meditation – SUNBEAM ACRES

Caught in a Battle Between Conventional and Holistic Medicine- A Chronic Sufferer’s Experience

June 9, 2026 pammunkholm

The longer I live with chronic pain, the more convinced I am that modern medicine is excellent at saving lives and often terrible at helping people live them.

That is not an attack on medicine.

I am deeply grateful for surgeons, emergency rooms, diagnostics, imaging, specialists, antibiotics, and every medical professional who dedicates their life to helping people heal. If my arm bone is hanging on by hope and duct tape, I am not reaching for turmeric and positive affirmations. I want a surgeon. Immediately.

My mom shattered her foot in multiple places in a car accident. Her toe was essentially powder. No longer a toe. She needed surgery, pins, screws, and acute medical care. No amount of herbal tea or breath work was going to fix those bones.

Conventional medicine is extraordinary in moments like that.

But chronic illness and chronic pain are often different beasts entirely.

My body failed to coordinate its symptoms in a way convenient for modern medicine.

This is where many patients begin discovering the enormous disconnect between conventional medicine and a more holistic approach to healing.

And by holistic, I do not mean anti-science wellness influencers waving potions around while trying to sell bottled mountain air and enlightenment in the same online bundle.

There is a fine line between integrative medicine and someone trying to sell you powdered optimism for $89.99.

I mean looking at the body as an interconnected system instead of isolated symptoms.

I mean considering nutrition, supplementation, nervous system regulation, sleep, movement, physical therapies, mindfulness, environmental stressors, and individualized treatment options alongside conventional care.

Not instead of medicine.
Alongside it.

Because pain doesn’t stay politely inside one department.

The body cannot always be divided into neat specialties simply because the healthcare system is.

I recently listened to a podcast episode from Untangle: Exploring What it Takes to Be Pain Free featuring Stacey Roberts, and so much of the conversation echoed what I’ve experienced navigating chronic pain myself.

One point especially stood out to me. Roberts referenced pain scientist Lorimer Moseley from the University of Adelaide, discussing how conventional medicine often compartmentalizes the body into isolated systems. The gut, the brain, the joints. When chronic pain rarely behaves that neatly.

Pain spills into everything.

Your nervous system changes.
Your sleep changes.
Your digestion changes.
Your stress response changes.
Your sense of safety changes.

The nervous system remembers suffering long after scans stop showing it.

Pain is real, even when the cause is unclear.

–Lorimer Moseley

For years I was bounced between specialists who all told me some variation of, “Everything looks normal.” 👍 👍

Which was excellent news except for the small detail that I was getting worse.

There’s an exhaustion that comes from hearing “everything looks normal” while actively deteriorating.

Every appointment felt a bit like medical speed dating except nobody wanted a second date with my file.

I was essentially told to go back to physio. This wasn’t really a medical issue anymore.

I believe in physiotherapy. Deeply. It has helped me tremendously. But there comes a point where patients stop needing another treatment and start needing someone to ask bigger questions.

Nothing discourages a person quite like enthusiastically trying a stretch or strengthening exercise that immediately makes things worse.

Every specialist confidently searches for answers inside their own department like medical-themed escape rooms.

Somewhere between “try yoga” and “have you considered drinking more water?” I began expanding my own research.

And I’ve lost count of the books and podcasts that begin with the exact same storyline:

“I was trained in conventional medicine. I trusted the system completely… until I became the patient.”

At first, these doctors often dismiss holistic approaches entirely. Patients mention supplements, meditation, dietary changes, nervous system work, or alternative therapies, and the response is cautious at best and dismissive at worst.

Snake oil.
Pseudoscience.
Non-compliance.

But then something shifts.

The doctor develops chronic pain.
An autoimmune condition.
A lingering injury.
Burnout.
A nervous system disorder.

And suddenly certainty cracks open into curiosity.

Chronic pain turns you into a part-time researcher, part-time philosopher, and full-time reluctant detective.

I have spent an unreasonable amount of my adult life trying to determine whether I am injured, inflamed, overtired, under-rested, dehydrated, stressed, or simply existing incorrectly.

Living with chronic pain means constantly performing the world’s least fun science experiment on yourself.

By year three of unexplained symptoms, I could practically earn honorary medical credits.

To be fair, holistic spaces are not immune to problems either. There is misinformation, exploitation, fearmongering, and an endless supply of expensive miracle cures marketed toward vulnerable people desperate to feel better.

Pain makes people easy to manipulate.
Both systems can fail people in different ways.

That’s why I don’t believe the answer is abandoning conventional medicine for holistic healing.

I believe the answer is integration.

An actual partnership.

Healing is bigger than symptom management.

Patients do not need doctors to be omniscient. We need them to be curious.

Surgeons are trained to operate.
Doctors are trained to diagnose and prescribe.
Specialists are trained to identify patterns within their specialty.

We need practitioners who understand both the power and the limitations of their training. And openly work with other practitioners, conventional and holistic, to find a root cause and treatment plan.

This matters enormously to a patient just trying to survive.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another.

