Tending to Your Mental Health for May's Mental Health Awareness Month
By Sabrina Rozza
Plant, tend, harvest. Water, weed, nurture. That is the heartbeat of the gardener. Cultivating a flourishing garden filled with an abundance of bountiful produce, flowers, or lush plant life requires a personal commitment to sustain its health and quality of life. The gardener, or one who decides to garden, practices mindful dedication and patience to witness their garden grow from planting and sprouting, to pruning and sharing. When it is time to savor the fruits of your labor, you fully appreciate the hard work you have invested and the time it took to nourish it. This commitment of cultivation and dedication can be applied to our ‘personal gardens’. As May is Mental Health Awareness month, use this opportunity to reflect: How am I tending to my own garden?
Every garden begins with a seed. A tiny, unassuming seed that sits on the curve on your palm. The seed, filled with potential and possibility, is the first step to cultivating a bountiful garden. What does your seed look like? An idea? A dream? Is it the first step towards a new life? What small but powerful actions do you take to care for your mental health that ensure your garden is a sanctuary for prosperous life? As your mental community gardener for this article, here are some of my favorite ways to get started:
Plant Your Seed
My preferred way to ‘plant my seed’, is to start my days off with my favorite playlist. Setting a positive tone for the day helps me handle life’s challenges with greater ease. If you would like to take a listen to what gets me going in the mornings, here is my curated Spotify playlist! https://tinyurl.com/3rszjvpd
If it isn’t music that ‘plants your seed’, perhaps a quick morning meditation or enjoying the ritual of getting ready. Sometimes, putting on a cute face gives us the confidence to take on the world. I love to use the Anastasia Beauty Balm (www.anastasiabeverlyhills.com) Skin Tint as my confidence booster. Paired with Blended Society Beauty’s Complexion Perfection set, this product serves as the perfect base routine that enhances my natural features and lasts all day. Its sheer formula gives barely there coverage and leaves my skin hydrated and fresh. Having a reliable go-to product for your morning routine alleviates decision-making stress and provides the assurance that you will look your best throughout the day. Once your seed is planted, we must tend to it.
All gardens produce weeds, and it is the gardener’s responsibility to identify and uproot them before they begin to grow. Weeds exhibit a remarkably invasive capacity for survival, with their adaptability to diverse conditions, climates, and soil types granting them the unique ability to flourish even in the most challenging conditions. For the gardener, the challenge lies in outsmarting these resilient intruders. By utilizing proactive measures such as the strategic application of herbicides and diligent garden management, one can effectively gain control over these persistent adversaries. Understanding what your ‘weeds’ are is the first step of knowing how you can uproot them. How do your ‘weeds’ affect your life?
Create a Routine
A helpful tip to prevent weeds from invading your garden is to establish a routine. Life moves quickly and often we get caught up in its whirlwind where we tend to have more weeds than healthy plants. Building a routine and a Schedule of Joy to keep you grounded is a crucial step to ensure a fruitful ‘garden’.
Enjoying favorite dinners daily or catching up with loved ones weekly are just some ways a routine could positively impact your mental health. Making time for recurring moments of joy can keep the weeds from invading your garden.
Community is another essential factor in life that keeps our gardens flourishing. Sometimes, those pesky weeds can feel impossible to remove, but with extra support, they can be eliminated with ease.
Our mental health deserves love and care, just like plants. Nurturing yourself and recognizing your worthiness of love will keep your ‘garden’ thriving. If you are struggling with mental healthcare, here are a few resources that may be able to help.
Offers thorough information of various mental health disorders and support groups.
Connects you with therapists that fit your tailored needs; I was fortunate enough to find my therapist of 5 years on this website.
SAMHSA(Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) offers a 24-hour hotline that provides mental health or substance abuse support (1-800-662-HELP).
Embarking on the journey to seek the help you need can be challenging, but showing up for yourself in this way is the ultimate act of self-love.
Being the gardener of your own life is not easy. Our gardens can be exposed to intense conditions, like environmental changes, littering, and lack of appreciation. As you continue on your journey, remember the two most nourishing ways to tend to your mental garden is to uphold the commitment of extending grace and compassion to yourself. No two gardens are the same yet, each is beautiful in their own way. You are worthy of everything you desire in life and can create your own garden that bears abundance and the most delicious fruit!
Thank you for helping get in a mindset of treating my mental health as a garden. My grandpa is a gardener and has been teaching me how to tend to plants and such, so this is the example I needed right now. Beautifully written!