Secular people have speculated regarding the benefits of gardening and have made it into a therapeutic tool. The garden, given by God at the beginning, is the setting in which physical and mental health will abound.
“If you don’t like studying, you’ll end up with a hoe in your hand!” Does this remark sound familiar? Maybe those who have grown in the city have had different pro-education discussions between parents and children, but in the countryside, agriculture has become a means of intimidating! In this age of cultural and social emancipation, there are less and less people who are interested in gardening.
I had the privilege lately of discovering unsuspected benefits of this activity, which is as old as man himself, and I was impressed. Of all complementary therapies, I consider gardening the most valuable for mental health. Vast research has been done up until the present, and findings show that gardening helps all psychic disorders, whether characteristic of childhood, middle age, or elderhood. Not only sick people may benefit. Anyone who wants to enjoy a balanced mind that is vigorous and healthy, needs to take gardening into account.
The following article is a short review of psychological benefits one can get from taking care of plants, whether they are vegetables, ornamental plants or trees. Although we don’t even realize the majority of bonuses we get when we toil for a rich harvest, this “medicine” does its work silently, and results of this humble instrument are seen in a nobler existence.
Work and Colorful Emotions
My grandmother loves flowers. She works hard to see them vigorous, and they feel it. They reward her with a whole array of colors, shapes, and perfumes. Maybe you ask yourself: what for? You don’t preserve flowers as food for winter!
The value of the activity you are engaged in is not measured by the reward received. Neither is your value proportionate with your productivity. If at times you only get smiles and appreciations, will you be as calm as when you regularly receive remuneration for your work and are able to buy everything you want? Staying at home and rearing children doesn’t bring you a lot of income, but every hour invested in them is worth it!
And I will tell you another secret. My dear granny plants flowers between rows and beds, as well. Even though she plants them to make it more pleasant in the garden, the delicate plants are useful against pests, too! What a miracle it is to overcome evil with the beautiful!
The Reward of Patience
The world we live in is set up for rapid functioning, and our waiting is no exception! In spite of this, God cultivates our patience through the things in nature that he entrusts to our care. For example, when walnut trees don’t bring forth fruit one year after planting, you won’t hurry to chop them down. You won’t do it after two years, either. Even though it will take you five years to taste the first walnuts, you will still let the trees in the ground to mature and bring fruit in their time.
Talking about ourselves now. People usually give up quite easily. They leave aside good intentions, freshly learned health habits, and the to-do list they just jot down for the next time period. The fact that we don’t always get the results immediately gets us discouraged, and we give up before enjoying the results. Stand near the big walnut trees and remember that they, too, just like you, needed their own latent period until they got used to bring forth a harvest!
The Solution of Perseverance
When you see your aromatic lovage bush infested with little flies, you mobilize to free it from these pests. You try stinging nettle water and hot pepper tea and the whole list of suggestions from your great grandparents or the best gardeners. You don’t give up until the plant doesn’t return to its beautiful green and is free of everything that hinders its growth.
In our lives, however, we sometimes give up on friends much easier than we do on lovage bushes. Maybe you have had a delicate conversation and you have given up your willingness to invest in a challenging and sucking relationship. Dear people: people are very dear, no matter how difficult it is to love them. The fact that Christ hasn’t given up on us—after the infinite number of times we have disappointed Him—is the greatest argument for offering at least a little of what has been richly given to us, because it’s worth it.
Look for people you have given up on and work hard to remove all pests hindering you from setting up an aromatic table before your fellow human beings!
Discipline
When you see all plants orderly and straight in battalions of rows and beds, it is truly an army! You won’t see tomato, potato, bean, and turnip plants all scattered aroung for a more creative and intelligent growth. Things don’t happen like that, because in spring you don’t go out in the field and throw a random mixture of seeds wherever they happen to land. You work hard to tie them with strings, like a good husbandman. Have you thought, however, about setting up in order you habits, too? For example, regulating your sleep so that it falls between the 21 and 5 marks in your clock.
Outside Our Control
“If it doesn’t rain now, we won’t have corn this year!” You have prepared the soil, you have sown the seeds and you have cared for the crop, and in spite of these, there are things that you cannot manage. These elements also teach us (once again!) that we don’t hold the reins. We are vulnerable before events that simply happen! And it is good that this lesson is taught in the school of gardening. Some humanistic-minded psychologists may suggest that all resources are found in yourself, that you are able to change your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It is as useless to try to look to yourself for resources that will get you away from a crisis, as it is for the corn plant to try to bring the corn on the stalk without a drop from heaven.
Is your soil hardened and dry because of so many failures? Look for rain from above. Out of yourself will only flow dryness!
(re)ReStart
Do you need to start again? It may be difficult. It is frustrating, true, to see that a late frost in the middle of May has ruined your bean transplants. But you don’t let your mind dwell too much on how critical the situation is. You sow seeds again. You don’t have those black beans you got from your friend from far away any more? You sow red ones; those are also good for burgers.
I know it can be exhausting to go back the same way, but let God decide which frost sends you back to the start line. Every ending—whether it is the work place, a relationship, an investment—can be a new beginning. It may be something greater than what you left behind!
Heaven Is Made of Gifts
God has blessed us with a big garden! Much land, but it also means much toil. In spite of this, we are thankful to God for the gifts we get from our work and for the harvest we receive! What we receive is undeserved, because in His garden the harvest is without money. This is the lesson which we often practice, beginning with early summer and until we gather the last harvest, when our guests leave with tokens of God’s goodness toward us.
Sometimes it is difficult to make a living just for yourself; having to care for others on top of that… Even though suffering and disappointment have often blinded our generous eye, giving up things that are ours by right for the sake of others can be the remedy for our sufferings. From the harvest that our Creator has offered you, feed those who step over the threshold of your heart! And be assured that you will never hunger while you give (yourself)!
Deceived by Appearances
We have grown used to ants as beings worthy of all respect and appreciation for their proverbial hard work and organization. But when they carry eggs to plant leaves and favor the growth of aphids, things change. Ants don’t seem so cute anymore when they twist the whole plant. Not all ants carry a grain and a half like the ones you met in childhood poems. Now they carry on their backs the essence of sin. Watching them up and down the prune tree, you won’t believe for a second that they could dry it completely before you are able to taste any of its fruit.
From the ant we also learn that sin twists the countenance of man. It destroys the best of intentions, so that apparently good words may hide flattery, exaggeration, lies, and hypocrisy. Choose the old ant-ish way: be quiet and hardworking, but also pleasant!
The Reward Will Come
What could be more satisfying than literally enjoying the fruit of your labor? After you’ve made sure your vine has been pruned and cared for during the summer, when you pick up the grapes with your own hand and put them in containers, thankfulness bursts out for yet another year of toil and its reward. God is faithful and He will leave no effort unrewarded! Even though it seems that, no matter how hard you try, your impulses are still green and unripe, just know that, for those who long of it, the fall of character ripening will come! He has given His word that the work of the Spirit will bring rich reward! Your part is to abide in the Vine!
I invite you to let yourself be taught and blessed by working in nature!
Loredana Catrinescu is passionate about people and works towards the improvement and recovery of their mental health. The basis for her therapy recommendations is lifestyle changes whose effectiveness has been confirmed by the scientific community. She works as a psychiatrist at the soon-to-be-opened Dumbrava Health Center and is the president of the Association for Mental Health Noah, through which many people can benefit from quality information in the area of psychological health.
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