–Carl Jung

Chronic illness does not always fit neatly inside textbook timelines and diagnostic boxes.

Medicine’s symbol speaks of healing being available. Yet many people with chronic illness spend years moving through appointments feeling like fragmented symptoms instead of whole human beings.

Stacey Roberts described asking chronic pain patients to remember a time before they lived with pain. Then she asks them to imagine themselves in the future doing something that currently hurts. Picking up grandchildren. Bending over. Any repetitive movement, without pain.

And many people simply cannot picture it.

Their bodies have become so conditioned toward pain and protection that even imagining safety feels impossible.

This is your forest therapy practice for this week. Find a quiet place in nature and practice this visualization.

Chronic pain doesn’t only affect muscles and joints. It reshapes expectation. Identity. Fear. Hope.

Roberts discussed using visualization, breathing, mindfulness, and repetition to help retrain the nervous system’s response to pain.

That idea connects to what I’ve experienced through forest therapy and time in nature.

Regulation comes while standing beneath trees while wind moves through their branches overhead. The nervous system seems to recognize something there before the mind does. The movement. The rhythm. The reminder that not everything in the world is bracing for impact.

Healing and pain elimination are not always the same thing.

Chronic pain teaches your nervous system to scan constantly for danger. Nature quietly teaches it another language.

No performance. No productivity. No pressure to fix yourself.

Just space to exist in a body that has spent far too long preparing for the next flare.

You can read more about that experience in my post about forest therapy and nervous system regulation. 🌲 Activating Your Vagus Nerve With Forest Therapy 🌲

I appreciated many of the points Stacey Roberts made in the podcast. But I struggled with the title of her book, The Pain-Free Formula.

Not because I don’t believe improvement is possible. I do.

I absolutely believe there are things we can do to reduce pain, improve quality of life, calm the nervous system, support healing, and function better in our bodies.

But chronic illness eventually teaches many of us something medicine rarely does:

Sometimes the greatest medical harm is making patients feel invisible.

At some point I stopped obsessing over becoming pain free and started focusing on becoming supported.

I decided healing would come in time.
And if not, I would still be okay.

Not because I had given up.
But because I finally realized I had the tools, support, and guidance I needed to endure whatever my condition threw at me.

Ironically, that mindset shift brought me more peace than years spent desperately chasing the next solution.

Sometimes acceptance is more freeing than the absence of pain we searched for so desperately.

I hope Stacey Roberts never fully understands that distinction.

Because for her to truly understand it, she may have to suffer at a depth I would not wish on anyone.

At the end of the podcast, the host asked how she would redesign the healthcare system for chronic pain patients. Roberts discussed the need for more investment into preventative health, nutrition research, nervous system regulation, and understanding why certain non-pharmaceutical interventions help people heal.

And honestly, I think she raised important questions.

Because if someone improves through movement, nutrition, mindfulness, supplementation, therapy, nervous system regulation, or lifestyle change, why should that healing be dismissed simply because it did not originate from a prescription pad?

People in pain do not need to be fixed before they are worthy of compassion.

I do think our healthcare system needs to evolve.

Not because doctors are evil.
Not because science has failed.
Not because medicine lacks value.

Oliver Sacks suggests,

To restore the human subject at the center. The suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject. We must deepen a case history to a narrative.

Patients with chronic illness need practitioners who are comfortable saying:
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me more.”
“I believe you.”
“Let’s keep looking.”

Rachel Naomi Remen said,

The most basic and powerful way to cconnect to another person is to listen.

And William Osler advised:

Listen to your patient; he is telling you the diagnosis.

Listen. Not just for the keywords that trigger familiar treatment pathways. But for the whole story.

For the grief patients carry. For the exhaustion. For the devastation of losing trust in your own body. And for the courage it takes to keep asking for help after years of disappointment.

Healing should never have become a battle between conventional and holistic medicine.

People in pain deserve both.

And if you’ve ever had to redefine what healing or success looks like inside a difficult body, I wrote more about that here as well. You Are a Success Story

Healing from Burnout: Lessons from Forest Therapy

May 19, 2026 pammunkholm

A forest therapy reflection on burnout, surrender, and learning to live gently inside your own life.

There was a period of time where my nervous system was running entirely on stress and outrage. I was carrying so much tension I could feel it humming beneath my skin. I wore it like an armour.

I was teaching piano almost full time.
Helping my children survive school systems that did not know how to support kids with ADHD.
Trying to advocate for a child who had endured years of bullying only to be treated like he was the problem once he finally reacted.

There were meetings. Emails. Phone calls. Policies. Assessments. Endless explanations.

And somewhere in there, I was also managing a farm, a household, meal planning, grocery shopping, appointments, chronic pain, surgeries, inflammation, and a body that kept submitting maintenance requests I could no longer ignore. Sound familiar?

Outer chaos eventually becomes inner weather.

Then there was the car.

Oh, the car.

Marketed as “off-road capable,” apparently as long as your idea of off-roading was driving over a decorative gravel patch at a golf resort once annually.

