Planting Peace: Behind the Scenes of Garden TV 🌿 Managing Anxiety & New Border Planting!

in this episode I have a mixed bag here I have some behind the scenes home and garden and some anxiety chats one of the members in the community asked me to share the behind the scenes of whenever I do the teley segment on irland a. so I'm just doing some prep for a segment where I'm going to be talking about vertical wall Gardens which you have seen on the channel before I think I did it back in Autumn time and the reason why I'm doing this is because it's in my book book so it's a nice plug for the book but instead of kind of just going on and only talking about your book it's nice to go on and do a project cuz you're giving value down to the viewer of the show and then you can say byy my book so by the time this video goes up my segment will have been done and it was the 7th of May Ireland am do have a player that you can watch back but they also sometimes upload their full programs onto YouTube where you can just watch them for free and I was on at the end of the show at 9:45 so the 7th of May at 9:45 if you want to watch back on the segment I did a teas at 9:00 a.m. that's just where you're like hey I'll be on talking about my plans so I do all of the prep and all of the contributors do so with television I think there is assumptions that it's all uh glamorous and there's people that go around and they do things for you but maybe that's true for really really large um television stations and corporations but it's definitely not the case in Ireland and I know the same in the UK from chatting to some of my fellow creators who do some Telly work I don't know maybe Hollywood movies made it look more glamorous than it is but everyone puts in their graft for prepping for their segment so even if it's someone going on doing cooking they will go and they will get all the ingredients and everything they'll prep their slot we send in our notes as well and then the producer will go through our notes so that's the presenters on the day know pretty much what we're doing and the presenters put in like some job because they will speak there could be I don't know anywhere from 5 to 10 contributors in a 3-hour Morning Show they have to I suppose show interest in every topic The Lads are sound as well so they always have good interests in the garden segment so I shared my notes on vertical Gardens over on Instagram um so for anyone who hasn't got the book I did pop up some notes that you can save on Instagram so that on my grid and Arland am did pop up like a little reel just sharing a little tease from the episode so if you want to head over there for all the info there's also a video from back in Autumn time where I did this I think it was September I could have done this I basically got rain pipes out on my neighbor's Skip and I turned them into a little wall planter so I'm excited to see how they're going to look I need to plant them up with some more I think I'm just going to put some bedding plants in them some annuals because they are shallow and you'll see from the notes that I have over on Instagram that when something is shallow you're a bit more limited in what you can plant but some of the sedums have come back from the ones that I planted in Autumn time which is good to see I've also had some lovely comments and feedback from people saying that you know they like the segment um on the Telly and they love to see me more often but I suppose just to give you a bit of insight and I suppose the reason why I can't do it all the time is and so I'm self-employed and television and radio while they're like fun to do and there's a very very small contribution fee and I put in probably like a day of prep not all in one go but if I was to I suppose add up the hours that I put in when it comes to Preparing the notes and getting the plants and making up my display so unfortunately that's why I can't do it that often is because I have to prioritize paid work and I don't know why I'm getting ick even saying that but I do If I Was A Millionaire and I just go on and do all those fun things another reason as well is the energy exchange so what I mean by that is I get an awful lot of anxiety beforehand and it's fine when I'm doing it and I've had it all the time when it comes to doing it I'm not as bad with radio as much because I think it's not visual but television is now I am going to be having the anxiety chats later on in this video but as just as you know the footage that you're watching now I was stuck in my head and I was quite anxious so I try to do it often but I can't afford to do it too often if that makes sense and what I meant by a contribution fee it means I receive a small fee for doing it no it's very small um but a lot of the time when I do radio interviews they are like unpaid and I have done unpaid television work as well so just give you a little insight into how it works and I can obviously only talk about Ireland um this could be different in in you know UK and America you may receive more payment for doing things like this but I I just noticed it in the comment section