Gardening As Therapy Quotes

Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist
holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew
moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling. ~ Zsuzsi Gartner

There is something soothing about working in the yard. Planting seeds and seeing them poke green out of the dirt. And it gets you out of the house with out going too far. ~ Michael Lee West

At the bottom of freshly dug holes, I bury my problems alongside the waxen seeds. ~ Kelseyleigh Reber

Each of us is like seed, planted by the Good Gardener so we might grow into something majestic. ~ Seth Adam Smith

Spring time is nature at its best. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The strongest and most mysterious weeds often have things to teach us. ~ F.T. McKinstry

There is a theology to gardening that few of us consider, but to understand this theology means relinquishing much control - our arsenal of books, techniques, tools, chemicals, fertilizers, fancy hybrids, and expectations. Yet, that is exactly what we must do if we are to fully embrace a more spiritual form of gardening. As a part of Nature we must learn to enter our garden as if it were truly sacred, we must learn to enter with humility. ~ Christopher McDowell

I do a variety of activities like Pilates, bike riding, physical therapy, and running. I also train on the ice five to six days a week. On the ice, I work on my programs as a whole and the individual technical elements that comprise the programs. ~ Sasha Cohen

In the last twenty-five years, the borderline patient, who confronts the psychiatrist not with well-defined symptoms but with diffuse dissatisfactions, has become increasingly common. He does not suffer from debilitating fixations or phobias or from the conversion of repressed sexual energy into nervous ailments; instead he complains "of vague, diffuse dissatisfactions with life" and feels his "amorphous existence to be futile and purposeless." He describes "subtly experienced yet pervasive feelings of emptiness and depression," "violent oscillations of self-esteem," and "a general inability to get along." He gains "a sense of heightened self-esteem only by attaching himself to strong, admired figures whose acceptance he craves and by whom he needs to feel supported." Although he carries out his daily responsibilities and even achieves distinction, happiness eludes him, and life frequently strikes him as not worth living. ~ Christopher Lasch

Acceptance and commitment therapy, a variant on cognitive therapy, attempts to teach people to accept rather than change their emotions and make decisions within the context of what they value, as opposed to letting negative feelings control their behavior. ~ Joseph E. Ledoux

sutures, bandages, antibiotics Mop Sucking chest wound Anesthesia, surgery Cork Cancer Chemotherapy, radiation, surgery Casket wreath* 13 Diabetes Insulin Leeches* 14 Hatchet embedded in skull Removal of hatchet, treatment of wound Larger hat Eyes gouged out in hospital by psychopath posing as nurse Prosthetic eyeballs, therapy Six-pack Source: ~ Dave Barry

Employing ... nutrition and vitamin therapy ... one of the nation's largest alcoholism treatment programs reports a 71% success rate. This contrasts with ... (a) national ... rate (of) 25% as reported by NIAAA. ~ Irwin Stone

Meditation is both the symbol and expression of our intention to grow. Sitting still, alone with our thoughts and feelings, we can honor missed opportunities, passing desires, remembered disappointments, as well as our inner strength, personal wisdom, and ability to forgive and love. ~ Sebastian Pole

I'm simply the happiest, the placidest, when I'm writing, and so I suppose that that, for me, is the final answer ... It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time. ~ William Styron

It's a Caster lock, not something on your locker door." Link huffed as he worked the gardening shears into the crack. "You're not from around here. Isn't a door in this whole county that can't be opened with a set of pliers or a sharp toothbrush. ~ Kami Garcia

I don't need therapy. I'm not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance. ~ Kevin Hart

I believe in gardening the soil as well as the soul. ~ Costa Georgiadis

There is always something else to do. A gardener should have nine times as many lives as a cat. ~ Vita Sackville-West

Evidently, rigging cables is therapy for the Swiss: or part of their theology. What was it that he used to say? A balanced arc between mountain rows / as servant to his master shows / the power of besieged belief / in something something something, something something something-something to do with ducks, or rainbows. ~ Mark Helprin

I don't think we'll ever know all there is to know about gardening, and I'm just as glad there will always be some magic about it! ~ Barbara Damrosch

Would You Notice Me" is a beautifully intense read. The imagery is engaging...."the Merlot waterfall" and "confetti'd parts" lines for instance, and the the voice of the poem as a whole. ~ Mehnaz Sahibzada

Instead of using therapy to try and reduce their fear and anger, people now celebrated these destructive emotions, labeling themselves as politically active rather than emotionally dysfunctional. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

...why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life... Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. As Samuel Spaudling, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.' Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. ~ Ray Bradbury