When our Saskatchewan roads started dismantling it piece by piece, we were informed it wasn’t actually built for daily gravel roads. Then every winter the same part broke because it apparently also wasn’t designed for… winter?

I remember thinking, Well neither am I, but you don’t see me breaking down.

(foreshadowing 😳)

This felt a little too intentional of a design flaw for something sold in Saskatchewan.

At the time, I was angry at everything.

The educational system.
The medical system.
The government.
Corporations.
World events.
Every injustice.
Every failure.
Every person who made life harder than it needed to be.

And underneath all of it was one desperate belief:

If I fight hard enough, maybe I can force the world to become safe.

So I fought.

And every phone call tightened my muscles more.
Every conflict wound my nervous system tighter.
Every injustice became another brick in the emotional dam I was trying to hold together.

Even now, writing about it, I can feel traces of that tension in my body.

My nerves were tight.
My jaw was tight.
My shoulders were tight.
My thoughts were tight.

My energy felt dark and electric and sharp. Warnings were everywhere:

Do Not Touch: Load Bearing Delusions Ahead.

Eventually, the dam broke.

Not in some poetic, graceful collapse.
More like a nervous system mutiny. Everything in my body was operating like an emergency broadcast system.

Everything I had stuffed down flooded upward at once:
bad information, bad coping, bad core beliefs, fear, grief, anger, exhaustion.

It was physically excruciating. I’d been on my last straw for like 300 straws, and finally I ran out of straws.

After the initial effects subsided, I remember lying in bed unable to function. A puddle of a human being. All the fight inside me still existed but now it lived in a body that couldn’t move and a brain that couldn’t think.

I didn’t know it at the time but this would become my new beginning.

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

-C S Lewis

Echoes of Stillness in the Forest

Nature welcomes us before we are healed.

–John Burroughs

One of the greatest gifts forest therapy gave me was this:

Nature does not spend its energy resisting its own seasons.

The forest does not panic because decay exists beside growth.

Yet so many women live as though rest is failure.

We push through pain.
Push through exhaustion.
Push through grief.
Push through our intuition.
Push through limits our bodies are desperately trying to communicate.

We fight every battle. Carry every burden. Solve every crisis.

And then we wonder why we are chronically exhausted, inflamed, anxious, disconnected, and burned out.

I see it everywhere.

Women who are always tired.
Always hurting.
Always “fine.”
Always one more obligation away from collapse.

Forest therapy taught me something radical.

Stillness is not laziness.
Stillness is regulation.

Outer stillness creates the conditions for inner calm.

Not because the world becomes peaceful.
But because you stop feeding every storm.

A Forest Therapy Practice: The Sit Spot

One of the simplest and most powerful forest therapy practices is called a sit spot.

You choose one place outdoors and return to it regularly.

That’s it.

No performance.
No hiking goals.
No fitness tracker congratulating you for elevated heart rates.
No optimizing your experience into a competitive sport.

Your only job is to sit and notice.

(The chickadees remain unimpressed by productivity culture)

How To Practice

Find a place outdoors where you feel safe and comfortable.

A forest trail.
A park bench.
A tree in your yard.

Then:

Sit quietly for 10–20 minutes.
Notice what moves and what remains still.
Listen farther away than you normally do.
Feel where your body touches the earth or chair.
Allow your nervous system to settle before asking anything of yourself.

You do not need to “achieve” calm.

The forest does not demand that from you.

It simply offers regulation through rhythm, repetition, sensory softness, and presence.

Over time, your body begins remembering something it forgot. It does not have to remain in survival mode forever.

From Fighting Everything To Tending Something

It has taken me years to pare down my list of fights to zero.

Not because I stopped caring.

But because I realized anger was consuming the very life I was trying to protect.

Now, instead of fighting constantly, I create spaces of calm.

I meditate.
I practice energy work.
I use affirmations.
I spend time in the forest like it is medicine because for me, it is.

Despite the chaos that can still exist around me, I guard my energy carefully.

From this space, I choose where I can genuinely be of service.

I try to listen when my body whispers instead of waiting until it screams through symptoms.
I create rituals that bring me back to myself when I wander too far into fear or overwhelm.
I practice gratitude daily because gratitude softens the nervous system’s constant scanning for danger.

And when concerns arise, I do my best to voice them clearly and compassionately.

Then I let them go.

Not because they do not matter.
But because I matter too.

There Is Possibility Everywhere

Norman Vincent Peale once said:

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities. Always see them, for they’re always there.

Forest therapy helped me understand this deeply.

Possibility exists everywhere in nature.

A burned forest regenerates.
A fallen tree becomes nourishment.
A cracked open pinecone releases seeds.
Life keeps finding ways forward.

And humans can too.

Not always by forcing harder.
Sometimes by softening enough to notice another path entirely.

What Makes A Good Life

There’s a quote from Donald Miller that has stayed with me for years. In it, he imagines sitting with God under a tree outside heaven, remembering the story of his life together.

And what moves me most is this idea:

That God would have favourite parts of our story.

