the secret is out

The Secret Garden

Yesterday I happened by accident to watch on TV the wonderful 1993 movie ‘The Secret Garden’ with Maggie Smith. I was delighted because, although a long time ago, this had been my favorite book as a child. Although the movie has slightly differed in a few ways from the book ,it was delightful to watch. I had always thought it was just a great book for children because it spoke about a beautiful, hidden, secret garden to which the children in the story could escape & find solace. Don’t we all look for that now in our crazy, busy lives?

Further flashes of insight happened for me this time, not just about myself as a child, but also about good relationships and their power of healing. In both the book & the movie, the children suffer in different ways & for different reasons from a lack of care and attention from their parents. These are our first relationships where we lay the foundation for our adult relationships. And in this story they find healing both emotional & physical through relationship with kind children and ultimately with each other and also by regenerating and playing in the garden along with the animals.

‘Martha, a Yorkshire girl working as a maid, and her brother Dickon, a boy who can talk to animals, befriend and help her to heal and grow. She discovers her deceased aunt’s secret garden, which has been locked for ten years and enlists Dickon to help her bring it to life.’

Some people may feel that psychological damage or lack of love from a parent can damage a child and therefore an adult irretrievably. In fact we often get dragged back to our ‘inner child’ in our adult life in emotionally difficult or challenging situations. The message in this story is that healing can come through forming relationships with others who are kind & know how to love. These of course could be anyone who is in contact with you as a child i.e. extended family, friends or teachers. In my own experience my maternal grandmother and later a teacher at high school extended their care & kindness to me. As a result of these two major relationships I feel that I was able to love and form relationships. I also learnt quite a lot of skills as an adult that have served in making relationships work more effectively.

As long as there is an experience of Love at some point in a child’s life then that is a basis for healing. In the natural world anything that we bestow with attention and nourishment thrives no matter what it has suffered previously. This is the subtle foundation of therapy, coaching and counseling relationships where we can reinvent ourselves in a positive frame through the care & attention that we receive in these professional relationships. The natural world also brings a sense of balance, equilibrium and redemption back to a damaged soul. The garden in this story is an image of the soul that appears dead and slowly comes back to life with care and attention and wisdom. Just by being in nature for a short period and becoming attuned to natural cycles and animals can bring a sense of connection that virtual reality misses.

The word secret comes from the Latin word secretus “set apart, withdrawn, hidden” and ‘The Secret Garden’ implies that we all need a place to retreat to within ourselves to recover and heal from life & challenges, whether that is a physical place or just time spent by oneself. Life happens and we sometimes need to repair the damage! Simple wisdom really and often missed in our complex virtual lives. Kindness and Love can change the color of our day and all those who we relate with.