From Weeds to Wonder: Surrendering the drive to compete and choosing collaboration.

Let’s imagine a fictional neighborhood where everyone is passionate about gardening but because of the constraints of being a suburban neighborhood, everyone's garden plots are relatively small and limited. In this neighborhood, each gardener has fenced off their plot, invested in their seeds and begins to dream of the day that the garden is in full bloom, ripe with fruit and vegetables and teeming with sunshine. Armed with seed catalogs and big dreams, each gardener sets out to cultivate their own personal paradise. Unbeknownst to the rest of the neighborhood, everyone plants the exact same variety of tomatoes and that is just the beginning of the blunders.

Each gardener has invested in their favorite seeds, sketched out the perfect garden layout, and envisions a glorious summer harvest. But because the yards are divided by fences, no one sees what the others are up to. No cross-pollination of ideas, no exchange of tips. “I’ll mind my plot, you mind yours,” becomes the silent rule.

One gardener invests in expensive, chemical-heavy fertilizer to “guarantee” success. Another meticulously measures soil pH and goes organic. Another sets up a DIY irrigation system using questionable online advice. The gardener at the end of the block, she has a green thumb but very little money and turns to resourcefulness and repurposing. Each is convinced they’ve discovered the perfect approach—without realizing how much they could learn from one another.

As the season begins, fear, pride and shame begin to take root.

Does this metaphor sound familiar?

Garden of Egos: How Fear and Shame Take Root

Each neighbor, feeling prideful in their approach, their knowledge, their vision and their investment feel no need to check in with, share or ask questions of their neighbors. They keep their focus on their own success. Without realizing, every neighbor battles challenges in their garden, from soil issues, to persistent weeds, pests to irrigation and lack of pollinators yet no one shares their struggles, only boasting about where they achieve even moderate succeed. Yields remain modest; frustration simmers and some of our gardeners move into a state of apathy and even anger and resentfulness of their neighbors, not realizing they were also struggling. These neighbors refuse to honor each other's successes and would boast about their wins and some even took action to sabotage each other's efforts. Pride is always compensating for insecurity, be it in the flavor of fear or shame. As these emotions begin to sprout, each gardener is presented with a choice, let go of their pride, surrender their shame and fear or stay anchored to these feelings that grow in isolation and competition.

From Solo Struggle to Shared Success

In our community garden, however, something else took root. In this neighborhood, a few gardeners recognized that each had unique skills:

One was a compost guru, turning kitchen scraps into black gold.
Another built an ingenious drip irrigation system out of repurposed hoses.
Another had a knack for companion planting—pairing vegetables and flowers to naturally reduce pests.
One taught others how to start seedlings indoors, ensuring an early-season head start.
Another taught everyone how to select and save seeds for future planting.
One had a larger area than the others but it was overrun by weeds, but they kept bees

Individually, they might’ve produced decent crops. But together, they created an ecosystem so abundant, it soon overflowed into neighbors’ pantries and local food banks. As we know, collaboration resonates at higher levels of consciousness—acceptance, love, reason. When these gardeners accepted each other’s strengths (and weaknesses), they opened a channel for mutual uplift rather than one-upmanship.

Real-Life Miracles in the Dirt

Incredible Harvests
When one of our community gardeners combined their skills and resources, not only did they have incredible and diverse yields, but the bees were plentiful and the honey was flowing with notes from the garden that everyone created together. The community ate together, tended the garden together and learned much about each other in the process. As the community became interconnected that same act of sharing and problem solving expanded into their homes and neighbors were helping neighbors with babysitting needs, dog walking, car repairs and more. Nothing was transactional because the fences were down and the doors were open. No tit for tat, no give and take, no accounting and no score keeping. Everyone thrived and abundance took on new meaning.
The Ripple Effect
Word spread that the garden had surplus produce, the best honey in the area and mad skills. Nearby families who once relied on canned goods received the garden's surplus fresh, organic vegetables free of charge. This ripple effect of abundance echoed the assertion that true power uplifts the whole, not just the individual. Soon surrounding neighborhoods asked the community gardeners to help them plan their own community gardens and the abundance rippled out further and further.
Life Lessons, No Fences
Gardeners who initially feared sharing their secrets, their knowledge or their resources found that opening up not only boosted yields but also created deeper community bonds. At some point, we must realize our success gets bigger, way bigger, when we actually create together rather than guard our little squares of dirt.

Force is a push from fear, shame, or pride. It’s exhausting, defensive, and always wary of losing ground. Power, on the other hand, stems from truth, love, and unity. In the community garden:

Fear of being overshadowed gave way to curiosity: “Teach me how to do that!”
Shame over not knowing a gardening technique transformed into a willingness to learn.
Pride in personal achievements softened into deep gratitude for collective success.

How VBY is moving out into the power of truth, unity and love

This spirit of collaboration doesn’t just bloom in a plot of veggies. It’s the essence of how we at Vira Bhava Yoga are co-creating our teacher-owned cooperative. Trading hierarchical, ego-driven dynamics that plague the yoga community for a collective in which every teacher’s gifts are celebrated, not out of pridefulness, but gratitude. When we pour our individual experiences and expertise into one communal “soil,” we cultivate opportunities that were previously unimaginable.

Skill-Sharing: Like passing around seeds, each teacher offers unique insights and lived experiences.
Resource-Pooling: software, platforms and networks become communal, fueling a richer harvest for the entire community.
Mutual Growth: Far from a zero-sum game, each success story paves the way for the next, creating an upward spiral of collective empowerment.

Sowing Seeds of Higher Consciousness

The two gardens' metaphors that highlight the difference between force and power, individuality and community, ego and infinite. Collaboration outshines competition in every way that truly matters. By moving from force (protect, compete, dominate) to power (love, share, uplift), we witness a transformation that’s both tangible and deeply personal (fear becoming openness, shame turning into courage).

The same principles guide our work at Vira Bhava Yoga. We know that the ultimate harvest comes from co-creation, unity, and a heart-centered willingness to learn from one another. And just like in that community garden, the impossible becomes possible when we trust in higher levels of consciousness to lead the way.

If a patch of land overrun by weeds can become a thriving community garden, that influences others to let go of competition, and discover true abundance, imagine what else is possible when we step out of ego-driven silos and lean into collective wisdom. The journey upward is paved by connection, compassion, and collaboration. Let’s start planting those seeds right now—in your neighborhood, your workplace, or your practice? The harvest, I promise, will surprise you.

<3 Leanne

leanne boyceJanuary 29, 2025Comment