A Therapy for my Anxiety

With the current COVID-19 situation where a lot of the world is on their own levels and modes of alerts and lock-downs, anxiety is very rampant especially to people who already have them even before this outbreak started, one of which is me. I have not been diagnosed with Anxiety clinically but it has always been a problem about me, especially when it comes to thoughts about health. I have type 2 hypertension so it also became an extra factor as to why I am having a hard time in this scary period of time.

What usually happens to me is whenever there are outbreaks like these, I start by the usual reading about what the disease or illness or virus is about, then I tend to get too immersed on reading more about its symptoms, until it gets to me very badly that I can;t stop thinking about it, most especially now that we are on lockdown and it's quite hard to distract myself that even if I have work and graduate school, the constant scare and thoughts just never leave. Do I have it? What if I have it? What if I become a reason for my brother or father or yeya to get sick? (Yeya is our maid and who is a family member because she has been with us for 32 years now, 2 years before I was born).

With constant thinking, it takes its toll to me and then I start feeling the symptoms physically which is very scary. This might be confirmations and manifestations of the virus, but of course I still start to think that 'it's all in my mind' especially that I never went outside our house for a month and a half now because we all are locked down at home and only my brother goes out to get our supplies because he also has to go to church and serve almost every day. It ran for weeks and weeks, symptom after symptom but the thing is, whenever I get successful in thinking that it's just all in my mind like the time when I felt so hot and scared that I have a fever (thermometer says I'm not getting beyond 37 degrees) and it was gone after a couple of days, another symptom will show up like difficulty in breathing, then once a new one starts, the last one will then be gone. The only thing that persists is my fear that words from my close friends that relieve me works for a time until my start woud automatically worry again.

As a Christian, I pray the rosary everyday and talk to God in my personal prayers which does help especially if I'm feeling very hopeless and needed some rest for my mind. But still the anxiety lives through. Then one day after prayer, I suddenly thought about an old garden here at our house terrace. As you see in my older posts I have a small garden of succulents and cacti on cups but I thought about what if I fix that side of the house and revive the beauty of it that was once my grandma's sitting place on late afternoons when she was still with us.

It took me three days to work on this garden into a better state, and you know what, it did help me with my anxiety. As compared just staying at my room almost the whole day since I also work from home at my room desk during evenings, having this garden not just as a project but as a growing place to relax at gave me peace and an effective means to stay away from thoughts of fear for bigger chunks of time on the day.

My Grandma's old terrace garden

Above you can see a photo of the Garden I was talking about. Most of the plants here were mine from about half a decade ago until I just left them to thrive and yeya to water everyday. Yeya has a green thumb and she even was succesful to make our Moth Orchids flower again for the third time since it was bought only as a decoration for my Mother's Tomb two All Saint's Days ago (Here in the Philippines, we visit the tombs of our loved ones during November 1st). But every thriving Bromeliad were left from my old planting stint. All I wanted before was to plant these plants but not really to make a garden with it, which I was hoping now.

So I started by repotting the pups or 'babies' that you see growing on the mother plant's roots and sides. Some of the old mother plants are already dying so I had to take them out to give way to the pups to grow better. I said my thanks to every mother plant that I decided to take away, just like what I do before I throw away some old things that are not functional or not needed anymore, learned that one from Marie Kondo and it is a peace-giving practice for me at least.

In the next two photos, you will see a before and after. Old and dried leaves and mother plants with the thriving pups crowd the pots (left). The other photo shows a repotted version with 1:1 ratio of plant per pot(right).

For those that have more than one pups, I transfer them to other old pots here at home, especially the large ones, the smaller ones I converted into hanging plants. My larger variety of Bromeliads gave me two more large pups that I repotted also on the separate pots while the old mother plants were thanked and discarded.

This is how it looked like on Day 2 of my Garden project.

While I was here and there from the garden and on my bedroom, I saw an old wind chime that I got from an old grandpa vendor here in our city, which I only bought because I wanted the grandpa to have sales and then kept on my room with no use. So after all those years, now I knew why I bought it.

I then thought of an old brass bell I bought during my first international trip. I got it from a market in Ayutthaya in Thailand near the Wat Mahathat heritage site so it is both memorable and sacred. I had initial doubts whether to hang something so precious on my garden but I thought it is meant to be blown by the wind which never happens indoors so yes, it went to the bar with the other chimes and hanging plants.

I was still not satisfied because I thought that this garden would be a good place not just to visit and pass by, with the cooler afternoon winds, this place is a good place to stay at during hot afternoons inside the house. This terrace is facing east so the sun is already on the other side which tends to make it cooler a cooler choice of spot to be in on this lockdown summer days.

So I did a bit of further rearranging to give more space for a chair and a small laptop desk, and also perhaps for a small table where I can invite my cousins or friends when this lockdown is over. So here it is!

As of now, it's been 5 days since I started this garden project and I am beyond happy with the results. I even got recognition from my father and yeya who also helps me in things that I need for like pots and soils and things like that. Now I feel so happy that I have something to visit everytime I wake up. I talk to the plants and greet them good morning and that I will be back in the afternoon to join them, just as I am in here currently writing this blog post for all of you my dear friends.

I still have my anxiety visits and some symptoms that I still tend to feel whenever I have idle moments these days, but I can say that this garden has helped me a lot and hope this is just the beginning of my path to a better and more peaceful mind, because it really is true that whatever stresses our minds really shows in our bodies.

Aside from these plants, I also want to thank all the blog friends I have gained in the past couple of months since I went back to frequent blogging through this personal blog and my Cavite Daily Photo for you all have been so helpful for me in keeping myself sane because work and school alone has not done a good job in maintaining my peace away from this pandemic. Your comments and visits make my heart so happy!

With this come prayers for all the people in every nation who experiences the same anxiety that I suffer from and every patient and victim of this horrible virus.

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This post is part of "My Corner of the World". If you wish to see other points of views from across the globe, click on the image link below:

Never Stop Looking for Peace

Stevenson