That, perhaps, is the difference between a crisis and a chrysalis. One keeps us frozen in fear. The other slowly reshapes us.
Technically, I’m not even fully in my midlife years yet.
And yet my body arrived early to the party.
A complete hysterectomy fast-tracked me into conversations I thought I still had years to prepare for.
Ironically, some circles don’t allow me in to the conversation because I’m “far too young” to know what menopause is.
It seems my reproductive system retired before society was emotionally prepared to handle it. Medically, I pass the test but I always get ID’d at the door.
I was medically launched into menopause with all the glamorous perks.
Hot flashes. Joint pain. An increasingly fragile relationship with sleep. And the deeply humbling realization that apparently your underarms and mid range can become flabby despite hours of working out at the gym.
(Nothing prepares you for sneezing incorrectly in your 40s.)
My body has adopted the classic expired warranty strategy, catastrophic synchronized failure. I’ve entered the ‘everything squeaks, leaks, or spasms unexpectedly’ chapter of ownership. My body has moved beyond ‘minor repairs’ and into ‘have you considered replacing the whole unit?’ territory.
Which is why a phrase I recently heard on the podcast Hello Menopause! grabbed my attention.
“Midlife chrysalis.”
Not midlife crisis. Midlife chrysalis.
The episode featured Chip Conley talking about reinvention, and I chose to listen to this episode because crisis sounds like collapse. Losing control. Becoming less.
Like panic bangs and plans to live “off-grid” and taking up emotional support hobbies. Sourdough starter anyone?
But chrysalis?
That sounds like transformation.
Messy. Strange. Hidden. Uncomfortable. Necessary.
A chrysalis says. You are not falling apart. You are simply changing form.
I think many of us who have experienced chronic illness, disability, grief, loss, burnout, etc. arrive at this transformation long before the culture expects us to.
Some of us are forced into reinvention before we even finish becoming who we thought we would be.
The Crisis
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.
Sometimes crayon. When I need a little more whimsy in my days.
There were years where survival became the main objective. Years where my nervous system felt like a shaken vending machine full of stress hormones. Years where I thought resilience meant pushing harder instead of listening deeper.
And then came the hysterectomy.
One of those dividing-line experiences where life becomes Before and After.
Before, I still secretly believed if I tried hard enough I might someday return to the old version of myself.
After, I slowly began realizing there may not be a way back. Emotional landslides and experiential cave-ins had blocked that passage way.
Forward and through became my only options. Through self-realizations. Humbling concessions. Constant negotiations between mind and body.
And maybe that is where the chrysalis begins.
The Chrysalis
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
A chrysalis does not look impressive from the outside.
It looks still. Inactive. Even broken down.
But inside? An extraordinary reorganization is happening.
And I think that’s what midlife (or medically-induced midlife-adjacent existentialism) can become.
Not a crisis to survive. But a transformation to participate in. Whole-heartedly.
Chip Conley talked about how the first half of life is often about accumulation.
We gather. Relationships. Responsibilities. Possessions. Roles. Expectations. Obligations. Dreams that once fit.
And eventually we become emotionally overstuffed.
He described midlife as “a great midlife edit.”
As I listened I considered the fact that chronic illness forces the edit whether you volunteer readily or not.
You simply cannot carry everything forever when your body already feels like it’s carrying a weighted backpack full of loose cutlery.
At some point you must ask important questions.
What still fits?
What actually matters?
What has become lukewarm in my life?
Do you know what a lukewarm life looks like? One of the lines from the podcast,
Pouring out part of your tea allows you to pour some hot new tea into the cup.
Because some things are not meant to last forever. Not every friendship. Not every role. Not every expectation you once had for yourself.
And maybe releasing those things is not failure. Maybe it’s pruning.
The forest understands this better than we do.
The Forest
One of the reasons forest therapy has become so meaningful to me is because the forest never panics about transformation.
Forest therapy has taught me that stillness is not the same thing as stagnation. Sometimes what appears dormant is actually becoming. I wrote more about that in this post, Nourish Your Nervous System: Forest Therapy Insights
Deadfall becomes nourishment. Burned places grow new life. Trees release entire branches to survive harsh seasons. These changes that seem negative are essential to a healthy forest.
