For Fran Sorin, “creativity is not something we do—it is something we embody.”

And the best way to learn how to live creatively is by shaking off fears, indecision and perfectionism, and risk stepping into your garden and nature.

My mission is to show new and experienced gardeners alike how they can use their gardens—be they rolling, manicured lawns or tiny, blank plots of land—as tools for their creative awakening.

Here are 5 lessons about living creatively that Sorin says your garden can teach you:

1. Play: “Play in the dirt, play with ideas, play with new projects, play with possibilities.”
2. Take risks and make mistakes: “By making mistakes I came to understand—and I mean really understand—that if I’m not making mistakes, then I’m not taking risks in the garden, and in life.”
3. Cultivate patience: “Gardening is the quintessential lesson in patience. We learn that we have no choice but to wait for plants to grow in their own sweet time, no matter how much we try to hurry them along.”
4. Trust: “I started to trust the process of life more—both in my plants and in myself.”
5. Give up control: “Perhaps the biggest lesson that gardening taught me was that I, Fran Sorin, or we, human beings, are not in charge. Much as we like to think we control everything, we don’t. There’s a force much greater than us. Nature, God, call it what you will, but it’s there.”

Ultimately, Sorin says, “we need the tools of gardening and connecting with nature to ground us in a healthy reality—one where we feel alive, open, grateful, and with the ability to focus on the stuff that truly matters.” And, she explains, we need this now more than ever—

We’re presently living through tumultuous and unsettling times, and often we feel disconnected, lost, and scared. It’s through connecting with our most authentic self and nature that we develop the tools to create our own deeply meaningful reality.

For non-gardeners, even if you choose not to get your hands in the dirt right now, you can benefit from spending time outside surrounded by green. Whether you take a walk or sit in a park, be silent and be present. Observe and breathe in nature.

Sorin, Fran (2014) Digging deep: Unearthing your creative roots through gardening. Tenth anniversary edition. Philadelphia: Braided Worlds.