When I was growing up and started feeling envious or competitive, my mother would say the grass always seemed greener in the other person’s yard. Then she would ask what my grass needed to green it up. It was a great teaching tool that she employed because it caused me to see myself as the creator of my space.

My grandson did a lot of state-to-state driving this summer. His experience of being cut off, side-swiped, and tailgated by other drivers brought up in him a bit of road rage. He was concerned enough about those feelings that he shared them with his Dad. His very wise father told him that he was at least 50% of that equation. He could keep loving his quality of safety and let the reckless drivers feel their selfish impatience. In other words, he was responsible for his own “grass.”

When our feelings make us falsely believe that the other person owns our space, either in a good way or a bad way, the “grass” will always seem greener on their side of the situation. However, once you own your space, you get to decide what you want to put in it.

By claiming your creations one at a time you can increase your spiritual real estate. So the next time their grass becomes your focus, realize that it is just another opportunity to make your space greener. Yes, it is nice when they take care of their grass so that their energy and yours blend. But their energetic yard is theirs and yours is yours.

Recently a college roommate sent me a picture of herself. I immediately checked to see if she had aged more or less than I had. Thankfully, I caught myself from doing the grass is greener thing and focused instead on our friendship. I don’t know about her grass but my grass got greener because I fertilized it with the heart quality of friendship.

When you are able to push aside the better than/less than feelings you can always have green. To not do so will cause a lot of brown, dried-up opportunities to love more. So what if they don’t fertilize their grass with love, that doesn’t mean you can’t fertilize yours. And it might even cause them to see the difference and bring some green to their grass.