The Art Of Flow Cultivating Our Garden

Is it possible to flow while we take care of our garden? A report by Europarc Spain shows that when we interact with the natural environment, we better manage the stress of daily life. Seeing the plants that we have cultivated with great care grow allows us to connect in a special way with nature.

We live in a society that develops in large urban centers. Hence, more and more people are signing up to create a small orchard or garden  at home. Thus, cultivating is within everyone’s reach.

Saramago’s grandfather

José Saramago dedicated an endearing letter to the memory of his grandfather. In it he told how his grandfather hugged the trees crying and saying goodbye to them before he died. He dedicated his last words to them as if they were his most beloved life companions.

The writer came to the conclusion that his grandfather, a simple illiterate peasant, had managed to understand over the years that we are all connected by and in the very order that nature has created. In this sense and updating the message to our daily rhythm, whoever manages to cultivate their own garden ends up obtaining a special reward from this hobby. Connecting with nature gives us greater psychological well-being.

A Korean study showed that people who are exposed to images of nature in their workplaces or residences increased their ability to generate feelings of pleasure and well-being. The brain areas that were activated when people were exposed to natural sights are linked to pleasant emotional responses.

So why don’t we take advantage of gardening to improve our emotional health?

The state of flow (to flow)

One of the most recognized psychologists in the field of positive psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, tells us  that human beings can flow in our daily activities if we are able to concentrate and focus our attention on them.

The state of flow, as Mihaly called it, is that state in which we find ourselves when the activity we carry out leaves us totally absorbed. The perception of the passage of time disappears and all of us ends up involved in the task.

This state is achieved when we achieve a correct balance between our skills and the challenges of the activity.  In this way, we get the rest of the stimuli out of our attentional field, including sources of stress, such as worries.

Mihaly, we usually reach this state because the activity responds to intrinsic motivations. That is, we are attracted to the performance of the task itself, beyond its result. We usually choose these types of activities freely, thus feeling that it is worth doing them as a symbol of our freedom and will.

In this article, we were specifically talking about growing a garden. This type of task meets in principle all the requirements to be a task with which we flow. They do not have a very great difficulty, in fact we can set the bar ourselves. In addition, it is a task with which we are always exposed to new learning. Finally, we can always show the fruits to others and be a source of pride.

Flow in the garden

In the garden we can get to flow. The daily care that this activity requires involves a great capacity for observation that allows us to have clear goals while providing us with immediate feedback. Every day that passes we see new changes in the plants and new challenges.

The attention we have to pay in this task implies that we learn through trial and error. Plants clearly tell us what they need and our energy is focused on getting their growth and flowering to develop in the best possible way.

Thus, by gardening we can become flowing while focusing on clear and achievable goals. These goals will help us, in Mihaly’s words, to bring “order to our conscience.”

The Home Garden Revolution

Given the benefits, more and more people decide to take advantage of the space they have at home to cultivate. And is that  any place that meets some minimum conditions can be good. Growing our garden will allow us to:

• Escape from an absorbing urban environment where noise, asphalt and pollution spoil our quality of life.
• Know the life cycle of plants and the relationships between living beings that interact with them. Immediately, insects will come to our garden, whose relationship with plants in many cases is beneficial.
• Acquire continuous learning thanks to the observation that we have to dedicate to this activity and learn from our own mistakes.
• It will provide us with healthy foods that will make us reflect on their origin, respecting the natural ripening time.

• It will give us greater responsibility as consumers, being aware of the value of betting on local agriculture.

For all these benefits and many more, it is worth starting or maintaining this hobby at home … or failing that, it is worth looking for an activity with which we flow; with which we reach that state of temporary unconsciousness and surrender that gives us such a great feeling of well-being.