Mindful Gardening Practices
Mindful gardening is the practice of intentionally spending time/caring/doing daily duties in your garden, with plants, or in nature.
Benefits of Mindful Gardening
Reduce stress and anxiety
Aid in emotional regulation
Provides sensorial stimulation which increases concentration, allows for memory retrieval, and improves daily cognitive functions
Provides an alternative form of mindfulness practice for those who struggle with traditional practises such as meditation
Physical benefits like exercising motor skills
Increase dopamine levels and reduce depression
Increases connection with nature and the world around us thus reducing feelings of isolation and fostering individual purpose
How to Practice Mindful Gardening
1) Set aside time and avoid distractions
Schedule your gardening sessions like how you would for a meditation or yoga session. Set aside a specific time slot each day to be fully immersed in gardening. Try to put your phone or any other distractions like the TV running in the background away.
2) Pay attention to your inner state
Observing your inner state can be a guiding force in your mindful gardening practice. You can do this by a simple breathing and observation exercise at the start, in between, and/or at the end of your gardening.
Take 3 deep breaths and scan your body from top to bottom to observe how you are feeling. First observe your physical state. Pay attention to any pain or stress you may feel in your body. Release them by tensing up and relaxing the muscles in that particular part of the body. Next observe your emotional state. Take deep breaths while observing and detecting your emotional state. The goal here is to simply observe and let it be. This technique fosters emotional regulation.
3) Tune into your body and senses
Being mindful is about being present and aware of what you are doing without judgement, preconceived notion, or reaction. Doing this can be simpler when you tune into your body and senses. For example when planting, observe how it feels to touch the soil, the different colours and sediments from the soil, the smell of the soil, and even to the sounds around you.
4) Be an audience to your inner thoughts
Try not to focus on the past or future and simply focus on the current action. If your mind drifts away, observe and acknowledge the thought and slowly let it go by bringing your awareness back to your action and your senses. Having a mantra during these moments might help too. For example, “I observe my mind drifting and I bring my awareness back to tilling the soil.”
5) Learning to connect and nurture in your individual way
Some people believe in talking to their plants, some like to stroke them, and some prefer to spend time among them (or like me you do them all!). Whatever your nurturing language may be, do not be afraid to engage in it. Learning to nurture your plants teaches you how to pay attention to needs, provide for, and find balance. All these are important lessons in love, both self-love and loving someone.
6) Lessons in the symbols and metaphors found
Plants and the garden is full of meaningful symbols and metaphors. Birth, survival, death, renewal, transformation, and metamorphosis. These lessons tend to live in symbiosis with life thus when engaging in mindful gardening, it fosters our understanding of these on an unconscious as well as conscious level. Reflecting on the symbols and metaphors that you come across and find significant after a mindful gardening session, may also be useful in processing these lessons on a deeper level. Reflection can be done through different means such as journaling.