Nature is an excellent place to celebrate. What? You ask? Well anything! Big, small, momentous or just the first bee of spring!

Celebrating in nature is one of the easiest ways to gain a spirit of gratitude in our lives.

Gratitude is an aspect of mental health that I used to overlook. But practicing being thankful and grateful for what we have or the people in our lives is one of the better ways to pull ourselves out of the depths.

Gratitude can be hard because it can feel like you have to be eternally positive but I think that even just being thankful for another breath, your warm coffee in the morning- any small thing. Practicing an appreciation for what we have leads to a realization that the bad things will be okay in time. They don’t have to take over our lives and when we feel everything is wrong- having a practice of gratitude helps to change that mindset.

It’s so easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed when things don’t go as we think they should. But I’ve found that if I stop, breathe, and think- I can usually find one small thing that is okay.

This begins the climb back to a mindset that is clearer and therefore you can begin to process the problem at hand.

My garden is often where I go when I get to that overwhelmed state. It’s hard to go into nature and not find something to be grateful for- a new bud, dew on a leaf. There is so much beauty all around me that it’s so much easier to process the issues in my life when I’m outside.

I hope you’ll take some time soon to go out and celebrate in your garden- walk around and give thanks for all the beauty you are surrounded by. And if you feel so inclined, share your garden with others!

I think it’s important for our gardens to be spaces to aid our own mental health but equally important to share them with others. To let them in on the gardeners secret— there’s a reason gardeners are happy people!