Our minds are like mental gardens. Instead of watering and growing plants and flowers, we cultivate ourselves with time, energy, love, and other regenerative mental resources to function. If we spend time growing all these resources, only to give them away with no return of effort, we are left with an empty patch of dirt.

As someone who has experienced an imbalance in giving away my mental efforts too freely, this piece was an incredibly personal to me. It is a representation of me replenishing my mental garden, and thus putting my health first. The dark eyes in the back represent my tiring past of feeling spent and used, but I continue to water my slowly growing garden.

The idea of the mental garden is a reminder for all of us to seek others that offer empathy and love, which are to us like sunlight and water are to plants. We all deserve to surround ourselves with people that nourish our souls.