In honor of National Stress Awareness Month, join me while planting different flowers🌷 and herbs! We discuss intrusive thoughts, making space in the heart and mind, and navigating stress and feeling overwhelmed. 🌱

Don’t forget to check out our other ➡️ videos ⬅️ too!

– Sarah

Last week was spring break for me and it definitely didn’t feel like break. Mainly because I was experiencing a burnout on top of depression. My burnout definitely sparked before finals week. Soon after, my depression followed as there was no room for me to self-care.

Trigger Warning: Contents of heavy history and sensitive topics such as racism are mentioned.

My Burnout & Depression is From Teaching the “Teacher”

I’m tired of teaching people without being compensated for it. Especially at a college level. My burnout is from a sociology course that is being ran by a closed minded White Cisgender Heterosexual male. This professor has acted in micro-aggression to myself and fellow peers. It definitely has contributed to the declination of my mental health.

The first two discussion boards, the professor shared his opinion with me about my views. The first time, I let it slide until he compared the holocaust to racism. Indicating that racism doesn’t exist and we (marginalized groups) learned helplessness. To “prove” his stance, he said that he was an “expert” in African American, Native Indigenous, and immigrant history/studies. Right there, I understood what language I had to speak in order to effectively humiliate him for his bigotry in a professional manner. This made me understand that a degree, title, and position truly means nothing besides validity.

This professor makes me work 10x’s harder. The student-professor hierarchy allows him to take advantage to corner students. All I can say is that I fought back harder than he could ever imagine with facts and actual history to the point he was humiliated enough to personally email me. He couldn’t take accountability to give an actual apology in his email. However, used psychology to go around saying a formal apology.

Stepping in the Right Direction

The sociology professor has triggered my past educational trauma. And it took its toll on me along side outside factors. Recently, I was challenged to do something for myself by the TPCT team. I’m trying to take it one step at a time. Especially, allow myself the care I need. I’m definitely due for a self-care bath.

Self-caring has allowed me to creating a little planting project for myself after getting a home garden starter. Planting and growing herbs allows me to ground and slow down. It gives and provides me with a quiet head space. So far, I’m trying to grow lavender, eucalyptus and white sage in the home garden pods. The lavender seeds are sprouting. I may give growing updates here and there! I’m also growing lettuce; which is looking amazing!

Now, I have something that will allow me to regulate more effectively as I continue taking this required sociology course. The hope is to minimize the amount of burnout I experience from this course. While also connecting me with my feelings.

Dez 🙂

Self-care Sunday is all about plants and what it’s like to be a crazy plant lady! I know that most people hear the phrase “self-care” and think that it means spa stuff but that’s not true! Self-care is all about taking care of yourself, no matter how you choose to do that. There are so many forms of self-care to utilize and it doesn’t stop at the pampering. I’ve previously shared that I like to bake as a form of self-care but one of my top favorite things is taking care of my plants.

For those of you who don’t know I love plants. Honestly, I’m kind of obsessed with them and I am definitely a crazy plant lady. It all began with one plant and because of that plant, my life changed. This plant was a little cactus that a friend had given to me as a gift. It was a cute little prickly thing and I fell in love with it immediately. Having something to take care of made me feel good. Unfortunately, my poor little cactus met its demise after my dog knocked it out of the window.

Plants are a really good form of self-care. Taking care of them creates a routine and gives you a little bit of purpose when you’re feeling down. A plant, much like a person, requires attention, love and care. Taking care of one can teach you a lot about those things. Especially when it comes to yourself. If speaking kindly to plants helps them grow, imagine what speaking kindly to yourself can do.

Now that I’m older and have my own space, I’ve grown my plant collection bigger than I ever thought it could be. I love my little plants. They give me purpose and have taught me so much about taking care of myself. Nurturing them and being able to watch them all grow is a wonder because I helped them get there. It’s just such an amazing process and I got to be a part of it. Because of these plants, I’ve learned to take better care of myself. They are a reminder that a little love and care can really go a long way because that’s really all it takes.

Be kind to yourself the way that you are kind to plants and others because you deserve that kind of care too. I want you to water yourself with kind words, love and care because like plants, you need that too. I promise that will help you grow into the wonderful, beautiful person you want to be. You have to remember that it all starts with you.

Want to have your own plants for self-care? Here are 5 Easy Houseplants That Double As Self-care Reminders! 🙂

Check out Psychology Today’s article 11 Ways Plants Enhance Your Mental and Emotional Health.

Read my post How Life Feels Is More Important Than How It Looks right here on TurningPointCT.org! 🙂

Have a great week!