(Mutt, a mentally ill brother who is setting fire to a load of expensive things from the house he grew up in and was physically abused and neglected in)
"Tuck (mutt's brother is being asked), aren't you going to stop him?"
'Why?'
'Well' - she waved her hand across the house - 'couldn't you two do something good with all this?" ...
"Yeah, but the money we earned wouldn't buy as much therapy as that fire ... ~ Charles Martin

Love is at the heart of the world, just as it is at the heart of your life. Your relationships with your lover, your family, your friends, and the world around you define the quality of your emotional wholeness and reflect your relationship with yourself. ~ Sebastian Pole

Melancholy

(1) An excess of black bile, anatomized by Robert Burton, embraced by the swooning Romantics as evidence of their fine sensibilities, now fallen into disrepair, renamed as depression, wrongly attributed to a deficiency of serotonin and cured by infantilizing, self-indulgent 'therapy' and overpriced, addictive drugs pushed on harassed, gullible doctors by unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies which suppress their terrible side-effects in order to pursue their profits.

(2) A crippling disease of unknown aetiology which throughout human history has devoured hope, destroyed lives and, after a period of living death, sometimes relaxed its grip just long enough for the sufferer to summon the energy for a merciful suicide; now, at last, frequently curable by a combination of therapy and antidepressants. ~ Michael Bywater

Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God. Close your eyes and breathe your way beneath your troubles, the way a diver slips to that depth of stillness that is always waiting beneath the churning of the waves. Now, consider two things you love doing, such as running, drawing, singing, bird-watching, gardening, or reading. Meditate on what it is in each of these that makes you feel alive. Hold what they have in common before you, and breathing slowly, feel the spot of grace these dear things mirror within you. ~ Mark Nepo

In newspapers, magazines and on television, the public has been warned off the very vitamins and other supplements that have been repeatedly proven to reduce illness in practically every instance. The effective use of food supplements and natural diet saves money, pain and lives... and you have been told not to do it. If you want something done right you have to do it yourself. This especially includes your healthcare. One of the most common questions about vitamin therapy is, are huge doses safe? This book will help answer that question once and for all, and while we are at it, here's the answer in advance. Yes. Megadoses of vitamins are very safe. Vitamins do not cause even one death per year. Pharmaceutical drugs, taken as directed, cause over 100 000 deaths annually. Still it is granted that we need access to all the tools that medicine and technology can provide, when used with caution. We must also fully use our natural resources of therapeutic nutrition and vitamins. To limit ourselves to pharmaceutical medicine is like going into the ring to fight the champ with one hand tied behind our backs. ~ Andrew W. Saul

I see therapy as a substitute for friendship. I see it as a commentary on the impersonality of society that people have to pay someone to tell them their troubles. ~ Jon Winokur

Sunflowers

In a field of brown,
The sun shines out,
As flowers bloom,
And as their love shouts out,
For all to hear,
And for all to see,
They will always love,
Both you and me. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

I've had a pretty crazy life. It's colorful ... reliving some of those closets that I had shut, locked and thrown away the key intentionally because it was painful to revisit a lot of those places - especially the loss of my buddy Robbie Tooley, the divorce of my parents, some of the things I went through as a kid, a lot of that stuff was locked up for a reason - it was painful. But at the same time, there was some therapy in revisiting some of those spots. ~ Billy Ray Cyrus

Therapy really did prepare me to become an empathic songwriter. As far as advice goes, it's a matter of self understanding first. ~ William Fitzsimmons

I don't pretend to understand the mystery of love, but this time it was more than sex, more than using a woman's body. It was being lifted off the earth, outside fear and torment, being part of something greater than myself. I was lifted out of the dark cell of my own mind, to become part of someone else -- just as I had experienced it that day on the couch in therapy. It was the first step outward to the universe -- beyond the universe -- because in it and with it we merged to recreate and perpetuate the human spirit. Expanding and bursting outward, and contracting and forming inward, it was the rhythm of being -- of breathing, of heartbeat, of day and night -- and the rhythm of our bodies set off an echo in my mind. It was the way it had been back there in that strange vision. The gray murk lifted from my mind, and through it the light pierced into my brain (how strange that light should blind!), and my body was absorbed back into a great sea of space, washed under in a strange baptism. My body shuddered with giving, and her body shuddered its acceptance. ~ Daniel Keyes

Shorter daylight hours can affect sleep, productivity and state of mind. Light therapy, also known as phototherapy, may help. It uses light boxes emitting full-spectrum light to simulate sunlight. ~ Andrew Weil

