Author Maria Failla joins Cheddar News to discuss releasing her first book, 'Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness (and Plants).'

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Maria Failla Talks Plant Care and Self-Care in New Book

welcome back everyone a new book is teaching you all about the importance of loving yourself while loving your plants grow, enjoy the plant lovers guide to cultivating happiness and plants is all about the power of plants and how they help you disconnect from the stresses of modern life. Earlier I sat down with Maria Failla, author of Growing Joy to talk all about the book and what inspired her to write it. This was so cool. Take a look. When I first got into plants. I was moving with my boyfriend, he's my husband now, so the plants didn't freak him out too much. I got plans because I wanted to nest and make our home look more beautiful. But what I ended up, what I realized was plans ended up being the most essential wellness tool for me and believe me, I've done every yoga retreat, I've read every self help book. Um and for some reason plants were really what unlocked a world of joy and wellness connection and calm that I never experienced. So I actually started a podcast first to help other millennials like me care for plants successfully and cultivate more joy in their life. I was a musical theater performer until the pandemic and in the pandemic, I lost my job and something upstairs, someone upstairs opened up this opportunity and the opportunity to write this book came out of nowhere and it's probably the coolest thing I've ever done. I'm so, so excited to share it with the world in your book, You write that you wrote this during the least joyful time of your life. Was there anything you learned about yourself that you were surprised by during this writing process? I'm a much hardier plant than I thought I was if we're looking at plant life parallels, you know? Um yeah, so for five years I had been doing these practices as kind of the icing on the cake of my life to live a joyful, more connected life, especially as like a super screen addicted millennial as I got my book deal, I lost my job, I was a pandemic bride. So I had to reschedule my wedding three times. I left the city. I moved in with my parents for six months and then moved to the country. So I went from 500 square feet to five acres, which is amazing, but also a lot, a huge transition. So I was going through a complete life 1 80 as I was writing this book in real time. And it was really interesting because on a surface level I knew that these practices, you know, looking at, look at a plan before you look at a screen, meditate with your plants keeping plants. I knew the joys that I know, you know, because you're a gardener, I knew they were real, but I think because I was kind of tested in this transition, I realized how incredibly important they are and how deep they can be, not only to add some joy to your life, but to help you cope with mental health issues and depression and all sorts of stuff that they helped me that they helped me cope with truly one of my most soothing joys in life is gardening and I was telling you it started with the pandemic, that's when I started to garden, but there's so many plant parents out there but they just may not fully understand how powerful plants can be, especially when it comes to mental health. Talk to me about that. You know, I think that social media and the internet has made it so easy for us to never take one moment to ourselves anymore. Right, we wake up with our phones, we go to sleep with our phones, our alarms are on our phones, we go to the bathroom with our phones now right, we have no time for ourselves and what I have found and I'm curious to know if this is what you have found my time in my garden. My time with my house plants actually became time with myself an agency over my thoughts. So in that time that you know I like to say before I cared for plants, I used to wake up with instagram in the morning with my coffee. Once I started caring for plants, I would take my coffee onto my little balcony and I'd sit with my herbs and in that space I started just having a deeper connection with myself, but also with nature because I think when you live in a city too, it's like you don't even notice the trees on the block, you know and then all of a sudden when you start caring for these plants and these little, you know tiny pots, the whole world opens up to you, which is pretty cool. Some people are a little nervous about what plants they should get. But you say something very interesting in your book that a person must identify their plant personality. Yes, definitely. This is very important in America. Okay, so I've talked to thousands of plant people now, I've been in this space helping people care for plants for a long time and I've noticed that there are very specific personality archetypes. Now I love personality tests. So I have, you know, I'm primed for this, but there's no good beginner starter plant, there's the right starter plant for the right plant parent personality if you travel a lot and you're never at home and I give you a fern that needs to be watered all the time and kind of needs a little bit more of a helicopter plant parent moment, you're gonna kill that plant. But if I give you a snake plant where you can water it once every two weeks, you know as you travel and it's a little harder, a little more forgiving, that's a perfect plant for you. So I think if you want to care for plants, I think a lot of people fail because they choose the wrong plants, they kill it. They they label themselves a plant killer. And then that's that um it's just about finding the plants that work for your personality so you can create sustainable, healthy routines around caring for them and not make them run your life. Because who wants to do that? We've got enough stress in our life. It's about having them help us and not hurt us. What's your opinion on this? I've always heard people should talk to their plans, saying to their plans. Do you agree, are their affirmations? Maybe that you tell your plans? I've got two pages of affirmations. Okay, so planting affirmation. So here's here's what I think. Okay, so it's easier. So I think it's hard for us to give ourselves praise. It's easier to talk. So, I think once you start caring for plants, it's easier to start talking to them, right? Yes, I do it all the time. Good morning. Like, how's it going? I say good morning, everyone when I do you know when I come water my garden in the morning, it's so much easier to say an affirmation to a plant. But what I kind of argue is start saying it to the plant, and then maybe just secretly start saying it to yourself. Get into that habit of affirming and using positive language and then ideally have it reflect back to you. And so in my book, I have two pages of affirmations a page of affirmations to say to your plants, and then basically the direct affirmation to say to yourself. So you might say, you know, my sunflowers, like, I think sunflowers bloom unapologetically, because they stand up so straight and they face the sun and they, like, soak it all up okay, but how can I bloom unapologetically when I'm here with you right now, you know, on tv like how can I step into that? Another? You know, um I don't know if you've ever had a monster or a plant, but when you have a monster relief or a plant that has a new leaf unfurling, getting to watch this leaf like unfurl and then expand just so much to stretch for the sun. What I've been saying, this whole journey of my book is courageously unfurl, Like courageously step into what I'm supposed to do. I actually started reading a little bit of that book. Such useful information. I have to get it for you, Maria fella, author of Growing Joy, the plant lover's Guide to cultivating happiness and plant