Holy House Plants, Batman!!!

Last week, in an attempt to preserve one of my finicky house plants, I took it to my office so that I might pay more attention to it, since technically, I spend more time during the week at my office than at home. During the time I spent nurturing my water hog of a plant back to perfect health, I start digging around and researching the health benefits of plants. 

And they’re pretty much superheroes. 

Turns out, if you don’t have plants (real, not plastic) in your office or your home, you should really consider adopting some, and here are some (10, like my favorite Doctor) reasons: 


1.  They purify the air.  Yes, you already knew this, but sometimes it’s more fun to play Captain Obvious. Athough I’d prefer quality time with Captain Tightpants.

Sorry Buddy!

2.  They create an optimistic environment. Sure enough, studies show that having plants and being surrounded by living things just makes you happier.

3. They decrease your chances of catching a cold. This is because they filter out all the dust in the air. No more Sneezing!!

4. They cause greater attentiveness. Somehow, plants tend to help people focus better and access the smarter parts of their brains. Perhaps, this is because plants instinctively remind us of being in the wild, where predators can jump out from behind the bushes, or house plants. Or, it could just be a rabbit. Either way, alertness and attentiveness is A - Game.

5. They prevent drowsiness. This amazing feat is accomplished by the ability of plants to decrease the amount of CO2 in the air, which coincidentally can cause drowsiness. The CO2, not the cleanliness of air...

6. They can help prevent allergies. Not 100% guaranteed, but exposing children to plants at an early age can reduce the probability of them being allergic to plants and pollens as the get older.

7. Plants help with headaches. A point that wasn’t intuitive for me, but research suggests that musty, stale air can help cause headaches. Plants filter the air, and decrease your chance of feeling like your head is going to explode (as is wont to happen for many telepaths).

8. Plants can help improve sleep. By increasing the amount of oxygen in the air, plants can actually aid your sleep quality. The more clean air and oxygen you have, the more likely you’re going to get better quality zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... Sorry, dozed off there.

9. Plants can help with dry skin. How do they do that? They increase the humidity in the air. Way to go plants.

10. Plants are sound filters. I never saw this coming, but it turns out that plants can act as filters for background noise. Want to drown out your neighbors? By some plants, there are at least 9 other potential benefits.

Amazing! But where I hit a snag when I want to buy plants, is I have no idea which plants I can keep indoors without killing, or rather which ones are the most common houseplants, and have a healthy chance of surviving. So by doing some more research I found this article and discovered the 10 (allons-y) common house plants below:

1. Aloe Plant - Good for your home, your office and your skin.

2. English Ivy 

3. Rubber Tree

4. Peace Lily - My experience with these plants is that they’re extreme water hogs, and will instantly droop without water and perk up within 15 minutes of receiving it. Peace, my eye!

5. Snake Plant - Which my family calls Mother-in-law’s tongue....

6.Bamboo palm - Comes with extra Luck.

7. Philodendron

8. Spider Plant - These are actually really cool because they grow baby plants on extended tendrils. If you remove the babies and place them in a pot, they’ll grow into another full sized plant. BE CAREFUL, THESE ARE LIKE TRIBBLES. And we all know the Trouble with Tribbles.

9. Red-Edged Dracaena

10. Golden Pothos - A plant that also does well outside in the right conditions. I’ve seen leaves of this plant (when planted outside) a size larger than elephant ears. Makes me wonder how powerful the plant is, or if someone buried a dead body beneath it....

But the next question, then, is how many plants is a good number? I would suggest not too many. Don’t go overboard like Bruce Wayne’s good friend, Dr. Pamela Isley:

However, if you want to get technical, it is suggested that a living/working space should have an 8 inch (or larger) potted plant for every 129 square feet.  This will help purify your air, as well as grant you some, if not all, of the benefits listed above.

And how committed am I in my belief in the holistic benefits of plants? I’d like to think more plants in my life couldn’t hurt. In fact, I just adopted a new one for my office:

No, this is not my office, it is a staging area for the plant's relocation to the office.
Yes, that is a hula hoop in the background.

I’m hoping the pointy leaves will keep out grouchy co-workers. Yet another added benefit of indoor plants.

Personal Pandoricas

I recently read a blog post by Paul Chek on Happiness, and a concept called Buddha’s cage. And while I can’t speak for everyone, Happiness is a pretty big thing for me, so Paul’s post got my attention, and after a day of pondering, I think I’d like to share.

 In his post Paul wrote something that really resonated with me:

“I’ve found that a huge amount of people’s inability to create sustainable happiness in their lives is because they allow themselves to be governed by other people’s opinions and expectations at the expense of their own.”

Captain Mal Reynolds

I’ve been a people-pleaser all of my life and it wasn’t until the last few years, that I recognized this and discovered that it could be extremely unhealthy. So when I read this statement, I thought: I know exactly how that goes, and unlike floral bonnets, it usually ain’t pretty.