um a lot of people ask some questions and absolutely ask away because these are things that I would be curious about and be like oh I wonder do they actually get paid for that um very little my friend whenever I am feeling anxious whether it creeps up to the 8 hour 10 9 hour 10 one thing that definitely helps is knowing that it will pass I know the old cliche of this twoo shall pass but it always does but I suppose it's not trying to fight it in the moment and something that I like to do to allow the time to pass is a bit of gardening so I had lots of weeds in the front haven't been doing much weeding but my borders are very full compared to other years and I think it's kind of suppressing the weeds I normally do a big mulch in March but I was late doing it this year I've have half a bag of mulch left so I'm just mulching the areas that are kind of visible one thing that I always get in the front is tree seedlings I get loads of them and I suppose they're kind of like a weed cuz I don't need to grow more trees so some people had commented saying I had a lot of leaves for someone that had very little trees in the garden but my regular viewers will know I have lovely B big mature trees right on the other side of the wall thankfully I get their leaves and I do have some leaf mold Brewing away that I took um bags of in Autumn but I suppose the ones the leaves that uh I don't get my hands on there can be little seeds that start to grow underneath so I do pull these up because I want that border full of little lovely perennials and speaking of borders I am just starting to tip away with the planting of the new raised beds that's in the front if you saw I think in last week's video or the video before I was saying how I just have a square patch of grass that's in another area of the garden and I decided to get double height raised bed made all around the perimeter of it and the goal is when I'm looking out my living room I will see loads of plants because I didn't have that visual in the front a lot of my planting is at the side and it's at the back so I want to look out the living room and see lovely plants so so far what I've done is I've put this sweet peas out I don't think I filmed that I think I filmed a few clips of The Sweet Peas for Instagram um I'll pop them in actually uh if I have them on my phone so I sold loads of Sweet Peas I absolutely love the smell of sweet peas and I'm hoping cuz I've planted some near my window in a summer's evening if I have the window open I might even be able to get that lovely sweet PE in so I have some flowers in pots actually from last year I know I didn't plant them last year so I'm popping in some Achila I had a Rebeca and I'm going to get another Rebeca maybe two or three more to do a cluster of them then I have some daas that I'm going to put in and I'm going to a plant sale with Karen the weekend and there is a particular flowering shrub that I really want to get my hands on but it's sold out everywhere so if flowers I actually found it when we visited Gardens back in January I think it was January February and this bush was beautiful and it was flowering and the smell of it was amazing so I'm hoping I can get my hands on it but I'm definitely going to keep space for it but I'm going to put that on the front section um I'm going to add more height to the front and I'm going to treat the plants kind of more like a screen so that I can't see like out into my neighbors if that makes sense so when things start to kind of grow up there is some shrubs belonging to my neighbor on the other side that's nice and Tall um I'm just being careful filming in this area just for my neighbors privacy I don't want to be you know filming their front lawn and stuff so when things start to grow up and I have more screening and privacy I'll be able to show this area a bit better okay this is an unflattering angle but I got just a couple of Clips I to be like I said how many times have I said anxious in this week's video whenever I have Telly it's obviously an early start cuz it's morning television so I will do my makeup first with a cup of tea or drink a pint of water and the reason behind this is whenever I'm anxious I have to take my Basics am I hydrated do I have something to eat in my belly I also have to do my own makeup and I had the assumption that oh television someone will do your makeup and your Glam girl no no we do not have the budget for that there is a makeup artist in arand but she just does touchups and it's mostly putting powder on any shine obviously the lights and stuff are different so I do have to put on nighttime makeup kind of just because them cameras are not flashing but I am outside today so the lighting isn't as bad it's more natural but when you're in the studio you can look quite pale um so sometimes I'll come out with loads of bronzer on and I will look like orange I accidentally dropped my boiled egg as well today once I arrive at the studio I unpack the car that is full to the brim of plants and I set up to the table and the guys kind of just leave me to it at this stage I then get miked up so I have my little