How To Be a Mindful Gardener
Here at Right Landscaping, we’re passionate about the health benefits of gardening and applying mindfulness as often as possible.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is all about paying attention to your breathing, thoughts and surroundings at that particular moment in time. When your mind starts to wander, mindfulness involves bringing your observation back to the “here and now”, paying special attention to what you’re sensing and feeling.
Why is mindfulness important?
Mindfulness is an increasingly popular form of meditation that anyone can integrate into daily life. We highly recommend trying it out, as it will help you to manage your emotions, minimise stress and remain in control of your actions. It can also lower blood pressure, improve sleep, reduce chronic pain and even alleviate digestion, making it a very powerful process.
Mindfulness in the garden
The combination of mindful thinking and gardening offers a wonderful opportunity to truly appreciate the small pleasures in life. On top of this, your green space will look even more amazing than before. Below are some tips for how to be a mindful gardener.
Remove all distractions
First of all, switch your phone on silent for half an hour. This will help you to unplug from those constant notifications and enjoy your natural surroundings to the full. If possible, schedule mindful gardening for days when you’re not expecting any deliveries, as having a courier ring the doorbell can disrupt the flow.
The kids can join you
Don’t worry about doing this all alone, as we realise that you may have little ones that need looking after. However, try to give them a section of garden where they can play safely – listening to their laughter and joyful noises can even be part of your mindfulness session.
Take in your surroundings
Mindfulness is all about noticing the little details around you, so what better setting than the garden? Even the smallest outdoor space will be full of detail, such as nearby trees, plants, pebbles, grass and the many tiny creatures that call it home.
Appreciate your garden on the smallest scale by studying leaves and noticing tiny details, then step back and see how everything fits together to create the bigger picture. Also, mindfulness isn’t just a visual thing, so make sure to enjoy the many smells, sounds and textures around you.
Make weeding therapeutic
This may sound silly but hear us out, as it’s a great way to calm your mind. By associating each individual weed with negative thoughts and stressors, their physical removal can be extremely soothing.
With each weed you pull up, connect it in your mind with something that’s getting you down, then discard it. Aside from helping you to feel more positive, it may also inspire you to determine what’s holding you back in life and then tackle problems with renewed vigour.
Give each new plant a purpose
If you spend part of your mindfulness session planting new additions to your garden, take your time and never rush it. Feel the soil between your fingers and tell yourself why you’re sowing each new seed. Is it because you love that particular flower or is it a shrub that will help with natural drainage? Maybe it’s a plant that attracts butterflies or it could simply be that love the colour of that particular bloom.
Again, take your time with this. Be gentle and respectful of each seed, bulb and sapling, envisage how it will look as it develops, and be grateful for the freedom you have over deciding what grows throughout your personal oasis.
Tagged as: gardening advice, wellbeing
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