Lessons from the Flowerbed [Part 1]

  At the beginning of my summer vacation in May, I made a promise to my mother: On June 1st, you will see me in the front flower bed. She laughed, but she knew I was going to keep to my word.

  On June 1st, I stared down the flower bed of mostly irises and a few other flowers that were equally littered with wild garlic, bindweed, and other general weeds my mother wanted out. I would have also enjoyed taking the irises out, but she insisted that I keep them in the bed and as intact as I could. I worked for hours in the late spring sun, ruffling dirt and sending weeds to their doom! I could tell the flowerbed needed the work; the soil was full of dirt and mulch -not to mention some trash, worms, and other wonderful insects- that needed to be turned and decluttered of the weeds. Sometimes I needed a pitchfork or a handheld shovel to get the weeds; I was that determined to get what I could.

  For the next three days, I worked on small sections of the bed and balanced the work with breaks. I saved a small amount of the wild garlic to dry (and attempt to make garlic powder with). At the end of it all, the flowerbed- and my mother- are much happier. 

~

  Now, why did I bother writing all that down? Well, as I went through this commitment, I realized how many pieces of it related to taking care of mental health. As general as these insights may appear, I feel it is always nice to hear a new voice chime into something as important as this.

  So here is what I observed:

The soil was a mixture of different things. 

  Much like the soil, our lives -especially in our childhood- are a mixture of different substances. Not all are good, but they are still a part of it. It is good to recognize this and try to sift through as much as possible. With that in mind-

The soil needed to be ruffled and disturbed.

  -the stuff from childhood can harbor a lot of pain and misery that cascades into the present. To truly heal certain aspects of our mentality, we need to shake those moments up and remove their emotional sting with either professional therapy or self-therapy.

I worked on small sections at a time. 

  Taking care of our mental health takes time. We can't force ourselves to unravel our childhoods and fix everything in one day. This process must be a sustainable commitment we need to make, which includes working on it and taking breaks from working on it.

Sometimes I needed other tools to help.

  The process of mental health care is not something we can handle on our own. We may need the perspective or guidance of another person or object to truly dig into what we  deal with. We should remember to reach out for these things when we need them.

~

 With all of this in mind, I hope you have taken something valuable from my writing. Even if you haven't, thank you for reading. 

  Have a wonderful day, and remember to work on your flowerbed!

Bonus Image! My darling dog (Gypsy) "guarding" the weeds.