4 Things We Can Learn From Houseplants About Healing
You may or may not know I’m a big fan of houseplants. I wouldn’t say I’m their number one fan because who can really claim that, but I would gladly paint a leaf on my belly if they had a big game. I love the way they look, the way they smell, the way they just kind of do their thing given a sunny window. I love that if you get up really close to the soil you can pretend you’re a tiny person (or fairy) and feel what it’s like to be in their atmosphere. If you have never done this, take a quick break from reading and get eye level with the closest plant. It’s a whole other world.
For me, though, the love I feel for houseplants runs a little deeper than aesthetically decorating my home, which to be clear, is a-okay in my book as long as you take houseplant parenting seriously. For me, it feels more like a communication, a company, a way to understand stillness, patience, adaptation. They hold space like champs, letting me, you, us, be in a room with them and not feel so alone. In fact, I humbly encouraged my heart-broken friend to adopt some plant friends into her studio apartment. “Why?” she asked. “Because you need something living in here beside you,” I answered.
“Plants are present when you gracefully eat an entire box of Annie’s Mac and Cheese and lay on the couch without pants for 4-5 hours.”
They are present when you cry in bed. When you do yoga in the morning. They are great listeners and great teachers. In fact, I’d say caring for my many houseplants helped me understand the subtlety of internally healing my cystic acne. The soft art of taking in symptoms and following up with compassionate action. They taught me how to be gentle with my condition. How to feel empathy instead of anger. And I invite you to consider caring for a few plants to help you with whatever internal battle you may be facing, be it acne, anxiety, or a broken heart. Here’s how…
1. THEY SPEAK A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE
If IF you have a plant that can magically speak, like, say, Donkey from Shreak, kindly send me a short note via the contact box below so we can further discuss this. If not, continue reading. Plants don’t outright greet you when you walk in the door. They may make you smile or drop your shoulders, but typically it’s a silent howdy.
When something isn’t quite right, though, like they’re not getting enough light or the soil needs a little lovin’, plants have this not-so-subtle way of being like, “dude, help.” For instance, I’m learning my fern is like a seven-year-old after a rainstorm and LOVES puddles of water. I know this because he droops dramatically. Other signs of plant distress include yellow leaves, brown leaves, curling leaves, a weird smell, mush of any kind, limp limbs, and sun blisters.
As plant parents, we read these signs carefully and with compassion to bring our green friends back to their happy state of being. This is the same type of non-verbal communication our internal bodies use to signal our conscious mind to pay attention.
This is the same type of non-verbal communication our internal bodies use to signal our conscious mind to pay attention.
A language unlike our own but still meaningful and decipherable. Signs include acne, rosacea, psoriasis, a rash of any sort and eczema. I liken these skin conditions to browning peddles.They’re not so subtle ways of asking us to slow down and observe.
2. THEY ARE SELF-CORRECTING
Ever notice a plant kind of lean to the window like it’s trying to slowly jump out? It’s not, by the way, it just can’t help getting close to the sun. After giving a quick 180 spin, you can watch as it corrects its posture and heads the other way over time. Similarly, when a plant is in need of water, it will go limp and look very, very sad. But an even watering will perk that babe right up. It may take a little time, but in most cases, houseplants will bounce back from our slight oversight.
Right now your health may be out of sorts. Your gut may be a mess from antibiotics, your skin may be dry or overly oily, or you may have a bad case of headaches and fogginess. These are all signs you’re leaning too far in one direction and need to gently take action to correct course. Our bodies, like plants, know what to do given care and proper environment. They WANT to heal just like plants want to grow. Fostering good gut flora, steady nutrition, and proper hydration gives your body the natural tools it needs to straighten out on its own.
3. THEY GROW AT THEIR OWN PACE
We’ve alllll seen them on Instagram, don’t be shy. Big, lush, happy Fiddle-Leaf Figs taking up a modest corner of someone’s painfully lovely one bedroom Brooklyn apartment. Or the bustling Monstera (Split Leaf Philodendron) with leaves bigger than your face just being its huge trendy self next to a gorgeous orange house cat. These plants are adulting. They have been living for years and years and are not afraid to show it. But you’ve just come home from a nursery and your babe is, well, tiny. Modest. Quite unalarming when you finally repot and place on your plant stand. Hmmm you may say to yourself, I wonder how long it will take.
Now there are one of two ways to go about willing your plant to grow. The first involves appropriate observation, proper care, love, and maybe a little extra organic fertilizer. The second: obsession, worry, research, impatience. When it comes to my health I find myself falling into the second category more often than I’d like. I’ll run to the mirror every morning to see what cysts have healed overnight. I’ll obsessively check food labels to make sure no dairy or sugar is stuck in there. I’ll count the days on my calendar since I started (fill in the blank) new supplement. Sound at all familiar?
But choosing to treat my body and mind with proper care and love will move things along a lot faster than panic and worry.
And while I’ll admit houseplants have a lot less at stake than we do, taking a step back from laboring over results is a critical part of healing acne. Today, my houseplant may be small and my face may be breaking out with new, painful cysts. But choosing to treat my body and mind with proper care and love will move things along a lot faster than panic and worry. Plus there’s a lot of life to live between here and there! If we’re busy pushing for the big goal, the clear face, we’re going to miss how good a glass of hot lemon water feels in the morning. Or how inspired we are with an extra hour of sleep. It’s not easy to implement patience, which is why having a small houseplant buddy may just be the friendly reminder you need.
4. THEY ARE A LITTLE MAGICAL AND A LOT CREATIVE
As you may know, plants are not mobile like giraffes or panda bears. They grow where they’re seeded/planted/propagated and call it a day. So when a hungry deer walks up to them, they have to be creative via thorns, bad smells, and poison not to become lunch. Same goes for reproduction. They can’t sweep another flower off her feet if they grow miles apart. So some orchids produce the same pheromone as female bees in order to attract male bees. When the male is done nuzzling and wondering what the hell is going on, he’s already covered in orchid pollen and off to the next confusing female bee.
This is to say, plants are creative af and sometimes when healing naturally we have to be too.
This is to say, plants are creative af and sometimes when healing naturally we have to be too. When I was on my candida diet (no sugar, dairy, yeast) I had to be pretty darn creative when it came to eating out and being social. I’d bring hostess snacks to gatherings that I could eat, pick the restaurant ahead of time by checking the menu, and hold a seltzer and lime so people would leave me the f alone about drinking. You see, instead of running I planted my feet (PUN INTENDED) and adapted. I encourage you to take this approach as well. What strategies would make your situation less intimidating? More comfortable? How can you take charge of the situation? There are over 350,000 documented species of plants. Inspiration is endless.
PLANTS TO CONSIDER:
Here are some of my fave houseplants for beginners. And while I added links here, I encourage you to walk through a local plant store and find one that’s perfect for your home. When choosing, keep in mind how much light they need, if they’re poisonous to animals, and how big they get. OH, and consider picking up a soil moisture meter. You just stick it in the soil of any potted plant and it lets you know how wet or dry the soil is. For some reason, not many people know they exist. I luh em.
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