Gardening with Nikki Podcast episode 2
I decided I wanted to start a podcast because I wanted to talk about my experiences with mental health and gardening. I wanted to share with everyone myself and my husband's story and how gardening has helped me care for and support my husband. Also how gardening helps my husband with his depression & anxiety. But after sharing my first podcast and with all the people that I have interacted with since I began my social media gardening pages and blogs. I decided that I wanted to have people on the show to talk about how gardening has changed them and their life's.
Firstly I will let you guys know where you can see and listen to my podcast. My podcast is available on Anchor , Spotify if you search for Gardening with Nikki on either of these and I have a video log on my YouTube channel Nicola Gardener.
Up above you can see the video log of my second podcast with the amazing JJ & his wife Jess. They have been sharing their story of why they started to gardening and how it has helped them. They have shared their experiences of mental health , openly & honestly. Which I think is amazing as the most important thing you can do as a society is being more open and talking.
I think that when something changes your life in the way that depression & anxiety has changed myself and my husband's life. It for me has put me on a completely different path and changed me as a person. When I met my husband I was quite a shy person, who hated new things , new people and new challenges.
But through starting to garden, to take on my allotment plot and begin my journey to where i am now with social media pages, a blog, TikTok and a YouTube channel , it has improved my confidence in my own ability, it has raised my self esteem and its made me a lot more happy and confidence in myself.
The more I talk to new people about gardening and mental health. The more i want to talk and spread as much awareness of both of my passions as I can. I live in hope that one day that the stigma of mental health will no longer exists. That people will be bale to talk and have time away for their mental health with work and be supported. Their is no shame in saying that you have a mental health illness , you are not alone and please if you can always speak up. There is help out there and there is people you can talk to and get help and support from.
While meeting Jess and JJ , and listening to their story is was for me a story that I related to especially Jess with opening up about her experiences of helping her husband. I myself had the same worries, anxieties and thoughts. Which for me I think was something I had never voiced openly to people, due to having negative feedback in the past I sometimes feel like opening up to people the fear of being given a negative response is sometimes something I often just kept to myself about how I felt. How I would cancel or say no to night outs plans or even at times make up an excuse to be at home with my husband.
When you have a family member or loved one who has a mental illness , it is that and so it should be that they come first and you do miss out on things and experiences to be at home and look after & care for them. Something I struggle with is that I can not take the pain away as much as I try I wish I could take away the hurt , anxiety and worry from my husband but I think it is only natural when you love someone is that you want to fix it but sadly you cant. I want to thank Jess for sharing her feelings and as it really made me stop and think as a lot of the time I am always thinking of my husband and how he is doing that often I don't stop to think of me. If you have a family member or friend who cares foe a loved one all be it for a physical or mental illness and the cancel plans on you please don't be too hard on them as they want to come out but the truth is they cant because they would be so busy and anxious about being at home that they cant make the date. Which for me then causes me often to feel guilty that I have let the person or friends down by cancelling but for me , when I can look after Neil my husband and know he is doing ok the relief of not having the pressure to be at a party or night out is sadly something that you feel when you can focus on your loved one.
However having said that you still need you own little hobby or happy place to go to or to go and just get away from it all. My happy place began in my garden, which then became my allotment plot, where I can go and chat to people in my gardening club or just sit and watch the bees and dig in my plot. That for me has always been and i hope always will be my sanctuary because its somewhere that you can go and forget life's worries and just become engrossed in nature , it life's the mind body and soul.
Thank you so much to JJ & Jess for coming on my podcast and for sharing their story, check out their Instagram page @beardedgrowersradio and give them a follow! My next podcast is with @cloudgardener which I will be recording with Jason on the 8th of September!
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