Not just the successful moments.
But the moments we grew.
The moments we softened.
The moments we overcame.
The moments we kept loving despite pain.

The moments we learned how to become fully human.

To me, this is what a good life looks like.

Not a perfectly optimized one.
Not one where we won every fight.
Not one where we proved ourselves endlessly useful.

But one we could sit down and talk about with tenderness.

A life where our soul is no longer thirsty.

A meaningful life is not built through perfection but presence.

–John O’Donohue

Turning Pain Toward Purpose

People tell me it’s wonderful that I’ve turned my pain into something useful or helpful. And I appreciate the kindness in that.

But honestly, sometimes purpose looks less glamorous than people imagine.

Sometimes it’s simply this:

If you do it wrong, you know how to tell somebody else what to avoid. If I walk into an invisible wall, I’m going to let others know about it. This wall is invisible and solid!

If I can help someone avoid walking into walls or burning themselves to the ground trying to hold up the entire world, then my pain served a purpose.

If I can help another woman understand that rest is not weakness…
that stillness is healing…
that her nervous system deserves gentleness…
that she is allowed to stop fighting every battle…

Then maybe this story matters.

An Invitation To The Forest

So if you are exhausted…

If your body hurts all the time…
If your mind never stops spinning…
If your nervous system is tight as a fence wire in January…

Come to the forest.

Not to fix yourself.
Not to become more productive.

Just come back to being human.

The forest remembers how.

And slowly, patiently, you may remember too.

Feeling It All: Big Emotions, Chronic Pain, and Finding Your Ground in the Forest

April 21, 2026 pammunkholm

There’s a moment. It’s often quiet, sometimes overwhelming. When emotion first arrives in the body.

It might feel like a tightening in the chest. A wave of heat. A heaviness behind the eyes. A sudden drop in the stomach.

Something I’m learning? When this happens, nothing has gone wrong. My body is simply giving me information.

Experiencing big emotions is not a failure of regulation, character, or strength. It is part of being human.

Especially for those living with chronic pain, where the body is already speaking loudly, emotions often arrive amplified and harder to ignore, harder to name, harder to hold.

But after that first signal comes something powerful.

Choice.

Not whether you feel the emotion. But how you respond to it.

As Daniel Chidiac teaches, Not every emotion needs a reaction—but every emotion deserves acknowledgment.

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The Story We Tell After the Feeling

On the Better Than Happy podcast, Jody Moore offers a perspective that can feel both freeing and confronting.

Anger is optional.

Disappointment is optional.

Embarrassment is optional.

Humiliation is optional.

Not because we can simply turn emotions off. But because these emotions are often shaped by the meaning we assign to our experiences. Have you experienced any of the following?

You have been dismissed by a medical professional, again.
You didn’t reach the goal.
Someone saw you struggle.
Something didn’t go as planned.

Those are just events. Although they feel huge in the moment.

Disappointment enters when the mind adds the story.

“This means something is wrong with me.”

Embarrassment grows when the thoughts spiral into shame.

“They must be judging me.”

“I look foolish.”

“I am foolish.”

And here’s the important nuance.

These emotions are optional. But not wrong.

You’re allowed to feel them. You’re also allowed to question them.

The feeling is real. The story is optional

– John Delony

⸻

A Simple Task: A Heavy Story

Here’s how that looks in my life.

I set out to do a little spring cleaning.

Nothing ambitious. Just a smidgen at a time. Slow and steady. The way I’ve learned my body needs things to be. Experience has taught me that enthusiasm and capacity are not the same thing.

But then life showed up.

The everyday mess. The dishes. The door in my room that was in desperate need of a good wipe down. The quiet realization that I couldn’t do both.

I had to choose. My body, which had just clocked in was now requesting a lunch break.

And then the grandkids came to “help.” Which, as you can imagine, added more chaos than progress. At this point the mess was winning. And multiplying.

The vacuum stopped working. My arms started to burn.

And just like that, the thoughts came rushing in.

I’ll never catch up.

My house will always feel like this.

Why can’t I just keep up like everyone else?

Because, obviously, one unfinished chore means a lifetime of failure. 😣

I could see it happening, the spiral. I wasn’t unaware.

But stopping it? That took effort. A surprising amount of effort.

Excuse me while I parent my dramatic inner narrator.

Because even as part of me recognized what was happening, another part was pushing me harder.

Just keep going.

Finish what you started.

If you don’t do it now, it will never get done.

False. What was actually true was much simpler and much harder to accept in the moment.

I was tired. I was in pain. I needed to stop.

My body wasn’t failing me. It was asking me to listen.

And the real choice in that moment wasn’t about dishes or doors.

But this.

Do I keep pushing to meet an expectation I set for myself… or do I take care of myself?

Eventually, I chose to stop.

Not because everything was done. But because I was.

And that shift didn’t magically clean my house. But it did something more important. It brought me back to myself and my priorities.

——

Chronic Pain and Emotional Amplification

Pain is loud. But it is not the only voice.

