One of the classic exercises psychology uses to help people
define exactly what they want to achieve through therapy is the visualization
essay. They ask you to answer the question: If
I woke up tomorrow in my ideal world, what would that look like? How
would the following be different: self, relationship, job, social life/friends,
family, finances, etcetera?
Your answer to that can be as simple or as detailed as your
mind dictates it. When confronted with this assignment given by my mental
health professional right after my depression diagnosis, I typed in 940 words
describing all the things that I wanted to improve in my life.
In my ideal world, my relationship with my husband was so
much better! I lived in a house instead of a condo; I had a job I enjoyed; even
my family had moved closer to us! I mean, if I’m already dreaming, why not
throw them into my picture perfect life?
And to my therapist surprise, I wrote the whole essay in
present tense. When visualizing, I wasn’t thinking of the future but narrating
what was taking place. And this ideal world had many things that didn’t exist
in my current life, such as a house!
Since we got married, we have lived in a 900 square feet
condo. Pretty tight. I always felt that “if only we had a house, with a
backyard, a garage, a bigger kitchen…” our days would be so much better!
Therefore, I had procrastinated happiness until this goal of acquiring a home
would be achieved. Big mistake.
You shouldn’t delay being happy. Depression can be a matter
of life or death, every day in it is a day in pain. Happiness is a priority. A
bigger house, a better job, a newer car, those things would be certainly nice
to have, but I just can’t afford to wait until I acquire them to get out of my
misery.
So, on a hot Sunday morning of this past May (2015), I sat
down to go through the flyers and junk mail from this week, and there it
was: our local Home Depot ad, and what
did I find? Nothing less than a great offer!
Today is the last day to get four herb or vegetable plants
for $10 dollars! That’s less than $3 dollars each! I am feeling lazy and lousy
(the usual) but if I don’t get this offer before the day is over I know I will
regret it. I could start a little garden in my tiny patio for less than $20
dollars! It takes all of my strength to get up from the couch, take a shower,
and make it to the store, which is, by the way, less than a mile away from our
condo.
Once we get to the nursery, the smells and looks of the
cilantro, peppermint, parsley, basil, and rosemary take me back to another
happy time in life. My grandfather in Mexico used to have an herb garden. We
rarely ever bought cilantro, peppers, or basil at the store, all it took for us
was a short walk outside and we had a fresh bunch of herbs to complete the
ingredients for our dinner.
Wouldn’t it be nice to gift my daughter with similar
memories of kneeling on the earth to get fresh cilantro for her soup? We only
have a narrow strip of soil to grow plants; luckily it doesn’t take much space
to grow an herb garden!
We spent about $50 dollars total between the herbs, bags of
soil, and digging tools. We also bought two rose bushes on sale, because what
is a garden without red roses?
My three year old
daughter, my husband and I spent the rest of the day digging out the old dirt
and replacing it with good, fertile soil, which could serve as an analogy to
what behavioral therapy is: Supplanting the thinking patterns (procrastination)
that hurt you with positive ones.
Just like I couldn’t wait one more day to take advantage of
our local store offer, I couldn’t wait to see our garden grow! That night we
went to bed exhausted and happy. And it drizzled a little during our sleep.
What a great morning tomorrow will be!
Love and hope,
Nancy C. Harris
My family's gardening gloves. It's easy to guess whose is whose...