Humans also require those experiences that appear negative and are actually essential for a healthy life.
In the forest, decay and renewal, soft and hard, smooth and sharp are all happening simultaneously.
And honestly, that feels like midlife too.
Especially for those of us living in bodies that have known pain.
We have experienced days where tears of pain rolled down the left cheek while tears of joy rolled down the right.
We know how to hold grief and gratitude at the same time.
That depth changes a person.
We know what it is to laugh in waiting rooms. To find beauty in tiny victories. To feel gratitude and grief sharing the same chair.
I have learned that emotional pain cannot simply be numbed away the same way physical pain can. There is no ibuprofen for identity loss. No heating pad for disappointment. No prescription for becoming someone new.
And while suffering itself is not noble, I do think deep experiences deepen people.
My chronic comrades know this.
Pain can also make people bitter, stuck, isolated, hardened.
That, perhaps, is the difference between a crisis and a chrysalis. One keeps us frozen in fear. The other slowly reshapes us.
If we allow ourselves to learn from it. We can become more compassionate. Tender. Wise. Present. Better able to sit beside someone else’s suffering without looking away.
As they said in the podcast,
Our painful life lessons are the raw material for our future wisdom.
I believe that in my soul.
The Offering
Sometimes our culture subtly teaches that the people worth listening to are the successful ones. The polished ones. The credentialed ones. The endlessly productive ones
What can we do about this imbalance? If you ever deem somebody less than you… ask yourself what they can teach you.
Because some of the wisest people I know have had their lives interrupted.
Some had to abandon dreams they loved. Some never got the education they were capable of and deserved. Some are rebuilding lives with parts and pieces they never would have chosen.
And still. They carry wisdom.
Do not think less of yourself because your life required adaptation. You are not behind because your path bent unexpectedly.
Some of us have earned emotional depth the hard way.
And if you cannot live the exact life you once pictured?
Find something to run toward anyway.
Even if your pace looks different now. Even if you have to limp toward it some days. Even if your dream has changed shape entirely.
A chrysalis does not become what it originally was.
That is the whole point!
A Forest Therapy Invitation: Chrysalis Walk
The next time you’re in a forest, park, or tree-lined path, try this:
Walk slowly and notice signs of transition.
What is decomposing?
What is emerging?
What is shedding?
What is adapting?
What still carries beauty despite visible damage?
Then ask yourself:
What version of myself am I grieving?
What no longer fits?
What wants to emerge now?
What if this season is transformation instead of failure?
You do not need immediate answers.
The forest is always becoming new. Slowly. Over time.
The Question
One question from the podcast we can all ask ourselves,
Ten years from now, what will I regret if I don’t learn or do now?
Conley called anticipated regret a form of wisdom. Chronic illness teaches you that later is not guaranteed. Perfect timing is imaginary. And someday can become never surprisingly fast.
So maybe this chapter is not about trying to reclaim who we once were.
Maybe it is about becoming more fully ourselves.
Hot flashes. Heating pads. Existential growth. And all.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
Back in my day, some kids brought hockey cards and sticker collections to school. I brought an alarming range of ligament-based entertainment.
Sometimes hypermobility first appears as a child who seems unusually bendy or clumsy, often both at once. 🙋♀️
The child who sits in a W position on the floor because it feels natural. The one who, without pausing to question it, contorts themselves into strange positions during movie night.
What they may not see is the child constantly running into walls because their body struggles to map itself properly in space. Bruises appearing mysteriously across shins. Ankles rolling on flat ground. Sleeves chewed because pain and overstimulation are difficult to explain at seven years old.
And then there are the “growing pains.”
Except many children with connective tissue disorders experience pain far beyond the occasional ache adults remember from childhood.
Deep bone pain at night. Legs throbbing so intensely sleep becomes impossible. Crying after gym class. Exhaustion after seemingly normal activities.
Many hypermobile children become experts at masking early. They laugh while joints slip. They keep playing while hurting because they assume everyone else feels this too.
Some become the “dramatic” child. Others become the “tough” one.
Honestly, I was the child trying to survive in a body I did not yet have language for.
What am I even doing bending my neck like that?
