Gardening is therapeutic: it promotes health and helps heal from mental and emotional wounds, helping us to be authentic.
Nature has always been a source of well-being for us men who, often, when we need to recover from a difficult period, disconnect from stress or harmful thoughts, we take a walk in the green or maybe we dedicate ourselves to gardening, rediscovered by many people even during lockdown.
According to Chris Fehlhaber, assistant horticulturist at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania, it's no coincidence, because "gardens aid in physical, mental and emotional healing".
Chris said he found gardening, at a difficult time in his life, more than just a hobby. Cultivating it helped him feel better, let go of the worries that plagued him, a regenerate in body and spirit.
According to Fehlhaber, this happens because the plants are honest with us, when they don't get enough water or sun it is immediately evident. And this quality of theirs encourages us to be authentic in turn and to lower our defenses.
Furthermore, the garden is a place where sadness can be experienced in all its complexity, which allows us the freedom to experience what we feel, without judgment. And all this, according to Fehlhaber, has a positive effect because it helps us to be more authentic.
And then there are the slowness and kindness, which in the garden can be experienced to the full by allowing yourself a relaxing break from the chaos of everyday life and the surrounding violence. All characteristics that contribute to making it a sacred space, of rediscovery of oneself.
Not to mention that gardens are built on love as evidenced by the fact that they grow thanks to someone's care. This is why connecting with the various plants that inhabit them can help heal. Because when we allow ourselves to live in the present by engaging with what surrounds us, it is easier to realize how much life there is around us.
Furthermore, the garden, which is constantly changing, teaches us that the latter, however painful, is as inevitable as the cycles of life and death. And that life continues even without us, and that death is part of life itself and even makes it possible. Thanks to dead plants and organic matter that becomes compost, the garden is reborn.
FONTE: Think Act Be
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