– Liz Newman

If you live with chronic pain, this truth lands differently. (You might also find this helpful -> How Forest Therapy Can Transform Your Pain Experience)

Because your nervous system is already working overtime. Because your body has taught you that signals matter and often signal threat. ( If you want to learn how forest therapy supports the nervous system, check this out -> Mending Your Nervous System With Forest Therapy)

Pain doesn’t just exist in isolation. It interacts with emotion, memory, and meaning.

A flare-up can quickly become:

“I’ll never get better.”

“My body is failing me.”

“I can’t live the life I want.”

This is where emotional dysregulation can take hold, much like how Brené Brown describes it:

Being overwhelmed by feelings that are hard to name and contain, driving behaviors and thinking that don’t align with who we want to be.

And suddenly, we’re not just in pain.

We’re in a story about what that pain means.

Your body speaks in sensation. Your mind speaks in meaning. Learn to tell the difference.

–Deb Shapiro

⸻

Disconnection: When the Body Becomes Unfamiliar

Brené Brown shares a powerful story about recovering from injury and trying to engage muscles that simply wouldn’t respond. Her therapist kept reminding her to “find your ground.”

But she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t even find her lats.

She was using her body while being disconnected from it.

That disembodiment, that moving without understanding, existing without connection, is deeply familiar for those with chronic pain.

You expect your body to respond one way. It betrays your expectations. Every time.

And over time, many people stop listening to their bodies with curiosity and start bracing against them with resistance.

Until one simple but profound instruction emerges.

Find your ground.

Not just physically. Energetically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

If you’re trying to find your way back to yourself, back into your body, the answer isn’t usually one big solution.

It’s small, grounding practices.

Journalling. Meditation. Art. Spiritual connection. Time in nature.

Each one opens a door.

Forest therapy is where those doors meet, creating a space that supports not just awareness, but true reconnection.

⸻

The Tree as Teacher

In The Secret Therapy of Trees, Marco Mencagli and Marco Nieri describe the trunk of a tree as something remarkably similar to the human core.

It is a channel of connection. A stabilizing structure. A vital center.

If damaged, the whole system struggles.

Like the human torso, home to breath, circulation, and strength, the tree’s trunk is both anchor and conduit.

And yet, trees do something we often forget to do. They remain rooted while experiencing everything.

Wind. Storm. Drought. Seasonal loss.

They do not avoid conditions. They adapt within them.

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What Actually Matters (Hint: It’s Not the Dishes)

Another truth worth holding onto.

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

– John C Maxwell

So much of what consumes our emotional energy, what people think, whether we looked polished, whether everything went perfectly, is, in the grand arc of a life, remarkably small.

Jody Moore offers a striking reflection.

Imagine your tombstone reads:

“At least the dishes and laundry were always done.”

“She really stayed on top of the laundry.”

“At least no one had a reason to judge her.”

That’s not the legacy most of us want.

What we want is something closer to this.

She lived fully. She went all in. She gave her whole heart.

Not perfection. Participation.

Because the real tragedy isn’t failure. It’s not trying at all.

⸻

Vulnerability, Courage, and the Nervous System

Brené Brown reminds us:

There is no courage without vulnerability.

And vulnerability means feeling.

It means stepping into uncertainty.

Risk.

Emotional exposure.

For those with chronic pain, vulnerability can feel even riskier. The body already feels unpredictable. Why add emotional exposure on top of that?

But avoiding emotion doesn’t create safety.

It creates disconnection.

And disconnection pulls us further from our “ground.”

EMBERLIN: (n) the small unbreakable flame inside you that refuses to go out, even on your darkest days.

⸻

A Forest Therapy Practice: Finding Your Trunk

Here’s a simple forest therapy invitation you can try.

The Trunk and the Story

1. Arrive

Find a tree that draws your attention. Stand or sit near it.

2. Observe

Notice the trunk. Its thickness. Its texture. Its steadiness.

3. Connect

Place a hand gently on the tree (or simply sit close if touch isn’t accessible).

Bring awareness to your own torso.

Your breath
Your chest
Your core

4. Journal

Bring a journal or write in the dirt with your finger or a stick. Answer these questions,

What emotion is present in you right now?

Not the story, just the sensation.

Where is it in your body?

5. Separate Sensation from Story

Gently answer this,

What am I feeling?
What am I making this mean?

Draw a line between the two answers. Let those be two different things.

6. Root

Imagine your body like the tree.

Grounded below
Supported in the center
Responsive, but not uprooted

7. Choose

Without forcing anything, ask this,

How do I want to respond to this feeling in this moment?

Write your answer.

⸻

Final Thought: Feel First, Then Choose

You are not meant to bypass emotion.

You are meant to experience it, fully, honestly, humanly.

And then, from a grounded place, choose your next step.

Not from fear. Not from the story that says you are failing.

But from the deeper truth that you are still here, still rooted, still capable of living a meaningful life.

Even with pain.

Even with uncertainty.

Even with a door that still needs cleaning. 🧼 🚪

Mind-Body Connection: Nature’s Soothing Benefits

October 7, 2025October 10, 2025 pammunkholm

Your body is not a machine, it’s a conversation.