The thumb that bends too far backward. The knees that point in unusual directions. The shoulder that clicks when slipping in and out. Being crazy talented in a yoga class my first day.
What people don’t see is that connective tissue is not merely a few loose ligaments behaving badly.
Connective tissue is infrastructure.
It is the architecture holding the body together. The webbing woven through blood vessels, skin, organs, fascia, tendons, heart valves, lungs, digestive systems, pelvic floor, eyes, nerves, and joints. It is scaffolding. Suspension bridge. Packaging tape. Elastic waistband. Shock absorber.
And when connective tissue is faulty, life can begin to feel like living in a house where every screw has loosened itself by half a turn.
Not enough to collapse all at once. Enough that everything creaks. And left unchecked, more and more areas become unstable, then require constant repairs. Eventually some rooms just become unusable.
A Sad Commentary: AKAMy Brush with Organized Sports
My joints approached organized sports with more enthusiasm than stability. More optimism than skill.
In a small town, everybody played volleyball or there simply wasn’t a volleyball team.
So I played volleyball.
I hated it.
Looking back now, I wonder why I stayed in as long as I did. Every practice left my forearms covered in bruises. Big ones, tiny ones, overlapping ones. I looked part Dalmatian. Nobody else seemed to bruise like that, so naturally the conclusion was that I was doing it wrong.
Turns out my connective tissue was doing it wrong. Not me.
I was terrible at volleyball. Not for lack of trying, either. I could picture exactly what my body was supposed to do, but the execution never matched the image in my head. It always felt like there was a lag between my brain and my limbs, like someone had replaced my coordination with an unreliable Wi-Fi signal.
The only part of volleyball practice I excelled at was stretching.
That should maybe have been a clue.
I could also run forever, but the muscle fatigue before, during, and after was brutal. My legs and ribs constantly felt tight and overworked, like my muscles were trying to compensate for a body that refused to stabilize itself properly.
The solution offered to me was always the same: “Practice more.” “You just need to focus, Pam.” “Try harder.” “Don’t give up so easily all the time.”
My P.E. teacher, who was also my coach, and I were not exactly compatible personalities. I suspect I ranked fairly high on his “lazy kid” list. My feelings toward him and his teaching style don’t need to be discussed for the purpose of this post. Perhaps he was doing the best he knew how 🤷♀️.
What hurt most was that I wasn’t used to being bad at things.
I excelled in music. Dance. Academics. If I tried something, I usually became good at it eventually. But anything involving proprioception. Balance, coordination, spatial awareness, reaction time, exposed a kind of weakness I couldn’t outwork.
No matter how hard I tried, my body never responded the way everyone else’s seemed to. I felt like I was being asked to build a stable life with elastic bands where other people were given rope.
After enough years of that experience, something in me quietly stopped trying.
Not everywhere. Just there.
I realized I could put in enormous effort and still end up with roughly the same P.E. grade as the kid half-heartedly wandering laps around the gym. So eventually, I became that kid instead. The one at the back of the class who didn’t seem invested. The one teachers assumed didn’t care whether they passed.
Stemming from humiliation in trying my hardest while looking like a fool and as though I wasn’t trying at all.
It’s an incredibly discouraging place for a young person to live.
Some kids are exhausted. Discouraged. In pain. Disconnected from bodies that refuse to cooperate. In retrospect, my body had all the stability of a shopping cart with one bad wheel.
The whole point of physical education is supposedly to encourage lifelong movement and confidence in your body.
Ironically, I now walk everywhere, go to the gym regularly, and deeply value movement. I suspect that may not be the case for those classmates that achieved gold stars for gym class back in the day.
Children are often graded on visible performance without anyone asking what invisible barriers may exist underneath it. 🍌 🍌 🍌
And maybe that experience is part of why I later felt drawn toward educational support work. Because I remember exactly what it feels like to be misunderstood in a classroom. To be trying harder than anyone realizes while appearing like you are trying the least.
Some kids are not lazy.
Sometimes what looks like apathy is actually years of silent defeat.
So MuchMore Than Loose Joints
My body has taught me that fragility and resilience are not opposites. Sometimes they exist in the very same tissue.
People often imagine connective tissue disorders as orthopedic inconveniences.
