Emotional Support Plants

how to grow something out of whatever you're going through

If you’ve got something that didn’t work out the way you hoped, took longer than you thought it would, caused pain you’re still proccessing … or just have life stuff that’s just a little (or a lot) unresolved …

I want you to know my friend. She’s a friend to plants. She has many plants. At times she has wondered if she has too many plants. (She does not have too many plants).

She names them.

Here she is excited to share about Cassandra’s new leaf.

“Emotional Support Plants”, she calls them.

My personal relationship with plants is a bit complicated.

I grew up on a farm. It is ALOT of work.

You know the iconic scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker takes a break from working on Uncle Ben’s farm?

He stares out at the double sunset. The John Williams music swells. Our hero is clearly imagining a better, different life.

As a kid I remember thinking, yes. I get this guy. He looks out as if he’s saying:

“You know what would be better than all this farm work? War. A star war.”

My feelings about plants (and responsibility in general) have matured some since then. Honestly, though, watching Stephanie’s journey of caring for plants and discovering what care actually means has stirred something in me.

There’s more going on in the way we tend to the things around us than we usually give it credit for.

What started as a way for her to cope and care for herself slowly became something much more. Tending to plants became, for her, a way of tending to her own life. And now, in a really beautiful way, it’s growing into something helping others do the same.

I asked her a few questions about all of this.

Stephanie: I remember the moment vividly; a moment in which something quite soft hit me very hard. I’d been tending plants for about a month, with much of that time spent learning how to actually keep them alive—since I’d never successfully done so before.

I learned that the amount of water, soil, and sunlight that is perfect for one plant may be incredibly harmful to another, and that some plants are more resilient than others when faced with an environment that doesn’t suit them. I learned that plants grow at vastly different rates, but all have to have a healthy root system before visible growth occurs. Sick roots kill the plant. I learned that plants sometimes need to shed what they spent valuable time and energy growing so that they have space for something new, bigger, and healthier.

One day I checked on my plants and gasped at the sight of Betty, a peperomia bibi I was growing from a cutting. She’d been slow to grow and frankly I’d been a bit bored with her—where was the reward for the effort I was putting in? Well, it had finally arrived!

Betty had put out half a dozen new leaves and shoots.
“Look at you!” I said.
“You’ve grown so much from where you started!”
And then I began to weep.

Every lesson I thought I’d been learning about plants finally hit its intended mark. Why had I felt guilty for not thriving when many of my basic needs hadn’t been met? Why had I insisted that I bloom in a certain environment simply because someone else did? Why had I viewed the losses in my life as failures instead of openings for something better? Why had I thought my life would immediately reflect the work I was doing in therapy when I was still in the process of rebuilding my foundation? And wasn’t I glad I’d kept showing up, even when it seemed like nothing was happening? Just look at how much I’d grown!

I side-eyed my plants, then. They’d been plotting this the whole time, hadn’t they? I could practically hear their conspiratorial laughter. From that moment on I decided to view whatever my plants taught me about themselves as a tutorial in being human as well, and what they have repeatedly shown me is that nothing is wasted—not slow growth, not loss, not even death.

S: The idea for The Good Soil Collective came to me in a season in which I felt as if I’d been handed a turd sandwich. Someone had done incredible harm to me—harm that I didn’t ask for, deserve, or enjoy the results of. I had not ordered a turd sandwich, but one had been brought to me anyway, and sending it back wasn’t an option.

I had no choice but to deal with it. Holding it stank. Ingesting it made me ill. Even looking at it made my stomach turn. There’s very little use, in fact, for a turd sandwich.

I decided the best path forward was to simply let go of it—to allow the earth to hold it for me and to plant seeds of something I might actually want to eat on top of it. The things that have bloomed from the remains of this turd sandwich have brought nourishment and beauty and stability to my life.

This does not erase the pain of what I experienced, but it does help me have faith in the process. Now, when crap finds its way into my life, I am much less likely to view it with contempt. Instead, I try to ask: What could grow out of this if I let it go? Letting go is hard, but just think where I’d be if I were still trying to choke it down.

S: My advice for how to help them thrive would be the same as if you had a friend who seemed to not be doing so hot: I would ask them what they need. You might be surprised to hear a clear answer! But even if you don’t, you could try something gentle and see if it helps—like a new window to sit in or a bit more water. This, however, is not guaranteed to work, which leads us to my advice about taking it personally.

In every Good Soil Workshop there is someone who insists they’ll kill the plant I’m giving them. And you know what? They might. You might. You might make an innocent miscalculation that causes your plant to die. Or you might do everything perfectly and some force beyond your control causes your plant to die. Now, I don’t take this lightly—after all, I name my plants. I have cried real tears over plants that have died in my care. However, I have come to accept that death is part of the process, and a very beautiful part indeed. Everything that dies—from our under-watered office plants to our own human bodies—is returned to the earth, broken down, and used for nourishing something new.

I was asked once (as a joke) if I have funerals for my plants and, in a way, I do. When a plant dies I take it outside and thank it for the purpose it served in my life—even if that purpose was to show me how I could be better. If I made a mistake I acknowledge it without harboring guilt or shame, then return the plant to the earth so that it can pursue the next phase of its purpose.

My plant funerals often sound like this: I’m sorry. I did the best I could with the understanding I had at the time. I’m going to do better in the future.

I’ve noticed this script doesn’t just apply to my plants. It’s one I’ve needed when I’ve accidentally harmed people, too.

S: The mission of The Good Soil Collective is to harness the power of nature and narrative to help people grow into who they were created to be—and I believe we were created to be happy, healthy, and whole; to be good stewards of ourselves, our neighbors, and the earth. On a random Tuesday, this looks pretty unremarkable, but I’ve found that the seemingly unremarkable is where healing often meets us.

On a random Tuesday pursuing happiness, wholeness, and faithful stewardship of the things within my orbit looks like checking on my plants to see that their needs are met, then doing the same for myself. It looks like choosing not to rush the process, even when I am tempted to, because I know that sustainable growth takes time. It looks like stepping outside to feel the sun on my face when I can feel myself getting overwhelmed, and trusting that the world will keep spinning without my constant intervention.

It looks like tending to what isn’t thriving—and sometimes admitting that something isn’t going to make it, no matter how much I want it to, and choosing to let it go without turning that loss into a story about my own failure. It looks like noticing new growth and celebrating it, even if it seems small or overdue.

Most days, growing into who I was created to be takes the form of gentle shifts away from behaviors and beliefs that have kept me stuck and toward behaviors and beliefs that set me free. It looks like showing up, paying attention, making small adjustments, and trusting that something is happening, even when I can’t yet see it.

S: The Good Soil Collective is about encouraging the healing of the individual in order to heal the whole. That is why The Good Soil Workshop is designed around activities that are scientifically proven to reduce stress, boost feel-good brain chemicals, and foster feelings of peace and stability.

If you’re interested in experiencing a Good Soil Workshop for yourself, there is one open to the community happening in Henderson, TN on Saturday, May 9. You can also reach out through my website to book a Good Soil Workshop for your organization.

Let’s grow something beautiful together!

you can
+ read Stephanie’s Substack here
+ find out more about the workshop here
+ reach out to her directly here