microphone on and I feel like a Power Ranger with the battery pack on my back I usually do a tease around about 9:00 a.m. if I'm on at the end of the show so that will just be coming up next and then I will just be like yeah I'm on talking about this once that's done I go to makeup she gives me a little touchup bit of lipstick then I have to do a lot of deep breathing and then it's showtime hello my lovelies before I take off my lovely dress and ruin my nice makeup look actually the lipstick so I always forget to put lipstick on I just be going around looking like I've have no lips there just be foundation on them are you well they have the Zoomies Emma who does makeup in Orland when I say makeup you just get a touchup and she put this lipstick on and it's Clarence 705 just looking in Mir there Clarence 705 it's the perfect I don't like a big red lip I feel like it's the perfect everyday nude got a bit of berry in it now it's worn off but it even looks a bit nice worn off anyway I have a giant Costa Coffee with one sh of caffeine so I wanted speaking of caffeine and anxiety also apologies for the noise of the cats running around they just kitty it's actually quite fun watching them so I wanted to have the anxiety chats I think why I want to have the chat is because I sometimes see comments on whether it's you know Instagram or on here saying oh my God you you look amazing uh you seem so confident you're glowing and I'm like if only you knew and I'm sharing this because I'm sure there is fellow anxious people watching as well I've been having an anxious spell I'm going to say for the past couple of weeks on almost couple of months I actually started therapy last summer um I think what triggered it was overworking and I was doing the book as well as like taking on too much I felt really exhausted at Christmas and I got sick just like a virus thing and then in January I thought great I haven't you know January to recover and then I ended up having to take on some work cuz I lost a client anyway basically I think it was just I had a period of a couple of months where I overworked and I pretty much like exhausted myself I don't want to use the word burnout because that's quite an extreme thing I was still able to kind of go up go about my business and I was able to work but I was I suppose emotionally exhausted and I think it was from feeling so anxious all of the time and then a couple of weeks ago I had a bad couple of days where the anxiety overwhelm was like just bad um to the point where I felt like I couldn't make decisions I'm sure you have felt like that when you're really overwhelmed um simple noises was kind of noises were startling um I Am Naturally introverted my is it the Myers Briggs personality test I am an in FJ and so I'm naturally intereted anyway even though I probably come across extroverted um maybe when I do like YouTube or if I'm in public but I recharge by being in my own company or with animals and I do get quite drained by social situations so I think um a thought that triggered more anxiety was around about March time coming into April I was like oh my God it's April that means it's a month before my book comes out and I'm exhausted and I had this expectation cuz expectations um can get you in trouble so I had this expectation that come April I would be full of energy and I would be past all of that you know anxious feelings and stuff but I wasn't I was actually worse um so I just allowed it so first of all I do have a weekly therapist that I chat to I don't take medication for anxiety take a few little hair bu things I don't know if they work um I know some people might recommend oh you know take magnesium take this but uh please don't recommend things just because I'm just thinking of viewers watching cuz when you're in an anxious State you are susceptible to buy random stuff so please don't buy a supplement because someone recommends it in the comment section if you're in the height of anxiety expecting it to be your cure and because I know when you're in the heightened state you will I Think You're vulnerable to be taken advantage of um supplements are great but do try and I think talk to someone um and then do the breathing exercises and all of that so what has helped me is acceptance and it's very hard to do because all weekend um I had this dread of television and I was chatting to the girl today and I'm like I don't know why my body like there is no threat when I go to the television Studio there's nobody there to harm me physically there's no one there to harm me emotionally the presenters are so sound and even the guests there're just nice people I was chatting to one of the guys today as well who was there they were talking about like the mechala and the dresses and stuff like I don't know why I have associated with a trat um and public speaking in general so I have turned down some public speaking things and I get why people would ask me to do workshops and stuff because what I do is very Workshop based even if it's a garden demo or if it's like a DIY demo um but to not flood my system my nervous system with all of this anxiety of