Learning Life Lessons from My Fiddle Leaf Plant: The Need to Change Maladaptive Coping Behaviors for Healthier Relationships

I have been nursing my fiddle leaf for about three years now. Maintaining any plant this long is an incredible feat for me. I must say, I’m proud! I knew upon purchasing that it was a difficult plant to grow. However, I liked it and decided to give it a try. I successfully transplanted the plant when it was needed. I made sure to keep the plant in one location near the window, occasionally turning the plant when it bent towards the light. I wanted it to grow upright.

Fallen leaf from my plant again!

I later noticed that the more it grew, the more it leaned. I assumed the leaves were heavy. Without researching, probably the first mistake, I inserted a long stick. The fiddle leaf grew stronger. Again, it was a proud moment for me. Later, the leaves began to drop off. I blamed our dog and the men in my house, who often play rough with her. They would disagree with my definition of rough. No one admitted to hitting the plant when the second leaf dropped off. I moved it to my bedroom, certain that no “accidents” would happen again to my hard work with the fiddle leaf and one of my favorites.

A few days later, another leaf dropped! It was so upsetting that I observed the plant until it finally hit me. It was the stick and the thread I used to hold the fiddle leaf plant upright. The plant grew. As the plant grew, the thread didn’t move. The stick didn’t move. The growth caused the leaf to be cut off. What was once helpful to the plant became harmful. This is an analogy for maladaptation.

From Adaptive to Maladaptive

Learning that my fiddle leaf's growth was hindered by what once helped it.

The stick in the plant helped it cope with the stress of its leaves pulling it downward. The relationship between the stick, thread, and plant worked initially. But when the plant grew, the stick and thread became harmful to it. The stick became an ineffective stress management tool. What was adaptive became maladaptive. The ineffective strategy needed to be removed for successful growth. Interestingly, once the stick was removed, I realized the plant didn’t need it. The plant had become stronger.

Maladaptation is a condition in which biological traits or behavioral patterns are detrimental, counterproductive, or otherwise interfere with optimal functioning, such as successful interactions with the environment and effective coping with the challenges and stresses of daily life (American Psychological Association). Maladaptive behaviors result from learned behaviors in an environment.

Most often, a person learns to adapt to a particular environment to cope with its stresses. When a person moves to a different environment or relationship, the learned behaviors come with them. The person uses previous coping skills that worked for the previous environment or relationship. But those behavioral patterns don’t work in the new environment or relationship. The old pattern of behaviors that were once adaptive is now maladaptive.

Lesson from the Fiddle Leaf Plant

The plant's message is that when something goes wrong, assess your behaviors. Are you coping with life challenges or difficult relationships with old behavior patterns? Some examples of maladaptive behaviors include passive-aggressive behaviors. Passive-aggressive people often have a high rate of broken relationships and suffer from anxiety and depression. Passive-aggressive behaviors include, but are not limited to, silent treatment, never attempting to discuss the problem, dismissing another person’s feelings about a conflict, and resisting cooperation while pretending to want to cooperate.

People who use these coping skills often struggle to understand and practice assertiveness. They confuse aggression with assertiveness. It may have worked in certain situations, but later it caused others to distance themselves from the passive-aggressive person. If the person lacks interpersonal skills to repair relationships, then others seem to be the problem. To cope with this, the person practices emotional numbing, shutting down feelings to provide relief from stress and anxiety or rumination. Blaming others is also a maladaptive behavior used to self-soothe. Maladaptive coping skills are often so rooted that negative consequences cannot be seen. Often, we attempt the same ineffective problem-solving process. Recall that I moved the plant around but did not see the change until I recognized the root of the problem.

The removed stick revealed the root cause of the problem.

Change for Healthier Relationships and Growth

 Maladaptive coping skills interfere with a person’s ability to adjust or participate in certain settings. Maladaptive behaviors can include avoidance, anger, and substance use to cope with stressors.https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/maladaptive-behavior#types). To grow in all areas of life, we need to learn to adapt healthfully to different environments, situations, and people.

Use the articles linked to read more about maladaptive behaviors to learn how to identify those behaviors and cope with more adaptive ones.https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-meaning-of-maladaptive-3024600

A healthier fiddle leaf plant after the removal of the stick.

A recommended book is What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D with Oprah Winfrey.