A sore knee. An ankle sprain. Being exceptionally bendy.
Playing twister with my now-26-year-old. Not to brag, but I was very good.
But connective tissue does not politely stay in one department.
It influences how blood vessels constrict and relax. Why standing up can feel like gravity suddenly doubled. Why heart rates race while brushing teeth. Why exhaustion arrives not after effort, but before and during it.
It influences the skin. Fragile, stretchy, slow to heal, easily bruised.
It influences digestion. Because the digestive tract also depends on connective tissue and smooth coordination. Meals become negotiations instead of nourishment.
It influences breathing. Because the rib cage, diaphragm, and tiny structures supporting the lungs are all part of the same interconnected story.
It influences pain. Not only through injuries, but through a nervous system constantly adapting to instability. Muscles tighten to compensate. Fascia braces. The body learns vigilance.
Even sleep can become difficult when the body spends the entire night trying to hold itself together. Some people wake up refreshed. My body wakes up looking like I’ve been assembled with spare parts in low lighting. Like sleep happened near me but not directly to me.
There is loneliness in illness that hides in plain sight.
You may look healthy while internally calculating:
Can my hips handle this chair? Will my spine tolerate the drive? How long before the fatigue crashes in? Is today the day I sustain an injury that sets me back a year?
People see the smile at the gatherings. They do not see the cost afterward.
The Forest Never Demands Symmetry
One of the reasons forest therapy can feel so healing for those with any type of disorders is because the forest does not care about perfection.
Trees twist toward light. Branches split and regrow. Moss softens fallen things instead of condemning them.
In the forest, support is collaborative.
Roots intertwine underground. Fungi trade nutrients between struggling trees. Fallen logs become nourishment for future life. Nothing survives entirely alone.
For people living in bodies that require adaptation, slowness, pacing, and care, the forest offers a radically compassionate model of existence.
Nature does not measure worth.
Walking Practice: “Borrowing Stability”
This forest therapy practice can be done slowly while walking a trail, sidewalk, park path, or even your backyard.
As you walk, notice what in the landscape appears stable.
Perhaps it is:
the rootedness of a tree
the reliability of stone
the rhythm of wind
the resolution of moss growing over rough surfaces
Without forcing positivity, simply observe.
Now begin walking more slowly.
As each foot touches the ground, imagine you are borrowing steadiness from the earth beneath you.
Not fixing yourself. Not overcoming your body. Borrowing support.
You may silently repeat:
Supported. Held. Connected.
If your body hurts while walking, let the practice include that truth instead of resisting it.
Forest therapy is not about pretending discomfort away. It is about allowing yourself to belong exactly as you are.
Pause occasionally and place a hand on a tree trunk, railing, stone wall, or your own chest.
Notice:
What supports you physically?
What supports you emotionally?
What support have you been refusing because you are used to surviving alone?
Continue walking without rushing toward insight.
Sometimes healing begins the moment we stop arguing with our pace.
The Grief No One Talks About
There is grief in becoming intimate with limitation.
Grief when your mind has cheques your connective tissue cannot cash.
Grief when symptoms multiply like unwanted groupies: fatigue, dysautonomia, chronic pain, migraines, digestive problems, instability, inflammation, sensory overwhelm.
Many connective tissue disorders do not travel alone. They tend to arrive in flocks.
Not the polished beauty of wellness culture that insists healing should look photogenic and triumphant. Complete. Universal.
But a quieter beauty.
The beauty of learning to listen deeply to others. The beauty of noticing small joys because large ones became inaccessible. The beauty of becoming tender toward bodies. Your own and others’. The beauty of discovering that a meaningful life was never dependent on being free from pain.
I spent years believing my body’s limitations were character flaws. Turns out that limiting belief was false. Those limitations have helped me become the person I am.
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
Research continues to show time in forests can help regulate the nervous system, reduce stress hormones, lower heart rate, and support emotional well-being. But for those living with connective tissue disorders, the benefits often go deeper than measurable metrics.
Forest therapy gives permission to:
move slowly
rest without guilt
reconnect with sensory pleasure
soften hypervigilance
leave productivity behind temporarily
remember you are more than symptoms
When the nervous system lives in a constant state of adaptation, gentle sensory experiences matter.
