Plant Parenting for Wellness

Caring for your plants is an opportunity to slow down and care for yourself. If you asked me 10 years ago if I’d be taking care of plants, that version of me would laugh in skepticism. Between taking care of my friend’s plant gifted to me when they moved away and becoming the plant caretaker at LGC’s Somerville Office, I have found a variety of benefits in caring for plants as a metaphor in how I take care of myself. Here are some reasons being a plant parent has helped me:

• Developing and maintaining routines. Since 2019, I have noticed my work routines partially center around the maintenance of plant care both at the office and at home. Through these routines, I noticed I have fostered focus and the ability to plan my day and week around a variety of tasks including plant care.

• Mindfulness in care practices. In plant parenting, a practice I had to develop was understanding how much water and light a plant needed. Through both research and trial and error, I developed an understanding of what plants needed more light versus less light as well as what plants needed more water than less water. Mindfulness in plant parenting was being observant with the plants I tended to with the knowledge that I had acquired - thus a question I ask myself on a regular basis regarding what self-care looks like.

• Accessibility and achievability being approachable. Another lesson I came to is learning about what was approachable and achievable. Because of environmental factors, some plants at home and in the office have the ability to thrive while other plants had difficulty with staying alive. The developed understanding helped me to discern what could be achieved versus what was unrealistic in my life as well as in the office and home.

• Fostering self-care and wellness practices. My most successful times in caring for plants was surrounded by what I was doing before and after that day. To tend to the plants in my life, I had to make sure that  my respective spaces were being treated well or were given good support while I am away. As plants thrive in my wellness practices, how much more so do I flourish when I take care of myself throughout the day through regular solo and community based activities.

In the days and weeks ahead, consider your relationship with plants and nature in your life. 

• How much are you tending to them? 

• Are you treating your plants like how you treat yourself? 

• Do your plants get more care in their day-today than you do? 

Use this MMHM as an opportunity to take stock of how you are doing and make adjustments. For your plant care, it might be as simple as providing nutrition in light or water, moving them to a new spot, or replanting them in bigger planters if the leaves are looking brown. As you do such for your plants, have you considered caring for yourself in the same fashion?

This month Looking Glass Counseling is pleased to support The Food Project. The Food Project works at the intersection of youth, food, and community in Greater Boston and the North Shore. The organization was founded with the vision of teens from diverse backgrounds coming together on a sustainably managed farm to cultivate the land, build authentic relationships and feed those in need. On 70 acres of urban and suburban farmland, they cultivate and harvest fresh, sustainably-grown produce and distribute this harvest through farmers markets, box share programs, hunger relief partners and more. They build and install raised bed gardens and provide support to new gardeners, enabling city residents to grow their own fresh produce.

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Lou Lim, LMHC, REAT is a licensed mental health counselor and registered expressive arts therapist (REAT) with a master's degree in Expressive Therapy and Mental Health Counseling from Lesley University. He is a member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and on the committee for REAT credentialing. He has 13 years of experience in counseling and expressive therapy working with children, adolescents, teenagers, adults, and retirees.

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