these things I I just dread doing them but I like doing them once I like once I've done them what am I trying to say once I done them and I'm in the moment of doing them they're not as scary it's the buildup to doing them I think I'm going off on a waffle but my point I think that I'm trying to say is please don't be fooled by uh anyone's uh social media or if you think oh my God that's amazing uh do you have a book out and you're on television but it comes with a basket load of anxiety but what I will say is anytime I go true an anxious spell it always reinforces the lears um on like coping and accepting and trying to float through it um so yeah don't be filled by or compare to other people cuz I'm like I even think some like people who are really experienced doing public speaking I'm like oh my God I have those thoughts oh they're so confident and then I talk to them and they're like yeah I popped a better blocker because I get so anxious public speaking and I'm like Okay cool so yeah I feel like sometimes I can look like is it a dock like a dock where you look or is it Swan a swan is more elegant a swan is more elegant well yeah what is the phrase you look like you're Cal on the surface but really underneath you are paddling um there is a book that I always go back to it is Claire weeks the author is Claire weeks and she has a lot of books it's like hope and help for your nerves um now because the book is a bit older some of the terminology like you wouldn't use today um she she talks about like nervous breakdown and stuff um but her teachings in the book are the only ones that I always kind of go back to and I feel like other self-help books just say what she says if that makes sense um so yeah if you are struggling as well I highly recommend her books and journaling my journals over there actually my therapist gives me homework and I actually can't I just looked on the the worksheets that she gave me there is a copyright on the end so I can't reshare them here uh but it's like exercises for challenging your negative thinking like is this thought helpful am I being too critical am I are my expectations too high and anytime I go through that worksheet I'm like wow my inner voice is so critical and so um like fortune telling catastrophizing so I am doing a lot of work on just I'm not going to say challenging the negative voice but just trying to look and acknowledge it another thing that been really helpful is just acknowledging my nervousness system so we all have you know a nervous system and then it gets flowed with adrenaline and that's why you get those uh symptoms and stuff so I feel like you can fall into a dangerous spiral when you're in an anxiety attack of checking your symptoms on the internet um so I try to just not do that and accept this is anxiety I'm not dying of something um but your nervous system so for example my nervous system this morning was Absol flooded with adrenaline because I was doing you know live television even the drive over was anxious doesn't matter how much deep breathing I was doing I accepted that my legs felt shaky and I could feel my heartbeat but I just kept saying to myself you're just here to talk to Tommy and ween for 7 minutes about vertigal Wall Planters and your book forget about who's watching they're not even paying attention to you forget about them um but that's really hard to do when you're feeling the physical symptoms so I was trying to just feel like this is you know this is my nervous system um there is lots of little hacks and stuff uh Vegas nerve exercises like twiddling here and doing that but I find when I'm in that heightened State it's best for me to just accept my Doom like is that a fight in it I'll just be like okay I can feel my hair thumping okay I feel a bit my head feels a bit Kitty feel a bit lightheaded breathe and then there is another worksheet I have without grounding exercises um so for me it helps like my feet into the ground so pushing my toes into the ground I suppose when I'm on telly I'm talking about plants so I can sniff something um so so you can carry like essential oil this is a technique for grounding so if it's I find Mint or lavender something really strong um but when I need to kind of ground just before we do the da segment um I will fiddle with like the roots of a plant or sniff something and then yeah just go through it when you're going through a really really anxious spell you want to withraw and you want to just like yeah you want to just withdraw from everything that triggers your anxiety now don't get me wrong I won't be gone on television every single week doing that segment because I think it would just flood my nervous system um maybe when I feel a bit better when I'm coming out of this anxious cycle I would feel more confident in doing it more often and that's another thing I wanted to pick up on is there's the phrase of Feel the fear and do it anyway but actually that can burn you out if you're not careful and that's I think what was happening to me I was saying yes to things uh because I wanted to challenge myself but then I ended up I was doing like too much