers growing around our home. Each spring, a couple thousand crocus, daffodils and tulips bloom. This is followed by waves and waves of different flowers, blooming all summer long and deep into the fall. In our community and on our street, our home is known as the one with the flowers all the way to the curb. And a couple of decades later, when people ask me why I dug up nearly the entire yard and planted so many different kinds of flowers, I tell them it was my therapy time. But, in the beginning, it all started with a choice to listen to my heart and to work on my inner curriculum.
© Geery Howe 2025
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