The sound of leaves moving overhead. The coolness of shade on inflamed skin. Birdsong interrupting anxious thoughts. The visual softness of green.
None of these cure a connective tissue disorder.
But they can create moments where the body feels less at war with itself.
And moments matter.
Especially when stitched together over time.
A Beautiful Life Can Still Grow Here
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. — Mary Oliver
Living with a connective tissue disorder may mean your life unfolds differently than expected.
More pauses. More recalculating. More adaptation.
But different is not lesser.
Some of the most compassionate people are those whose bodies taught them interdependence.
Some of the most observant souls are those forced to slow down enough to notice life carefully.
The forest reminds us that resilience is not hardness.
Resilience is flexibility. Relationship. Return.
And perhaps that is fitting for people made of connective tissue. Those who understand, more than most, that life is ultimately about connection.
Not perfect strength. Not endless endurance.
Connection.
To the earth. To one another. To moments of beauty that still arrive, even here.
Ever notice how the word rich instantly makes people picture a yacht, a corner office, or at least a pantry where I have everything I need from chocolate to chia seeds?
Meanwhile, some of us are over here feeling wealthy because we found a position that doesn’t make our back yell at us.
Welcome to redefining abundance.
When you live with chronic issues, the cultural picture of “the good life” can feel like a club you don’t get invited to. My body has very strong opinions. And she will not yield. And yet, many people walking this road discover a strange, stubborn truth.
Richness is not a circumstance.
It’s a way of seeing.
Better Than Happy host Jody Moore distinguishes between two kinds of discomfort. One is fueled by resistance and the belief that life should be different. The other is accompanied by gratitude and a desire to create meaning from what is here.
In the latter, action becomes possible. In the former, people often remain stuck.
For those with chronic pain, discomfort is not optional. The choice lies in how we relate to it.
Gratitude does not deny suffering. It widens the field of attention so that suffering is not the only occupant.
There is the ache that says,
“Why me? This ruined everything.”
And there is the ache that whispers,
“Given that this is here, what life can I still grow?”
The first freezes us in place.
The second opens a path.
A rich life might include money. It might include health. It might include work you love or a family that grows together. Or it might be something far less Instagrammable and far more sustaining. Presence, meaning, connection, small mercies, deep seeing.
Gratitude has a way of turning what is here into enough, and from that soil, more becomes possible.
Not because your nerves suddenly behave.
But because your mind has room again.
As Meister Eckhart wrote,
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
Gratitude is not pretending pain is lovely.
It is noticing pain is not the only thing present.
Nature’s Secret Calculus
In the woods, a tree with a twist in its trunk is not considered a failure.
It is considered interesting. Strong. Adapted.
No straight lines required.
Chronic pain can feel like the bend you never asked for. But bends create habitats. They slow us down enough to notice moss, breath, companionship, the sacred ordinariness of being alive.
What if the detour is also the destination?
Chronicles of My Journey
Some days my life feels like a series of unfortunate events. Many of those events are inconsequential to the general population. But to my loose joints they are devastating.
Last August I was enjoying a beach day with friends. Enjoying isn’t a strong enough word. These are the days I live for.
In my rush to support my mom getting off the boat, I slipped. My leg hit twice. On the back of the boat. Then scraped down the ladder.
The pain sent me into waves of nausea. Darkness of passing out kept threatening. I refused to surrender because that seemed embarrassing in the moment.
I was rushed off the beach as my leg swelled into two big lumps. Once I got it raised, it started to stabilize and my senses returned. In the end we decided to wrap it and I got to stay at the beach. But my summer was over.
More devastating was what it did to my gym workouts. I try to get to the gym a few days a week to keep my muscles strong enough to hold me together.
I was finally to a place where I could hold most major joints in for a week or more. This incident set me back months.
The bruise went through the ankle bone and wrapped almost completely around my shin. My tan is hiding most of the damage.
I am pleased to say I am finally back to a place where I can run almost the distance and pace I had before the damage to my leg. But it took all of those 6 months. The rest of my body has yet to catch up.
These setbacks are frequent and challenging. But I am learning there is peace and hope available on all days. No matter what is happening or not happening. And the sunshine will return.
