I Thought I Was Learning About Gardening, Instead I Learned More About Yoga Than I Ever Expected
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow” Audrey Hepburn
When we moved house last September, we not only got more space inside (hello dedicated Yoga room!), but outside too with a very well-loved garden. It was jam-packed with established plants, apple trees, veggies growing in raised beds, raspberry & blackcurrant plants and climbers that seemed to have been wrapping themselves around things for years.
It was incredible, but also absolutely overwhelming, because I know very very little about gardening! I’m talking having google on speed dial, searching what plant this is level of gardening knowledge. Luckily my parents are always happy to have a video call with me, so I can pick their brains about what needs pulling out and what should actually be there. My weekends are now spent pulling ivy CONSTANTLY off anything it can get it’s grippy fingers on, asking “is this a weed?” and looking dreamily at Pinterest for inspiration.
I have very much been learning on the job!
But somewhere in between the constant watering, trimming, slug battles and the moments of standing back and admiring something that has unexpectedly flowered, I realised that gardening has actually been teaching me Yoga. Not in a physical way (although I do tend to pull weeds in a Yogi Squat position, see the photo below!), but more in the philosophy and way of living side of Yoga and we all know that that might just be my favourite part of the practice! Because at some point on our Yoga journey, it stops being something that you only practice on a mat and starts changing the way you see everything.
Taking Yoga off the mat - literally and pulling weeds in a Yogi Squat
What Gardening Taught Me About Being Present
One of the big things that gardening has been teaching me these last few months, is how to slow down - something that Yoga has been trying to teach me for years! There’s no way to rush a garden, standing over a tomato plant won’t make it grow any faster and however much I’ve tried, you can’t force a flower to bloom. Nature just doesn’t work like that! But being in the garden has shown me that everything has it’s own season, timing and rhythm and it made me realise that we should work like that too! So much of our busy modern lives encourages us to hurry, be more productive, tick another thing off the list and then quickly move on to the next thing, but standing in the garden, trowel in my had, none of that seemed to matter.
The only things that needed doing today were pulling up some weeds that had sprung up overnight (well, I hope they are weeds), watering a plant that I had kept forgetting about and admiring this tiny new shoot that definitely wasn’t there yesterday. Gardening has become one of the few places (alongside my Yoga mat), where I completely forget about checking my phone, I’m completely in the moment, not thinking about what these plants will look like in a few months or how many butternut squash will grow. Just being exactly where we are, in this moment and isn’t that exactly what Yoga asks us to do?
Why Being A Beginner Is Good For The Soul
I have to admit that I don’t really enjoy not being good at things and I definitely prefer to know what I’m doing. I’m sure many of you are exactly the same! Starting something new as a (mostly) competent adult with life figured out, made me realise that I have so much to learn and gardening has completely humbled me. I’ve planted things in the wrong places, watered too much and not enough, confidently identified weeds that turned out to be flowers and flowers that turned out to be weeds. There have been plenty of successes and the same amount of failures too, but strangely it’s been quite freeing.
Yoga philosophy reminds of somethings called the Beginner’s Mind. It’s about approaching life with curiosity instead of feeling like we need to know all the answers and this is something children do really well, but as adults we often forget how to do. Gardening has reminded me that being a beginner isn’t embarrassing, it’s actually really exciting and learning something new (and something that I actually wanted to learn) feels really good!
What Gardening Can Teach Us About Non-Attachment
Every time you plant a little seed, you’re making a promise to the future, because you aren’t sure if anything will grow, but you’re putting your belief into that it might and I think that’s really lovely! You plant the seed, water it (if you remember), care for it and then all you can do is wait and hope. Sometimes something grows and sometimes nothing happens, sometimes slugs eat it - like my whole row of cabbages and sometimes things grow bigger than you could ever of imagined.
This is where gardening and Yoga life align very much for me too, because Yoga teaches us about non-attachment. Doing something (like planting a seed) without clinging to the outcome of it growing into somethin incredible and for me, it’s one of the most difficult lessons to learn because in modern life we’re constantly chasing guarantees and certainty and we want to know that if we put our effort into something, success will follow. But that just isn’t real life!
One thing that I have noticed in the garden over these past few months, is that it can look the same for days and then all of a sudden everything changes. Things happen almost overnight, with tiny buds appearing, leaves unfurling and flowers blooming in the blink of an eye. It reminds me so much of our own growth, especially on our Yoga mat, when we think we are getting any “better” at Yoga, but then casually mention how well we slept last week, or how we stayed calm in a situation that we would have usually lost our temper. The growth was happening beneath the surface, we just couldn’t see it whilst it was happening and this is something that both gardening and Yoga teach us, we have to have patience.
There are parts of the garden that are currently looking a bit bare because we’ve been clearing some overgrown bits out and chopping some plants down that have clearly finished for the season and it reminded me that not every plant flowers all year and not every season is super colourful. Some seasons are preparing for the next and it made me think about what it would look like to treat ourselves the same way, instead of expecting ourselves to feel motivated and productive everyday. Perhaps we could remember that rest is also a huge part of growth and Yoga has always taught us this (hello Savasana!), but nature just proves it.
Why Gardens Don’t Compare Themselves
One thing I’ve never seen is a rose trying to become a sunflower, or lavender wishing it looked like a peony, because everything in the garden just grows without comparison. I think we could all learn a lot from our gardens! We’re constantly comparing ourselves on social media, at work and sometimes even in our Yoga classes, wondering if we are behind, not flexible enough or just not enough in general. But our gardens are here to remind us that we are all completely different, we just need to grow in our own way and at our own pace.
When we first moved here, I thought I was getting more outside space, but I had no idea that I would also be getting a lesson in slowing down, letting go of perfection, trusting the process, finding joy in tiny moments, accepting that not everything can be controlled and believing that growth is happening, even if I can’t see it yet. And as I type this, I’m sat smiling to myself, because when I first stepped onto a Yoga mat I was expecting to feel more flexible and calmer, but had no idea I would also learning about all the things I just wrote about!
I’m still very much a beginner, in the garden & on the mat, I’ll almost certainly kill a few more plants and I’m definitely going to keep asking my parents hundreds of questions and I’ll put money on that I’ll fall out of most balancing poses for the foreseeable. But maybe that’s ok, because gardening & Yoga are both about showing up, learning and trying again next season.
If you’ve been feeling like life has become one big old to-do list, maybe you need to find something that brings you back to the present moment. For me recently, it’s been gardening, but for you it might be a walk, 5 quiet minutes with a cup of tea or maybe even noticing what’s growing in your own life, instead of worrying about how quickly it it happening.
Whether we are tending to our garden or looking after ourselves remember this, growth takes time, not everything blooms at once and sometimes even the smallest seeds can become the most beautiful blooms.
Fancy looking after yourself in a beautiful country house in Yorkshire this autumn? I have a couple of rooms left for our Peace, Peace, Peace Retreat this September, find out all the details here