and that's how I ended up kind of just getting overwhelmed and frazzled so there's a stretch zone so you have your comfort zone and then you have like where you're overstretched and then just in the middle so slightly like for me to go on live and do a TED Talk that would be a massive jump um whereas I hope I'm trying to say this example right so for me to tackle public speaking if I signed up to do a live Ted talk in front of a million people that's a massive stretch for my anxiety and like yours if you're watching but what is a nice little stretch and a step is maybe do a talk in front of 10 people maybe talk in front of two people in your job or whatever or do a presentation I don't know in front of a classroom something smaller so that you're not jumping you're you're slowly building up your confidence but you're not overwhelming your system all of a sudden if that makes sense don't get me wrong there are people who jump straight in face Their Fear and do TED Talks um but I find for example when I was terrified of flying I went on my first solo flight to London cuz it was an hour and a half flight and I didn't go straight on a long haul 8 hour flight miles away my first little step in dipping my toe in getting over my fear of flying was to go to London and I went just for the day so I knew I was coming home that evening and I had the two flights in the one day so I wasn't kind of you know I just took a slow and then I gradually built up to longer flights then I did Long Haul flights by myself I stayed longer places and I didn't just jump straight in the deep end and put myself on an 8 hour flight um I kind of just built up my confidence gradually so that is my ramble on um anxiety it's going to be different for everybody but my for me I find therapy and acceptance and that good all clear weeks book acceptance of the physical symptoms so for example my nervous system is on a cown now after doing the Telly and I feel really tired but I'm not going to be like oh no why do I feel tired what I shouldn't the why the should the I'm just like instead of like oh no or whatever I'm trying to just be like so what so what I accept that I feel tired I flooded myself with adrenaline this morning it's fun don't try and fight it alone either if you have someone that you can kind of talk to that you trust therapy is expensive I ain't going to lie it's like the price of the set and nails it's like the price of a manicure every week so I know it's not going to be in everyone's budget but if you can I highly recommend it um there is another person I love following on YouTube her name I can't remember her name actually but her YouTube channel is therapy in a nutshell she has amazing videos um on anxiety to watch I think she does have like an online course as well I haven't done that so yeah the books by clear weeks um but don't be put off by some of the terminology that that she uses I think the first place to go always go to your doctor first get a check over make sure some of your symptoms are related to anxiety once that's all ruled out then you can start yeah trying to calm look into nervous system um calming techniques and be kind to yourself don't be so critical that inner voice I didn't think my inner voice was as critical as it was until I Journal until I also had my therapist mirror it back to me and I was like wow I'm really harsh I wouldn't say that to my friend why would they say that to me that is it don't be fooled I'm an anxious wreck this week but I'm taking it in my stride I have um my publication date is Thursday so I'm going to go out and visit some shops find some books Karen is coming with me I'm going to C on Saturday and my girls are coming with me so I was just thinking like having good people around you as well because I can turn around to Karen and say there was actually one day where we drank too much caffeine and we both felt like oh where and I had to stopped filming we were doing a chitchat video and I was like Ken I think I'm going to have a panic attack um so we flooded oursel with caffeine that day but having good people around you so I can say to my heres listen I feel a bit off today um but I still go I still show up and I sit with the uncomfortableness knowing that it will pass but it's very hard to do so if you are going through that my heart goes out to you because I get you sis I get you so I'm now going to go upstairs and I'm going to throw on I'm going to throw on my sloppy and I'm going to go to the park because I know what I need is to ground myself I shouldn't really be having caffeine but I know it's past I don't drink out coffee before anything anxious like that so yeah they there is my anxiety chat bit waffly but I hope it has helped someone and if you're gone through it all my love my friends just remember that what is it that book says it's like accept it float through it I'm just going around trying to float the cats are back as well I obviously bored them to death with my anxiety chat but anyway so this week another thing as well as the gardening that has been help helping to distract any anxiousness is a bit of cleaning and just