Seeing Beyond: The Connection Between Nature and Self

Nature does nothing uselessly.

-Aristotle

I went to Beaver Creek Conservation Area for a walk last week. Only one tick! But many, many mosquitoes. While in their interpretive centre, I read about plant blindness. Plant blindness means missing all the plants on your trail. It is experienced when we are walking in nature. Yet completely missing the beauty and wonder of what is right in front of us. We miss the beauty of all the plants and flowers, even wildlife. Perhaps focusing on the end of the trail instead of the journey.

How is your “plant sight”? Today on the blog we will make connections with plant blindness. As it applies to nature. And taking it further to see how we can see ourselves in the plants that are being missed. Or misunderstood for what they have to offer. Are you one of those plants? I felt like one just last week.

First, as always, I invite you to join me on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are holding walks and making big plans! Don’t miss out. Follow my social media to stay up to date. I also have uplifting thoughts and quotes to share. Find all the links in my link tree.

Confessions of a Partial Plant Blindness Victim!

I have to admit, I have partial plant blindness. I miss things that are right in front of me. Until they are pointed out. I have a friend who has 20/20 plant sight. She sees it all. She says she has been raised that way. She is teaching me how to see what is right in front of me. And to appreciate it. We are loving our plant identification app Seek. It keeps track of the plants we have seen. And can provide more information on them too.

When I see the plants. And I have used my app to identify them. I know them better. I see those plants everywhere once I have taken the time to slow down and develop a connection. I would like to apply this process to seeing, identifying, knowing and connecting with each other. As fellow humans.

Humans in Their Natural Habitat

We all need to feel seen. I speak of my life experience since that is what I know. In chronic illness being seen is wonderful. To feel noticed is to feel embraced. To know that someone can identify what I am experiencing is even more calming. I don’t have to explain everything to them. They already know. Often this comes from having similar experiences. My chronic comrades understand me. They can identify when I am struggling. And when I am in more pain than usual. We come to know one another. This connection is life-giving. And life-altering. I love my chronic comrades.

We see in one another the common strains. That the healthy might not see or comprehend. The shame in trying to fix it and only getting worse. The getting worse while others have a health crisis then get better and carry on with their lives. The constant getting behind in housework and self care. The financial strain and feeling beholden to others. Having felt burned in the past by those who were supposed to help. Feeling blamed for circumstances not within my control. Lack of resources and information for our conditions. Not knowing if there will be a pain I cannot treat or handle. Feeling abandoned while society carries on. Being over reactive due to our strained nerves. The loss. The mental and emotional exhaustion. Feeling missed and misunderstood.

I love those who seek to understand our world. Last week I experienced a moment where I felt unseen by someone trying to help. In that moment, I felt the gulf between us, where I hoped to have sensed connection.

So Here’s The Low-Down…

A four-year degree has not fit in my life. As such, I am limited on what I can offer the world. I highly regard those who go back to school at any time, especially those in my age group. And I highly regard getting an education.

In the past I have spoken of going back to school wistfully. And been bombarded with counter arguments of why I should just go and do it. This happened again last week. There seems to be a movement of well-wishers and dream-pushers. “You can do it!” “Just try!” “Believe in yourself” “It’s never too late”. “Spread your wings and fly!” But some of us were not meant to fly.

The Irony of Explaining Things: A Guide to Not Being Understood

People with chronic conditions will always be capable of accomplishing anything and everything. But where we choose to place our energy HAS to be the right thing. We have to be picky. And our experience is still valid and monumental, despite the lack of paycheck that would suggest otherwise 😉.

I have not found the right words to explain to the masses, my level of brain function. It dangerously closely resembles getting older and being tired. So many of us live there!

It seems a ridiculous thing to defend. But my brain function is worse than your brain function. Years of pain and stress and overload have maxed my brain’s capacity. Now, the best it can do, is not great. And I’ve come to terms with it. When a well-meaning individual tries to persuade me otherwise. That I just need to start using it again and it will be fine. The gulf seems wider between me and the rest of humanity.

They were correct in assuming I am capable of going back to school. I would pass the classes and get all the credits. But what I’d lose in the process has to be taken into consideration.

Your garden isn’t thriving because every time a flower blooms you cut it to prove to someone else that you’re a gardener. Focus, please.

-Unknown

Maneuvering the Costs and Stresses of Chronic Illness

My life is a constant cost: benefit ratio analysis. I have done the math. School is not in the cards. Let me be wistful and let it go. Trust that I know what I can handle. Trust that it is different from what a typical body can handle. Mine does not handle stress well. Putting it through four years of stressful situations would be a terrible idea!

All of us chronic comrades have been through years of our own scholarship program. Like me, maybe you have no degrees. No fancy letters after your name. But we have learned. We have gained. We have built and then rebuilt. We have understanding no school can ever teach. And we have much to offer the world in our various capacities.

Like a wildflower; she spent her days, allowing herself to grow, not many knew of her struggle, but eventually all; knew of her light.