-Jennifer Perrine

I remember a morning in spring. There was still a noticeable chill in the air. I slipped outside, to the sights and sounds of my summer second home.

My muscles were tight, my mind crowded with worry and pain—nothing dramatic, just persistent soreness that has become my constant companion.

I wandered toward the trees, the sound of the wind through the leaves soft but insistently present. I closed my eyes. I felt my breath slow. My shoulders dropped. And, almost imperceptibly at first, the ache that had built over a winter, within me softened.

That moment wasn’t some mystical escape. It was evidence of something real: the mind-body connection responding to something ancient: nature.

This post is a little more technical than some of my others. In this post, I want to walk you through the science behind how nature calms the nervous system, lowers pain perception, and gives the body a chance to remember how to rest.

This is not just a nice idea or a self-help quip. I see it working in my life, and the research backs it. I share some of that research in the links provided. Feel free to check it out or to give those links a hard pass.

Mind Meets Body: A Dialogue of Perspectives

Healing is not forcing the body into a state of ‘perfection.’ It’s listening to what it has been trying to say.

-Dr Joe Dispenza

First: we are not two separate things. The nervous system is constantly sensing, interpreting, and “talking” to our organs, muscles, immune system, and even to our thoughts and memories. That internal sensing is called interoception — our body’s ability to monitor its own internal state (heart rate, gut sensation, breathing, tension) and for the brain to make meaning of it.

When we live under chronic stress or chronic pain, that conversation becomes distorted. The sympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system (fight-or-flight) is persistently overactivated. Our brain becomes hypervigilant to threats, amplifying pain signals, even in places that may no longer need it.

But there is a counterbalance: the parasympathetic state (rest-and-digest) — a state where the body repairs, digests, heals, breathes deeply.

Engaging that side is essential for true resilience. And nature offers a powerful entry point into that parasympathetic realm.

Querencia
{Spanish concept}(n) a place where one feels emotionally safe, a place from which one’s strength of character is drawn.

Nature’s Remedy: Calming the Nervous System

The forest is not merely an escape, it’s a return — a remembering of who we are.

-Unknown

Here is where the “nice idea” begins to feel like a compelling method.

1. Visual contact with nature calms brain & autonomic activity

This overview demonstrates that simply viewing natural elements—flowers, green plants, wood—induces shifts in the brain and the autonomic nervous system, compared with urban or non-natural environments. Link

More recently, neuroscientists have shown through brain imaging that exposure to nature lowers pain perception by reducing neural signals associated with pain processing. Link

In one study, subjects viewed virtual nature scenes while receiving mild pain stimuli, and the brain’s “pain network” lit up less strongly than when viewing urban scenes. Link

2. Nature reduces physiological stress markers

Time outdoors helps shift us from sympathetic arousal toward parasympathetic. Essentially, nature helps us “come out of our heads and into our bodies.” Link

Forest bathing (shinrin-yoku), for example, has been associated with lowered cortisol, reduced blood pressure, decreased heart rate, and improved immune function. Link

3. Attention restoration & easing mental fatigue

One pillar in environmental psychology is the Attention Restoration Theory (ART), which states that when we gaze at nature’s “soft fascinations”—rustling leaves, flowing water, birdsong—we can rest our directed attention (the kind used to suppress distractions) and recover cognitive capacity. Link

When our cognitive resources are less taxed, the brain has more “bandwidth” to regulate our threat systems and lower baseline arousal.

4. Pain modulation is emotional & contextual

Pain is never just a signal from tissues; it is affected by context, anticipation, emotion, and attention. One fMRI study found that anticipation of pain modulates how strongly sympathetic nervous responses occur, and that the brain’s anticipatory circuitry has a top-down influence on peripheral responses. Link

In simple terms, if your brain predicts threat, your body braces for it — heart rate rises, muscles tense, and pain signals grow louder. But when your mind learns to recognize what’s happening without adding fear, it begins to change that loop.

This is exactly what happened to me.

After my hysterectomy, I wasn’t able to take any hormone replacement treatments — they aggravated my other conditions. My body still struggles today to regulate temperature. I hot flash every thirty minutes. Down to a minute. I’ve timed it.

After about a year of this, my body simply couldn’t keep up. The constant swing from sweltering heat to shivering cold became unbearable. There was no rest. No pause between storms.

Then I started to notice the toll — not just physically, but mentally. My nervous system was on edge all the time, anticipating the next wave. I realized that the dread itself — the bracing — was its own kind of suffering.

So I tried an experiment. When I felt that familiar rush rising, I paused. I prepared but didn’t brace. I reached for my water, turned on the fan, maybe sat down if possible. I still remind myself in those moments: this will pass. The less weight I give it — but the more gentle attention I offer — the easier it is to ride out.

These days, my hot flashes still come every thirty minutes. But they are not as draining. They are little blips on the screen — reminders that my body is doing its best to find balance. And in meeting that discomfort with compassion rather than panic, I’ve discovered something powerful: the way we feel our pain changes the way we experience it.