even trying to do an hour here and there I actually got a new sewing pattern um it's a sewing pattern it's a tillan buttons one I think it's called The eron Sewing pattern and it's to make a pair of donges and I bought them and a sound pattern has been sitting on the kitchen table for the past week and I thought that would be a nice thing to try and sew and I think it will be nice and distracting because this week as well as it been publication day and doing television I have a couple of phone interviews for newspapers which is so nice and that I get to talk to these people and they're giving me a little mention in the newspaper so that's nice but I do find sometimes I can feel like a little bit anxious as well especially if it's someone that I haven't spoken to before and you never know what people are going to ask but thankfully everyone has being lovely so I like to do a little bit of cleaning um in between but actually I wanted to do the sewing project but my house I feel like I can't start a project especially with sewing if the house is upside down does anyone get like that I feel like SE especially when it's something new like a new pattern you can feel a bit angsty um so if the house is upside down you're like no so I decided to clean the house instead of starting the SE and pattern cuz I was like well at least if the house is clean I can kind of just so something else that happened this week was my official publication day for Ireland and I think the UK as well that basically means I am on the shelves so you can go into a shop and most of the book shops in Ireland um I should be on the shelves so on the day of publication I popped into eens in liy Valley dubra in liy Valley I popped into Blanchet toown there's an e in there and then we went down to trim I say we cuz Karen came with me she got um more footage um on her uh Vlog so if you head to her Channel last week she got some lovely footage of us being down in trim so just like tradition we did this for when the first book came out we went to we hit up them hotpots but we went down to trim because there's a little Bookshop down there called Antonia's and I'll pop in a real that I had posted on Instagram when I visited and she's um an independent book shop and she's in trim trim is a beautiful town and I think it there's a castle there that you can visit it's quite popular with tourists as in like it's a nice spot to stop if you're around the kind of Bo Valley area it's just the prettiest town and Antonia's book shop is just a short walk down from the main street she has just a beautiful shop front and she was so sweet and she put my book in the window and I just thought that's so nice because obviously books are such a competitive industry um and the larger shops I mean fiction is really popular in summertime it's quite hard to like get into the window so I just walked into when I walked to the door of the shop and I saw I was in the window I was like that is such a nice thing to do um and I really appreciated it and I was so so grateful so if you are visiting and you happen to be down in trim if you pop in and just ask Antonia she does have signed copies she actually had one copy left of the first book as well so I made sure to sign that so if anyone wanted to buy the books as a pair myself and Karen then had a walk around the rot Garden Center and I have not been here since the last time we were here 2 years ago and please remind me to visit this Garden Center again because it is so cute and they have the cutest Gardens inside so today is publication day and I have come to the cutest book shop in the cutest Village so I'm in Antonia so I signed all the books and Ro there oh that lady is fing through my book so how cute is this book shop I feel like I could rumage around here for hours if you come to Antonia's she will make you do all the hard work we went for a black sticker cuz I feel like it's Chic so all of the copies and Antonio's are all signed and she even put me in the window as well so if you are in trim or if you're passing please stop in and support your local Bookshop and yeah be around I've made it to the Shelf um before I start off I just want to say a massive thank you for the support anybody who placed an order with eens have started to get their books and it came within about 5 days so if you don't want to wait until July to get your copy overseas you can order from both book station and ens here in Ireland and you'll get it pretty much within a week so thank you so much every time I see one of these comments I I love seeing where the books are going to like Kansas there is a book in Kansas that blows my mind oh thank you so much for letting me have a bit of a random Vlog for you this week and I will see you in next week's video [Music]

Channel: Dainty Diaries

Views: 32,381

Keywords: dainty diaries, Cottage Garden, Spring Cleanup, sowing seeds, annual flowers, beginner gardening, DIY garden, flower garden, growing flowers, anxiety, anxiety relief gardening, dainty diaries anxiety

Id: Rb-m2L__wus

Length: 34min 32sec (2072 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2024