Growing Mystery Seeds
A Metaphor About Healing When We Don’t Have Instructions
I like to think about the process of therapy, and figuring out what it is like through a metaphor. I have seen the comparison of therapy being like planting a seed, but that metaphor is a bit simple compared to what the therapeutic process is actually like.
On these seeds (courtesy of the Home Depot on Country Club Drive in Mesa, AZ), we have a clear label, a picture to give us an example of what it will look like when fully grown, and instructions on the back about what kind of soil, light conditions, and watering frequency it likes. Oh, how nice it would be if people were that simple! We aren’t, we are a random seed with little to no information to be gained from just looking at us.
So, how do you grow a mystery seed? You step back, collect what you know about what plants need in general: nutrients from soil, water, and sunlight. You might do the same with your own needs as a person, remembering that most people need food, water, hygiene, stability, safety, fun, and connection. For a seed, you might start out just dampening a paper towel with the seeds layered in-between, and after a few days, a sprout will emerge. Same with people, you take care of some of those basic needs, and you feel slightly better. What now?
Plants vary in what they need as far as soil and light conditions, and prefer varying levels of watering. People do too! We vary in what conditions make us happy. So when you have no label on a plant, you have to take it one day at a time, and notice signs of the plant growing or struggling, and adapting from there. Therapy is this process in people. We take some time to really stop and observe what is going on within ourselves, notice patterns of what is making us feel better or worse, and adapt based off of what we see.
It takes a while before a plant’s growth is consistent and stable, eventually growing to a level where it can withstand tougher conditions with greater ease. It is exactly the same with humans. In this therapeutic process, we are growing, and this is great, but we usually want to wait a while through the growing stage to get to a place where we see that we are able to weather difficulties and remain resilient. In a plant, we may then plant it outside in the soil, instead of having the controlled conditions of a potted plant. In people, we look at ending therapy.
This metaphor might be a little cheesy, I know. I only bring it up to draw attention to the fact that healing isn’t linear. There aren’t a set of instructions that works for everyone, and so it takes time and adjusting along the way to set up for long-term success. A therapist is like a skilled gardener, where we know a lot about what is needed for growth, have a lot of supplies and tools to help, and most of all, we know what to look for to see signs that something is wrong and needs to change to encourage further growth. If you have a brown thumb in the metaphor of mental health, it might benefit you to take yourself to an expert when you have trouble.
