Mindfulness is undoubtedly one of the best practices you do if you want to improve your wellness. It helps you to take control of your thoughts and emotions and start living more in the now. This can help you to live a more peaceful and happier life; a life where you appreciate simply being alive. It can also help to improve focus, empathy, and clarity. However, it can be hard to practice mindfulness consistently when you have a busy life and a noisy home. One thing that can help, if you happen to have your own garden space, is creating a tranquil mindfulness garden. Here’s how:
Create Your Mindfulness Garden
Create a decking area for meditation
Having a decking area in your garden gives you somewhere you can place your meditation mat and cushion, and maybe even do some mindful yoga too, There are loads of decking ideas online that will show you how to create the perfect seating area for you, but if you want your garden to be truly mindful, choosing sustainable natural woods will really help you to get into the right mind frame for your wellness practice. Throw down a few blankets, garden cushions, and lamps, and your decking area will be the perfect place to relax.
Add a Yoga veranda
Having a veranda that you can shelter under when it gets wet means that you can still practice mindfulness and yoga outdoors when the weather is not ideal. Practicing yoga in the rain can be very effective because you have a natural source of soothing sound to listen to and the visuals of the falling rain to watch.
Plant a sensory garden
Mindfulness is very much about using your senses to connect with the present moment, so if you’re looking to create a mindful garden, it makes sense to fill it with lots of plants, flowers, and herbs that release a bunch of wonderful aromas for you to focus on, Things like lavender, peppermint and chamomile are particularly good because they are known to have soothing mind-clearing properties, but really any plants and flowers that you enjoy the smell of should be welcome in your mindful garden space.
Running water
Many mindfulness practices ask you to tune in on the noises around you and make them the focus of your meditation. Of course, the garden is filled with lots of beautiful sounds like the birds singing, the breeze blowing and leaves rustling, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t add even more relaxing sounds into the mix, and undoubtedly, one of the best ways to do this is by adding a water feature such as a fountain. Why? Because the sound of gently running water is one of the most soothing sounds there is. Watching the water flow and bubble will also bring a lot of peace into your life, almost hypnotizing you as you watch its movements.
Get rid of clutter
A cluttered mind is a busy mind, and when your space is cluttered, your mind is likely to be full too. What does this mean for your garden space? That it needs to be thoroughly cluttered and paired back if you want it to be mindful. Although you don’t need to go as far as to create a barren Zen garden, you should definitely take some inspiration from such spaces when you are creating your own mindful garden. Remove anything that does not need to be there or which does not bring you joy and help you to be naturally mindful and it will be so much easier to get into the right frame of mind in your garden space. A nice shed hidden with a bamboo screen is a great place to hide away all of that garden stuff you need, but which doesn’t always need to be out and on display getting in the way of your mindfulness practice.
Create a reading corner
Create a corner for sitting and reading your favourite book, add a table and comfy chair or hang a hammock. Having a hammock positioned between two trees is a great way of creating a really comfy space where you can lay disown. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds of nature while you meditate or read. The gentle swaying of the hammock combined with the gentle breeze and the sun on your face will put you in the perfect state for living truly in the moment and your mindfulness practice will benefit immensely from this.
Lighting
Adding some sparkly fairy lights, that you can wrap around your fences and trees will help to create an atmospheric evening space for your practice.
The garden is the perfect space to practice mindfulness, so what are you waiting for?
(Photography by Annie Spratt)
