3 things my garden helped me grow that our patriarchal ableist society tried to strip from me

10 years ago I was broken, burnt out and crying every day. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I went to my GP for help and they were useless. I’d recently started gardening and was quickly discovering that while I was out there my mind was quiet and my soul felt soothed.

The next few years were rocky to say the least, 2 babies, one with a side helping of maternity discrimination that made me think I was losing my mind, a spell in therapy, finally quitting my toxic job and going self employed and allllll the self development and introspection that came with that.

My garden was the one constant, the thing I could rely on to be there for me no matter what shit was going on around me. Slowly over time my garden started to help me realise what was going on, that our patriarchal, ableist and sexist society was trying to strip me of some of my most precious assets. With Mother Nature by my side I was determined to reclaim them. Here’s how I did it.

Self confidence

From as soon as I remember our society told me I was too much. Too sensitive, too loud, too opinionated (hello ADHD).

So I learnt that in order to get by I had to make myself small, to stay in my lane to not show the world who I really was because the world didn't like me very much. This was devastating for my self confidence and left me feeling utterly worthless and hating myself.

I started to garden in 2013, and with every seed I sowed that germinated and poked it's little green head up out of the soil my confidence began to be restored one seedling at a time.

It reminded me that there are things I am good at and that often people see that and it scares them, so they tried to keep me small.

Sure I still have the odd wobble (show me a woman who grew up in the 80's and 90's who doesn't) but each time I head out into my garden I fill my confidence bucket right back up to the brim again.

Trust in my intuition

There's only so many times you can be told you're wrong and to do what you're told, ignoring every fibre of your body screaming at you, so you can stay being a 'good girl', before your intuition packs up and leaves.

After 20 years of just doing what others told me for fear of reprisal I struggled to even make a decision about what I wanted to have for dinner.

So when I started to garden I consumed everyone else's knowledge in the form of books and YouTube videos, because that was what I had been told to do. Apart from the garden had other ideas.

With the shifting climate, the well touted advice to plant your tulip bulbs in November no longer applied. We didn’t have our first hard frost here until January and its best to wait to get your tulips in the ground until after a hard frost.

In order to garden well in today's climate you need to connect with your garden, notice the weather, the temperatures, do away with the gardening books and trust in your intuition.

Over time my intuition strengthen in the garden and I began to listen to it again in other areas of my life and business. I can without a doubt say that it is my most powerful tool, which explains why society didn’t want me to use it hey?!

My voice

I'm a passionate person (I know that sounds wanky) and when I feel strongly about something its like a fire is burning inside of me and has to come out. So to be constantly told as a young woman NOT to speak up even when I felt something was morally wrong went against everything I believed.

I tried my best to ‘play the game’ and ‘toe the line’ but there were times when I just couldn't keep my thoughts to myself.

And you know what, every single time, I was punished for them, at school, in the workplace, until eventually I just stopped offering my opinion. My fire had well and truly gone out.

Despite being employed for my knowledge and skill in a pretty niche area my thoughts were just not valued. The patriarchy doesn’t like women to have a voice and so it tried to take mine. And for a long time I was silent for fear of the repercussions. But not anymore.

My voice has been the thing thats taken the longest to reclaim because I needed the other two building blocks in place first. But my garden is where I go when I need to process my thoughts, to find some headspace so I can find my voice again and speak up for what I believe in.

In fact it was while I was weeding in the blistering heat over the weekend that I came up with the idea for this post.

I'd love to know your thoughts on it in the comment section below? Perhaps you've experienced similar.

Let me know what you're doing to find yourself again so I can cheer you on from here.

And if you think it might be your garden that holds the key to helping you i’d be delighted to support you.

You can either upgrade to paid below to get weekly mindful gardening straight to your inbox so you can just get out and garden without the overthinking.

Or you can get a month of bespoke support to add more colour to your space in a Garden Glow Up or for a full garden transformation join me in Create your Dream Garden.

p.s. If you’re reading this before Monday 20th May 2024 come and join me and a merry band of likeminded women for fun in your garden across 5 days at The Anti-Chelsea Flower Show. Designed to get you in your garden rather than just observing other people’s gardens. Find out more and book your place here.