Mental Restoration Via Gardening

Mental restoration is very much needed in the world today. There are many ways one can pursue this thought process. As I go about my day, people often ask me why am I so happy. Mental restoration has played a very large part of my inner peace. I find mental restoration in nature. Sometimes I find it by just thinking about the mysteries of the garden. I usually find it as I am embracing the beauty that surrounds us.

With so much going on in the world, I spend a fair amount of time tuned out to the madness but tuned into nature.  I can wander aimlessly on a path or on a street and breath in the essence of trees.  When I see a beautiful plant, I can peer into its inner core and absorb the essence of its existence. This practice allows a moment of restoration and clarity.

For example, do you ever look up into the branches of a tree or do you walk past it? Do you ever stand still and look up at the clouds?Better yet, do you ever find a patch of grass and lay down and just look up to the sky? These are great ways to clear the mind and create more space for thoughts of restoring inner peace.

A few alternatives ways to describe restoration is to refurbish, renovate or to overhaul. With all of the negative energy that we are exposed, mental restoration should be done daily  – if not weekly.

Here are a few key ways to make mental restoration easy.

• Make it a part of your daily ritual to go outside and breathe in the air around your home. NOT YOUR OFFICE. As the saying goes, home is where the heart is. Home should be the one place where true mental restoration should take place.
• Garden. Simply stated, you don’t need a big plot. You can use a pot – inside or out. One can create a menagerie of plants or a pot. Simple is best, as this should not be a chore, but an act of interacting with nature. Taking care of something to bring you joy.
• Collect things in the garden or in the woods that capture your attention. Place this artifact where you can look at it and remember how you happened upon it. Does it mentally take you back to that place? Does it refresh and restore your mind when you look at it?

Find that special place, that special corner of the world that you can mentally hold onto.  Close your eyes and pause there – often and repeatedly. When you repeat this exercise, mental restoration will become easier and easier. Even if you are not a gardener, learn to find one thing in nature that you can embrace. Nature is free. There is no cost to look up and notice awesome branching of a tree that catches your eye. To look into the depths of a bloom and notice it’s inner beauty costs nothing at all.

My Dad used to tell me in his own way to just be still. To allow my mind to rest and just be. Wandering through my mental garden gave me this joy. The ultimate way to restore myself mentally when the energies of the world are not loving and kind. I can sit in the garden and just be – no weeding, no watering, no deadheading.

When people on the street are tuned on to devices, I often wonder what is so important. If they just paused to look up, embrace their surroundings, what a beautiful gift of mental restoration that would be.

Off to practice a bit of mental restoration,

Teri, Cottage In The Court

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