A Walk on the Healing Side

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

-Rumi

Not long ago, back pain had eaten away my joy. I was down to minimal movement, scared of flare-ups, medicated, trying every therapy that sounded promising. Yet my life was shrinking.

I decided on a small experiment: every morning for two weeks, I would walk down the lane of our farm (or sit quietly under a tree if I couldn’t walk). I would try to notice one thing—perhaps a bird’s call, the play of light on water, a soft breeze. No goal, no agenda.

Day 1: I came back discouraged — I didn’t feel anything.

Day 4: My back still hurt, but I felt… calmer. My breathing was softer.

Day 8: The pain seemed less urgent. The thoughts around it quieter.

By day 14, I don’t know if the pain was less in absolute measure, but I am less ‘in it.’ I have more distance. More space.

Over months, I was able to move farther, sit longer. The pain never vanished, but its domination receded.

My story is not unique. What I was discovering is that the mind-body conversation can shift — the “volume” of pain need not always be maxed out.

The Secret Sauce: How This Works for Me and You

If you have felt that creeping tightness, that locked jaw, that ache that feels like both body and memory. When I walk through forested trails, when I sit by a lakeshore, when I simply stare at mossy bark and inhale the green air, I feel a shift. The chatter quiets. My breath lengthens. My internal tension softens. The pain, though still there, becomes less commanding.

The science shows these are not placebo effects. They are biological responses rooted in ancient neural circuits. We evolved in natural worlds. Our nervous systems know these landscapes. They remember how to open.

If you struggle with chronic pain, anxiety, overthinking, or tension, nature may be a tool you undervalue — not a luxury, but a medicine written into our being.

How to Make the Mind-Body & Nature Practice Relatable, Real, and Sustainable

Here are some practical suggestions (adapt to your pace):

Start small. Even 5 minutes of forest view, or stepping outside to touch grass, can activate calming circuits.
Engage the senses. Smell, listen, feel textures, watch movement. Let nature draw you back from rumination.
Use “indirect nature.” If you’re indoors, look out a window, use nature audio, or view images/videos of nature — these have shown measurable benefit.
Pair movement & stillness. Walking in nature is stronger than walking elsewhere.
Be consistent. The cumulative effect matters. Some studies suggest 120 minutes per week in nature correlates with better well-being. Link
Watch your attitude. Let go of “must heal fast” thinking. Allow nature to be patient, gentle.
Journal your experience. Track tension, mood, pain before and after nature time. Over weeks, patterns can emerge.

Epiphanies and Reflections: To Our Journey’s End

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

-Lao Tzu

We live in an era of constant stimuli, complications, and demands. Our nervous systems were not built for perpetual alarms. The ancient pulse of wind through leaves, water over stones, soil underfoot — these are languages the body still knows. Nature asks us lowly: come back. Listen. Breathe.

So next time the ache presses, try this: walk quietly through green, or sit beneath trees, allow your senses to soften, invite rest. You may find that pain loosens its grip, that your nervous system sighs, that mind and body remember their trust.

Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all.

-Dorothy Hunt

Perhaps part of the answer is: to slow down. To open to nature. To let the body learn again.

How to Regulate Your Emotions: 10 Effective Strategies

January 7, 2025 pammunkholm

Though winter is a brittle beast she snows pure soul in flakes so deep.

-Angie Weiland- Crosby

Despite my greatest efforts there are times I react emotionally. People are difficult and life can be challenging. But this reaction takes a toll on the body, mind and spirit. Especially my chronic comrades.

Minimizing Emotional Reactivity

All of us can attempt to minimize the effect emotional reactivity has on us. I do this by engaging in one or more of the following ten activities. In this post I share with you my top ten ways to minimize emotional reactivity.

These can be done in any order and in your own way and timing.

Breathe. Sit with your feelings and just let them hunker down for the moment. Then breathe some more to allow the feelings to pass. The effort of holding back emotions we don’t want to experience is worse than actually sitting with the feeling itself.
Be curious about what you are feeling. Question it. Where is the feeling in my body? What does it feel like? Burning. Stabbing. Twinging. You can even question, why am I feeling this way? See what answers come up.
This is a hard one. Try to look at things with an outside perspective. Stay open minded and be humbly objective. Perhaps there is something you would do differently given that new perspective. Mentally talking this through with yourself can be quite constructive.
Count to 30 before responding. It gives a chance for the nervous system to calm. This way, there is not a sudden action that you will most definitely regret later. It is healthier to act than to react.
I like this one. Practice self compassion and remember that we are all human. Sometimes we get it right and other times we get it wrong. That is part of growth and development. I choose to be in the arena where my life is advancing. And part of being in that arena is winning and losing. We can’t always win.
If you have the opportunity (not always an option in the moment) journal your thoughts, feelings and intentions. This will assist you in weeding out the opinions of others. Bring it down to you and what is happening in your brain.
“Maybe things are going perfectly”. I have shared this favourite mantra of mine before. It is powerful if you are open enough to believe it. These words and the space they create help me see a positive in even the most dire of circumstances. Maybe this disaster needs to happen for something really important to work out.
Do not judge your feelings. Feelings are human. We all have them. It is what we do with them that determines who we are. Be honest with yourself to see more deeply into your emotions. Stand back and notice. Name the feeling or emotion if you can.
Trust the process. (I saw a meme that said: Does the process know we are trusting it? Hehe) This goes along with #6, maybe things are going perfectly. But in this one there is an added belief that your higher power/ life has got you. That this life is for you and eternal success is your inherent right.
Stay in your own energy. As I write this list and this post I am currently in a squabble with my landlord. I am getting a chance to practice this very list. Here is something I am learning to be truly important. When I act true to myself, I can stay out of emotional reactivity. That can be difficult to do around certain personality types. Some people have such a strong energy. It is vital to take time to look inward and find our own energy and act true to that. Bending to the energy of others takes us away from our truth. And into emotional reactivity.