Chek then went on to describe what he teaches to be a Buddha’s cage: limitations created from attaching our sense of personal happiness to mental, etheric, emotional or physical experiences or expectations. 

A Great way to remember these elements is by acronym: MEEP.
Which of course reminds me of Road Runner: Meep Meep.

As a result these limitations end up closing us in, not only creating a false sense of happiness, but also acting as a barrier to reaching true happiness, or reaching personal potential.  Paul Chek’s diagram of a Buddha’s cage looks like this:

My first thoughts and reactions to this picture took a while to develop, as my brain sifted and scanned through everything I know (or think) is true and ways to analyze and connect with the information presented to me, and find a sci-fi equivalent. My first “search result” in my brain was this:

A Pandorica. 

For you Whovians, this might give you an idea where I’m going. Everyone else, please bear with me: This image depicts more than just a box.

In the universe of Doctor Who, at one point, all of the Doctor’s foes form an alliance to create the ultimate prison for the most dangerous person in the universe. Or at least who they consider to be the most dangerous person in the universe: The Doctor. This prison, the Pandorica, is equipped with every type of barrier to keep the Doctor in: deadlocks, time stops, matter lines, and a restoration field to prevent escape by death. The Pandorica is indeed a comprehensive prison.

The Buddha’s cage Chek describes is actually very similar. The cage people tend to build around themselves is just as comprehensive including the mental, emotion, etheric and physical limitations (MEEP MEEP). But unlike the Pandorica, outside enemies are not the creators of such a prison, but in fact, the creator of our Buddha’s cage is none other than our greatest inner foe: ourselves. 

And it’s really easy to start building a Buddha’s Cage or what I like to call a Personal Pandorica. Most people, whether they know it or not, already have one, and some determined souls have found a way to break free. The types of limitations that create a cage on your happiness and personal growth can develop out of anything and everything from the perceptions and expectations of others (this can be anyone: family, friends, co-workers, professors, strangers), to your emotions and/or emotional ties to expectations of others (such as getting approval from those you admire), to physical limitations such as body-weight, self-perception, or past injuries; There are infinite sources of material to build bars or walls.

The Next Step: Escaping your Pandorica

As with most things, the first step is awareness, now that you’re aware of the limitations you have imposed, or have allowed others to impose on yourself, what do you do next?

In my personal experience, it takes time to break down these barriers, but as soon as you discover them, the demolition process can begin. It wasn’t until about a little over a year ago that I started to discover the limitations I had imposed on myself for most of my life. I’m now working towards breaking down 25 years of limitations and negative thoughts that hindered me in attaining happiness, moving forward and approaching life’s next big adventure. 

So how to plan your escape:

Scofield from Prison Break

Well first you get a full body tattoo of the prison you want to escape from since your brother Lincoln... Oh wait, sorry, wrong show...

In my personal opinion, the story line of the Pandorica, and the tale of Rory and Amy (The Pandorica and the Roman soldier) in Doctor Who is one of the greatest love stories ever. I also think that escaping Buddha’s Cages and Personal Pandoricas also requires the same element of love, but applied differently: self-love and a developed sense of self-worth. 

When we are young and we need others to make decisions for us, we rely on the perceptions and expectations of others to guide us to safety, and to the right choices. However, when one graduates from a child to an adult, there is also a need to graduate from relying on the opinions and expectations of others to, trusting oneself to make the decisions. As an adult, no one knows you and what’s going on in your life better than you, particularly in terms of what makes you happy. And many times others won’t be able to understand all of the challenges that you face. As a result, the expectations and opinions of others are not always going to align with what you think, like, want, or most importantly, need. This doesn’t mean you can’t still ask for advice or listen to the recommendations of others, but it does mean you can’t let others set the standards for your happiness. As soon as you let others decide what will determine what makes you happy, the door to your cage or Pandorica is as good as locked. Oops.

So next time you feel your happiness being threatened or being absent, ask yourself:  Is it because of what others think of you? Or what someone told you? Why does their opinion matter? How do you know they are telling the truth? If you think they are telling the truth, is it the absolute truth? Or just how they see it? What will their opinion matter six months from now? A year? 10 years? Are they setting the standards for your happiness? Why?

I find these types of questions to be extremely helpful. The biggest gray area I have is when professional opinions or advice is given. These professionals have experience and knowledge that I don’t, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean they know everything, especially about me. The most difficult area of my personal Pandorica to deconstruct is the limitations that come the expectations of family and close friends: I want them to be happy, but when I let them set the standards of my happiness, my life turns into a lab of gloom and doom where things go boom.

This kind of oxygen mask.

Someone once told me that surviving life is like surviving a plane crash: You must put on your own oxygen mask first before you can help others put theirs on.

Not this kind of Oxygen Mask.

This principle suggests that once you have your own oxygen mask on you will be able to help others, many more so than if you yourself were running out of oxygen in the process. Likewise, once figure out your own happiness, you can help others find theirs, many more so than if you yourself were unhappy.