Finding Wealth in the Woods: A Forest Therapy Practice
Go somewhere with trees or sky.
Let your pace match what your body can honestly do today.
Arrive. Feel your feet. Or your walker. Or the place you are sitting. Let the earth hold some of your weight.
Notice three forms of wealth already present. Warmth on your face. Air entering lungs. A sound that is gentle.
Place a hand on your heart or thigh and ask, “Givenmylimits, what is still possible for me?” Don’t demand a big answer. Let something small come. A phone call. A rest. A moment of beauty.
Say, quietly, thank you.
That’s it. Tiny riches count. And this practice opens doors for more riches to enter your presence.
Navigating the Path Ahead: A Thoughtful Analogy
Imagine inheriting land you didn’t choose. Some of it is rocky. Some days it floods. You can spend years arguing with the map… or you can learn what grows there.
Blueberries love poor soil.
Certain pines only open after fire.
Some of the most resilient beauty requires harsh beginnings.
As Rainer Maria Rilke advised:
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Where Forest Therapy Carries Us
At the outset, when life no longer looks like it did, when identity is disrupted, the forest helps us find where we fit now. Not who we were. Not who others are. Who we are today.
In the middle, when the physical and mental anguish feels loud, nature gives our nervous system something steady to lean on. Wind continues. Chickadees continue. Light continues. We borrow their rhythm.
And at the end, or at least with distance, we often see that pain brought unexpected inheritances. Tenderness, clarity, reprioritized love, a fierce ability to notice what matters.
A different kind of fortune.
You may never get the yacht.
But you might receive awe. Intimacy. Meaning.
Moments of real rest inside the storm.
That is wealth no market can crash.
And forest therapy walks with you through the whole thing 🌲
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
As a forest therapy guide, I spend a lot of time listening. Not just to birds and wind, but to the quiet wisdom that surfaces when life slows down. Recently, while listening to the Follow Him podcast with guest Dr. John Hilton III, I was struck by how clearly their insights mirrored what I see every day in nature-based healing.
The Silent Saboteur of Greatness: Settling for “Good Enough”
Dr. Hilton shared a story Warren Buffett once told about his pilot, Mike Flint. Buffett asked Flint to list his 25 most important goals, then circle the top five. Flint assumed the remaining 20 would simply be addressed later, as time allowed.
But Buffett surprised him.
Those other 20 goals, he said, were not “later” goals. They were avoid-at-all-costs goals. Why? Because what most often pulls us away from our very best work isn’t something bad. It’s something good. Interesting. Worthy. Pretty good.
And that’s the danger. Pretty good competes quietly. It distracts us without alarming us. It drains time and energy while convincing us we’re still doing something valuable.
Choosing Wisely: Balancing Big and Small in a Limited Jar
You’ve probably heard the “big rocks” analogy: if you put the big rocks in the jar first, then the small rocks, then the sand, everything fits. It’s a powerful visual reminder to prioritize what matters most. In a day. In a year. In a life.
But Dr. Hilton pointed out something that often gets overlooked. In real life, no one measures out the rocks and dirt ahead of time so it all fits. Neat and tidy. Many of us simply have too many big rocks.
The daily work.
The self care.
The appointments.
The responsibilities we can’t opt out of.
At some point, the work becomes less about fitting everything in and more about asking a braver question:
Which rock is the biggest?
And then: Which one comes next?
For those of us living with chronic pain or limited energy, this question isn’t philosophical. It’s survival.
The real work is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
— Stephen Covey
Near Enemies: The Perils of Almost Right
Psychologist Kristin Neff teaches about near enemies. Qualities or choices that look helpful on the surface but quietly undermine what we actually need.
In compassion practice, for example, self‑compassion’s near enemy is self‑pity. In mindfulness, it might be zoning out instead of being present. Near enemies are dangerous not because they are wrong, but because they are convincing.
They imitate wisdom.
They borrow the language of care.
They feel responsible.
And yet, they subtly pull us away from what truly nourishes us.
Familiar Foes: Chronic Pain’s Close Encounters
When you live with chronic pain or chronic illness, near enemies show up everywhere:
Filling your day with “useful” tasks instead of the few essential ones that protect your health.