What else would you add to this list? What helps you come down from emotionally charged situations? Add your answer in the comments.

Having emotions is human. They are a fuse box for our individual experience. When tripped they alert us to danger and help us see where we need better boundaries. It is important to notice your emotions.

The next step, that so many people skip, is crucial. Use your logical brain to decide which parts of the emotion fit the facts of the situation. Don’t allow the emotion to take control of the situation. Use that higher part of your brain to determine how you will respond. Emotions do not give us the right to treat others or ourselves poorly.

My Top Ten Ways to Regulate My Nervous System Once I’ve Been Triggered

If, like me, there are still times in your life where you are unsuccessful, don’t worry. Even if all these steps have failed, there is a way back. Here is my top ten list of how to regulate your nervous system once it has been overloaded.

Exercise. If it is an option for you, get moving. To have the greatest effect you will need to get your heart rate up and your sweat on. This is great for any type of detox that your body needs. Including stress.
Listen to music. Up- level by having a playlist on your music app that is for moments like this. Choose soothing songs that speak to you.
Cry! I used to avoid crying. I thought it was weak and embarrassing. But now I understand it is just another way that our body is supporting itself. Crying releases stress.
Cuddle a pet. Animals are so great at accepting us wherever we are. If you don’t have your own pet, go cuddle a friend’s. Animals are generally emotionally regulated (unless that is challenged by their human’s behaviour). So if you allow your energy to shift to theirs you will find yourself coming back to yourself.
Progressive muscle relaxation. If you haven’t heard of this you can google it. Many meditations that I follow use this as a tool. Essentially you tense a muscle group. Starting in your lower extremities and then moving to the top of your head. So starting with your feet. Tense. Hold for a few seconds and then release. Move up to your lower legs. Tense. Hold. Release. And so on. Connect to your body.
Speaking of meditations. This can look different for all of us. It can be sitting quietly and breathing. Praying to connect to your higher power. Or listening to a meditation app. I highly recommend Insight Timer if you are looking for one to try.
Spend time with friends who get it. Maybe that’s family or maybe you need to schedule a day with your besties. I hope you have someone in your life that can let you talk it out. And help you get to the bottom of your emotions. A paid professional is always an option too. I, personally, think that we all need a therapist.
Hug your person. There is something about holding one another heart to heart that provides a space for compassion and healing. Okay so this one isn’t my favourite. But it’s one I’m working on. I see the value of it.
Get enough sleep. This seems silly when there are so many things vying for our time. And likely, you are a grown adult that can go to bed whenever you want. But getting at least 8 hours of sleep at night will greatly improve your chances of recapturing emotional regulation. And a higher probability of keeping it in the future.
I have it here as #10 but it is actually my #1. Can you guess? Forest therapy! Even in the cold of Saskatchewan, there are days and ways to get some nature time in. Bundle up. Pick your spot. And enjoy what nature gives freely. Given enough time, you will regulate your nervous system with forest therapy. If you’d like to learn more, subscribe to the blog and watch for all I have coming in the spring. You can also contact me with any questions about forest therapy. Ask me about how to use it for all types of healing.

These have all worked for me in the past. Sometimes I need to try one or two. Take time to consider what works for you. Perhaps you will need to try a few before your emotions start to fizzle as well.

I mentioned that I would get to how sensory overload is different for my chronic comrades. When our emotions are running high we tend to go into sensory overload. Does this sound familiar to you when you’ve been emotionally triggered?

Unfortunate equation: chronic pain + too much stimuli = more pain. Have you ever been so overwhelmed by seemingly minimal inputs but you can’t explain it to anyone? Like: The lights are on. People are talking. The music is playing on the tv downstairs. My bra is on. I suddenly have too much hair. And my teeth feel weird. What is wrong with you people? Isn’t everyone else suffering from all of this stimuli?

Never fear. All is well. We have a list of ways to avoid being emotionally reactive. We also have a backup list of what to do if those don’t work.

It’s okay to be sensitive. That’s what happens when you have magic in your heart.

-dannys_moments_poetry

That’s it for this week my friends. Take care of yourselves.