How are you doing?

So lots of people have been gardening during this time of strange and when you buy a packet of seeds, they come with a list of instructions that are unique to the plant you’ll hope they will become. Instructions that tell us when to plant them, what kind of soil, how much sunshine they need, whether they can handle frost, and whether they can be sown directly into the ground or if they need sowing into trays and then their space upgraded as they grow into seedlings and so on.

You’re unique just like those seeds, and there will be conditions within which you’ll thrive which really aren’t the optimum conditions for someone else. This time of lockdown may really be working for you, but then again it really may not. You might be someone who dives into the deep end when a problem arises or perhaps you deal with things as they happen. Maybe you feel more energised and raring to go in the morning or possibly it’s the evening when you seem to come alive. Not forgetting too, that within you are hundreds of seeds of hopes, dreams, wants and needs, which themselves need nurturing too. The world may have seemed to stop but what you need to make you you has not stopped.

The thing about planting plant seeds is that for a while after they’re planted, nothing seems to be happening. You might see a glimmer of green just to find it’s a weed, not something you planted at all. It takes time for the seed to have enough of what it needs, to germinate. You might find that you need to tweak the conditions surrounding the seeds; protect them from frost, apply plant food, water them often. You don’t just plant them and leave them and expect them to grow into a healthy flowersome thing.

You know where we’re going with this, right?! For a while the changes you make in your own life, the metaphorical seeds you’ve sown, mightn’t seem to reap the harvest you hoped for. Perhaps the trying sometimes gives way to the ‘weeds’ the old habits and thoughts and behaviours we were trying to replace or remove. It’s at this point, we might give up, but please don’t. Tweak the conditions surrounding yourself as best as you can and let it be a proactive process that brings with it an awareness of what it is you need right now to keep you flowering.

You’re a growing being and all growing beings need nurturing. It’s not a ‘negotiable’, ‘can do without’. Be kind to yourself. You are doing an amazing job. We’ve got this.

Kim Fry
(UKSA Welfare Officer)