-Nikki Rowe

A Quirky Academy for the Chronically Challenged

We are not on the same plane as the rest of humanity. We have our own training and instructors. And we do not need to force our bodies to a pace and strain they cannot handle. To prove we are the same. We are not. And the good news is, we are not supposed to be.

I know my body. My pain requires time and energy. Time for nature and grounding. Energy to rest and digest. I push myself to my own limits. In my own time frame. Within peace. I need time for therapies. Even a micro dose of therapies. E.g, Forest therapy!

Art therapy!

This is how I survive my high pain days. I could choose to put it all aside for a time and focus on a formal education. It would take days, not weeks, for my body to start shutting down. As it took on more pain and stimuli than usual. It has done this before.

All I need to do is participate in life for more than a day or two in a row. My body will throb. I will feel like I have been hit by, then dragged behind a truck. Not from getting sick but from engaging in too much life. I won’t have to talk about the toll it’s taking. There will be signs 👇🏼 .

The C Factor: Six Key Traits

Instead I would like to center my life and focus on where I have been and what I have gained. In these six characteristics for example:

• Compassion– I am learning compassion for myself and others. When my life looks different from others’. I take time to feel my sadness and frustration. Then I move forward trusting in my own intuition.
• Curiosity– I know that when I get angry, there is another option, I can get curious. When a car cuts me off in traffic. I can be curious as to why they did that instead of zipping around him indignantly. Perhaps he was distracted by a child in the back seat.
• Calm– This word was not in my vocabulary as a working mom in constant pain. I would laugh and think there was no time or space to be calm. I see now that everyone needs time and space for their nervous system to be calm. A time where despite what is happening around you, peace exists. Now I know the word and the feeling.
• Clarity– I am cultivating a sense of clarity. This comes with practice. And trusting my intuition to guide me to what is right for me, even when that looks vastly different from the lives of others around me.
• Courage– Now I know. Courage looks different for everyone. Courage to face another day. Courage to keep fighting. Courage to go back to school. Courage to not go back to school. Courage to stand in what I know.
• And Creative!- I placed little importance on creativity after my elementary years. Such a waste of time, my brain told me. Who needs it? Boy, was I wrong!

Meliorism (noun)- the belief that we can contribute to positive change and improve the world through acts of love, creativity, compassion, and kindness.

livefreelaurad

The Two Hemispheres: Battling Personas?

We all know the brain has two hemispheres.

The left is about productivity. Control. Fear. Our society thrives on living in our left hemisphere. And (somewhat) rightly so! Our society is built on people accomplishing and achieving. We benefit from their ideas and efforts.

On the other side we have the right hemisphere. Its focus is about enjoyment. Meaning. Purpose. Delight and creation. Our society’s less sought-after focal points.

Here’s something I find fascinating about the two hemispheres.

The left hemisphere has a quality where it does not realize that anything but itself exists. That its own world view is the only thing in existence. Do you know that guy? We are all that guy. The left brain is that guy who thinks he knows everything.

The right hemisphere, on the other hand, does not have this quality. It knows the left hemisphere is doing things that are different and it watches with amused tolerance. I also know these people.

Who would you rather spend all your time with between these personas, represented by the two hemispheres? You don’t have to choose between the two hemispheres. You just need to find your correct balance.

Progress with Purpose

At no day, no hour, no time are you required to do more than you can do in peace.

-Melody Beattie

I love this quote. It rests in my bones and resonates with truth. School would require more than I could do in peace. Through this experience I felt misunderstood and I wanted so much to convince the other party that I was right. I needed a step back to see where the hurt was hiding. And how to manage a confrontation like that in the future.

I tell you all this in hope that some of you can relate. Maybe not exactly the same way. But we have all felt missed and misunderstood. Have you been tempted to base your life on what people think you should do?

So many people are living a life that’s not right for them and using substances or stimuli of other kinds to numb their feelings or to pull themselves up to a sense of okayness.

-Martha Beck

Martha Beck is Oprah’s life coach. She says when you are living a life that is not yours. It’s like standing on a nail and taking opium to make yourself not feel the nail. But the cure is not taking the drugs. The cure is taking the nail out of your foot.

See. Identify. Know. Connect. With others. Listen to and trust the assessment that others give to their own life. Focus on your therapies you know you need. And traits like the six key traits. Beware the battle of the brain hemispheres. You are only required to do what you can do in peace. If you are living a life that is not yours, take the nail out. And step in the right direction.

As we Canadians prepare to go to the lake for the long weekend. I leave you with these words of how you can be more like water.

Be Like Water

• You can go with the flow of others or find your own current to take you where you want to go
• Make new paths. By the power of steady single drops of water new pathways can be made through any terrain.
• Let go. Sometimes we just need to let the rain pour. The tears flow. The old to be washed away.
• Sparkle. Be you and shine. Don’t imitate the sparkle of others, you have your own.
• Be still. Take time to be still. To see what’s under the surface. To allow for change.
• Reflect. In those moments of stillness, reflect. On your good life. On the good you have to offer. On the wild and exciting ride ahead.

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time…partakes of the perfection of the whole.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson