I spent a couple of hours gardening this afternoon and – at the end of a major weeding, pruning and watering session – it struck me how a garden is much like a body.
Bear with me – I know it sounds a bit far-fetched…
We all have a tendency over winter months to let ourselves go.
Bad habits creep in, we eat comfort food, and we don’t think about doing the best for ourselves.
As spring approaches, and the weather improves, something changes.
New thoughts and ideas flourish and blossom and it suddenly seems a good time to jettison the habits that are holding you back.
Are you beginning to see the metaphor here?
Over the past couple of months, I’ve pruned away a lot of dead/bad habits and hopefully given other things space to grow that were previously hidden or smothered.
Similarly I’m trying to weed out those niggly things that don’t seem significant, but given time can take over.
I’m not there by any means – I still have things to improve, seeds that hsve been planted haven’t quite yet come to fruition, but the signs are hopeful.
In other words (if you’ll allow me to stretch the metaphor to its limit), providing I tend to myself regularly and properly, I hope to re-flower later in 2019.
Ok, metaphor over. Essentially, though, I’m sure many of you will recognise how easy it is to forget to look after ourselves and it’s much easier to do a little bit regularly, rather than wait till we’re beyond repair.
Spot on! And while I recognised this about my physical body/health since my late teens, for some reason it never clicked that it was the same for my mental health until I neared age 50! ? I’d always assumed that I could be ‘fixed’, then done and dusted, live happily ever after… So I like the idea of viewing mental health like a garden to be tended and nurtured – I don’t think many of us nurture ourselves!
Yes, I could have added that we need to keep on tending and going back and temoving the weeds, too. It’s not a one-off fix ?