Are you a Landscaper or a Gardener?

If you look around, you will notice that there really are two completely different views of how to maintain the land around your living space. Throughout history the idea of landscaping was confined to grand manor houses, estates and large exterior spaces. It would include sweeping grassy lawns and molded terrains that gave an impression of grandeur and control over the land but had little practical benefit and was purely decorative. It also provided the backdrop for the more important idea of gardening.

Gardening traditionally was essential because it provided multiple benefits. Flowers would fill the interior spaces of the house with beauty and scent while vegetables were essential as food along with herbs which offered exquisite tastes as well as medicinal treatment. All of this required effort not only to create but to maintain. Over the years this slowly shifted as gardening was set aside in favor of landscaping, especially as our society became more mechanized and sought maintenance-free surroundings. Bushes began to replace flowers and vegetables. Expanses of manicured grass that had been the decorative canvas of the wealthy, became common in developments and front yards across Europe and America. These were areas that required little tending but failed to provide any benefit to the environment and the people that lived there.

By now you’re wondering what this has to do with health? Listening to people say that flowers and gardens aren’t worth the time, effort and cost sounds very much like the person who says they don’t want to take vitamins every day, don’t have the time to take a walk, can’t be bothered cooking for themselves. They avoid the necessity of tending to their health in favor of a maintenance-free lifestyle. Our health is now determined by how we choose to spend our time and our effort – tending our gardens or simply mowing the lawn.

Clients come into our clinic and don’t want to admit that they would rather look good by getting a botox injection than making healthy meals to feed their skin. How many people think nothing of spending money on the latest IPhone, but it’s too difficult to pay for a series of decongestive lymph therapies that improve their immunity. They don’t believe they have the time to tend to their health just as they don’t have time to tend to a garden. Instead they have become convinced that they should choose to spend their time in ways that do not actually provide any benefit. In this same way landscaping may look nice, but provides no true benefit while gardens are still essential for life.

How can it be possible that any of us would choose to care for our health in a way that provides no benefit to our health? What if you could turn this around ... would you? Would you choose to trade out some social media time for taking vitamins and medicinal herbs a couple of times each day to support your body’s needs? Would you give yourself at least two or three days to recover from an illness and just rest, instead of pushing yourself through with ibuprofen and antihistamines? Would you set time aside to go grocery shopping and actually make your own meals for a change? Would you create space in your day for some stretching, yoga and meditation? Could you develop an evening ritual that supports restful sleep?

These are all ways of tending to our health and the consistency of this tending creates an energy and a connection that restores forgotten parts of ourselves and changes us from landscapers to true gardeners. Gardeners understand the individual needs of their garden. They understand that you can’t just grow one plant over and over because it will deplete specific groups of nutrients from the soil, just as you can’t eat the same food for breakfast every day as it will reduce the immune capability of your gut microbiome. Gardeners realize that you need variety because it creates a synergy which encourages plants to cooperate with each other and share resources. This is what creates resilience in our bodies, the capability to resist illness and disease. Gardeners know that planting is just the first step. They then need to tend by watering, weeding, feeding and pruning. Our bodies also require tending by drinking enough water, movement and exercise, healthy air, nutritious food and detoxification. And we need these things on a regular basis, not just when we’re on a vacation.

Tending is essential to life. It is essential on more than just a physical level. Our energy, our psyche and even our environment all require regular tending in order for us to thrive. How many people talk to their plants? Trees even communicate through their root systems, so tending to the roots of trees will make entire forests thrive. For us, feeding our body tissues isn’t enough. We must also feed the soul with experiences and energies that create vibrance and inspiration. We can’t just spend all our time working and sleeping while ignoring our need for relationships and communication. So many of us only tend to these things when when it can no longer be avoided or when we have nothing else to occupy our time.

A quick weekly mow by a landscaper isn’t what will sustain a beautiful garden. Only a true gardener can do that which is why tending to your health is the only way to acquire a true perspective of your own health journey. So stop peering over the fence at your neighbor’s yard because it will do nothing to teach you how to thrive in your own.

Karen Clickner, C.C.H., is a Nationally Registered Naturopathic Physician. She provides natural evaluations and treatment at Conscious Body Natural Medicine clinics in central Massachusetts. She has been specializing in autoimmune disorders for more than 35 years. You can get more information at www.consciousbodynatmed.com