Trying every therapy instead of committing energy to the one or two that truly help.
Positive thinking that bypasses your body’s real signals.
Staying busy so you don’t have to feel how tired you actually are
Even healing practices can become near enemies when they cost more energy than they restore.
In these seasons, discernment matters more than discipline.
Unearthing Clarity: The Truth of Forest Therapy
Nature has a way of clarifying what belongs and what doesn’t.
In the stillness of the forest, the nervous system softens. The noise quiets. And without effort, priorities begin to rearrange themselves.
Here, the biggest rocks often reveal themselves as simple, foundational truths:
Enough sleep
Nourishing food
Gentle, appropriate movement
Nervous system regulation
Emotional safety
These are not optional extras. They are the largest rocks.
From there, we can begin to see the next biggest rocks. Helpful therapies, meaningful connection, creative expression, without confusing them for the foundation itself.
And finally, with compassion, we can begin to sift out what simply does not fit in this season of life. Not forever. Just for now.
Arabic proverb: Sunshine all the time creates a desert.
Perhaps, in the storms, roots deepen and rain helps us grow.
The Significance of Near Enemies
Near enemies are dangerous because they:
Masquerade as wisdom
Drain limited energy
Keep us busy instead of well
Pull focus from what truly supports healing
For those living with chronic pain, the cost of mistaking a near enemy for a true ally is high. Energy is precious. Attention is finite. Choosing the wrong “good thing” can mean losing access to the best thing.
There was a season when I was frantically searching for a diagnosis. Searching not just for answers, but for validation. I was living with constant, invisible pain that no one could see and few seemed to understand. And so I chased understanding wherever I thought it might live.
I pursued every avenue. Every referral. Every therapy that sounded even remotely promising. I read, researched, pushed, argued, advocated. Believing that if I just searched hard enough, fought clearly enough, or proved my case convincingly enough, I would arrive at the answer. A conclusion. A resolution. A moment where someone would finally say, “Yes. This is real.”
What I didn’t recognize at the time was my near enemy.
On the surface, what I was doing looked responsible. Even admirable. I was being proactive. Informed. Determined. But underneath it all, my hope had quietly become tangled up in outcomes, test results, and external validation. The search itself, though it looked like healing, was slowly exhausting me.
I needed to let go of the illusion that my life might have been different.
It’s in my eyes. I tried to hide it. But I see now I was not overly successful in that attempt. Through that time, I could best be explained. By these words someone wrote, “she’s got the hospitality of a Southern belle and the emotional stability of a raccoon in a Dollar General.” Or these accurate words, “I’m currently looking for a moisturizer that hides the fact I’ve been exhausted since 2019.”
Each clear test result landed not as relief, but as another erosion of trust. My pain was getting worse, not better. And I suspect my medical charts were, too. Notes growing heavier, more complicated, perhaps less in my favor as frustration mounted on both sides.
Still, I kept searching. Because stopping felt like giving up.
Eventually, I had to face the truth. This relentless pursuit wasn’t leading me toward healing. It was pulling me away from it.
I still don’t have clean answers or a tidy diagnosis. But something essential has shifted. I no longer outsource my validation. It doesn’t come from a test, a label, or a professional conclusion. It comes from listening to my own lived experience.
These aren’t the only people. But it’s a good chunk of them.
I’m deeply grateful for the people in my life who try to understand my pain, even when they can’t see it. They may not witness the pain itself, but they see me. And that has mattered more than I once believed possible.
Some answers have arrived gently, settling on me soft as a sunbeam. Others have been harder, more confronting. But I no longer search frantically.
That frantic searching. The good‑looking, well‑intentioned chase for certainty was my near enemy. And laying it down made space for something quieter, truer, and far more healing.
What you tend grows. What you ignore fades.
Forest Reflections
Near enemies are not mistakes. They are invitations to deepen our discernment.
When we learn to tell the difference between the important and the essential. Between the helpful and the healing. We begin to live with greater integrity toward our bodies and our limits.
And often, it is the forest. Quiet, patient, and uncompromising that helps us remember which rock truly belongs in our hands today.
Rest is not idleness. Sometimes lying on the grass under trees on a summer’s day… is hardly a waste of time.
SUNBEAM ACRES 