The quick ticket to ecstasy is to catch yourself feeling in a very low state of mind
depressed, stupid, hateful
and to love yourself for feeling that way. When you do that you can experience a rocket ride right to the top. Love does not take time; it's possible to transform depression into ecstasy in a flash. But please do not accept my word for it. Try it as an experiment next time you are feeling low.
Something else to consider is that we will always be in the process of remembering how to love ourselves, then forgetting, then remembering again. It does not seem to be our destiny to be any one way all the time. So let's get used to being pendulums and enjoy the ride. ~ Gay Hendricks

He had a little single-story house, three bedrooms, a full bathroom and a half bathroom, a combined kitchen-living room-dining room with windows that faced west, a small brick porch where there was a wooden bench worn by the wind that came down from the mountains and the sea, the wind from the north, the wind through the gaps, the wind that smelled like smoke and came from the south. He had books he'd kept for more than twenty-five years. Not many. All of them old. He had books he'd bought in the last ten years, books he didn't mind lending, books that could've been lost or stolen for all he cared. He had books that he sometimes received neatly packaged and with unfamiliar return addresses, books he didn't even open anymore. He had a yard perfect for growing grass and planting flowers, but he didn't know what flowers would do best there--flowers, as opposed to cacti or succulents. There would be time (so he thought) for gardening. He had a wooden gate that needed a coat of paint. He had a monthly salary. ~ Roberto Bolano

Once this bubble of self-deception is burst and the mask that shielded her and others from what she wished to ignore is lifted, it is difficult for the woman to return to her life as it was. It has been said that "the discovery of a deceiving principle, a lying activity within us, can furnish an absolutely new view of all conscious life." This reawakened awareness changes the upscale abused woman's life forever. Suddenly, new choices stand before her. This can be a frightening and sad phase in therapy, a moment when the woman is grappling with a kaleidoscope of loss and potential future gain. Some women experience this period as the dark night of the soul. It can be sickening to face the truths one has chosen to ignore in hopes of maintaining the status quo. Even if the woman wishes to stay married, she will never perceive her life in the same way again. ~ Susan Weitzman

In contrast, EMDR, as well as the treatments discussed in subsequent chapters - internal family systems, yoga, neurofeedback, psychomotor therapy, and theater - focus not only on regulating the intense memories activated by trauma but also on restoring a sense of agency, engagement, and commitment through ownership of body and mind. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Modern drug based medicine is as incomplete as a novel written with three vowels. As discordant as a symphony constructed using only some of the notes. High dose nutritional therapy is the much needed missing part of our vocabulary of healthcare. The fight against disease needs all the help it can get. ~ Andrew W. Saul

Children get smashed for hours on some strictly limited aspect of the Great Big Everything, the Universe, such as water or snow or mud or colors or rocks. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I do it as a therapy. I do it as something to keep me alive. We all need a little discipline. Exercise is my discipline. ~ Jack LaLanne

Reading books about gardens is a potent pastime; books nourish a gardener's mind in the same way as manure nourishes plants. ~ Mirabel Osler

Therapy isn't curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human. Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, "This is me and the world be damned!" Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society Socrates , Christ , Freud , all the way down the line. ~ Rollo May

I feel like if writers used writing as therapy we'd have a ton of happy writers. ~ Jennifer Gilmore

My belief and career has been emblazoned with the conviction that we are all individual and, as such, not one therapy, diet, strategy or lifestyle will fit all of us. ~ Emma James

The power of music, narrative and drama is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance. One may see this even in the case of idiots, with IQs below 20 and the extremest motor incompetence and bewilderment. Their uncouth movements may disappear in a moment with music and dancing - suddenly, with music, they know how to move. We see how the retarded, unable to perform fairly simple tasks involving perhaps four or five movements or procedures in sequence, can do these perfectly if they work to music - the sequence of movements they cannot hold as schemes being perfectly holdable as music, i.e. embedded in music. The same may be seen, very dramatically, in patients with severe frontal lobe damage and apraxia - an inability to do things, to retain the simplest motor sequences and programmes, even to walk, despite perfectly preserved intelligence in all other ways. This procedural defect, or motor idiocy, as one might call it, which completely defeats any ordinary system of rehabilitative instruction, vanishes at once if music is the instructor. All this, no doubt, is the rationale, or one of the rationales, of work songs. ~ Oliver Sacks

Addiction might be redefined not as a character flaw but as a "biochemical deficit management." Our emotional habits will become an accepted factor of good health, along with slogans like "Heartache can be harmful to your unborn children." ~ Marni Jackson