Tag: mental-health

The Messy Middle: Finding Hope When Life Refuses to Be Tidy

pammunkholm

I am in the messy middle of my life.

Not the beginning, when everything still feels like clay. Wet, moldable, brimming with possibility. And not the end, when threads have been tied off and stories are stitched into something you can finally make sense of. I’m here, in the thick of it. In the in between. Healing from chronic pain and somehow learning to live with chronic fatigue, trying to shape what might be next.

Trying to find purpose in pain when the path ahead feels tender and unfinished.

She cleared out all of her old ideas of things, until she could hear her own joy with almost no effort at all.

-Sara Avant Stover, The Way of The Happy Woman

As I have talked about previously on here. I had a hysterectomy after years of fighting hormones that felt like they were clawing their way through my insides. Endometriosis pain stretched across entire seasons of my life.

And then there was my business. It was finally thriving, finally fun. Something my mom built with her hands and heart. But my body whispered then shouted then raged to get me to listen to its unmistakable limits.

Even sitting at the piano. The place that once felt like oxygen became something my body could no longer hold. Notes I used to float through now feel heavy, unsteady, often impossible.

Chronic pain doesn’t just take.

It rearranges.

It remodels.

It forces you into corners you didn’t see coming.

And here I am again, in this messy middle. Sorting out the parts of me that remain. Trying to decide what pieces go where, and to whom, and how much. Because there is only so much of me to go around.

My days are short. My energy is rationed. I can’t just “get up earlier” or “push harder” or “stretch the day.” Those tricks don’t work in this body.

I have learned, painfully, that pushing past limits costs me days, sometimes weeks, of recovery. I don’t slip gently into tired. I crash into a wall of pain with no warning and no buffer. There is no bouncing back.

I don’t have a reserve tank anymore.

I remember when I did.

I remember using an entire day to make snacks and treats for my family, cleaning the house, bathing my littles, tucking them into bed.

I remember being so tired, but feeling full. Like life had weight and meaning and movement. I loved looking at what I had accomplished.

Now?

I can get that same level of bone deep exhaustion from five minutes of washing the dishes.

And that, sadly, is not an exaggeration.

This isn’t “just midlife.”

This is chronic pain. And chronic fatigue. And chronic limitation.

But here’s the truth I’m holding onto-

The messy middle is still a valuable place. A real place. A sacred place of hope. A place worth tending.

And I’ve learned that healing isn’t found in the before or the after.

It’s found right here.

In the slow, intentional steps we take when life has to narrow down.

I have never experienced walking on sand in my winter boots before. Weird!

For me, one of those steps is forest therapy.

Where Forest Therapy Meets Healing Journey

In this season, forest therapy has become one of the few places where my body and my motivation find agreement.

It isn’t hiking. It isn’t performance. It isn’t even about movement.

It’s a return to your own breath. It is nature therapy in its gentlest form.

A soft doorway into emotional healing, grounded presence, and quiet hope.

A reclaiming of the parts of yourself that pain has tried to scatter.

A gentle companionship in the places of life that feel undone.

In the forest, I don’t have to be anything for anyone.

The trees don’t ask me to push. The moss doesn’t question my intentions. The forest simply holds space.

And in that space, I remember that even when life feels broken, I’m not.

I think healing is like that.

Quiet. Nonlinear. Messy.

More felt than understood.

And every time I enter the forest, I feel like I step onto a “ladder of hope.”

The Ladder of Hope by me

You climb it not in leaps
But in breaths.
You rise not by strength
But by softness.
The rungs are made of moments—
A bird call,
A sunbeam,
A place to sit.
And every rung you step on
Whispers the same truth:
You’re still rising.

These are small moment that lift me enough to keep going. Not giant steps. Not perfect healing. Not having everything sorted.

The middle is messy. But it’s also alive. It’s also becoming. It’s also sacred ground.

And maybe, purpose isn’t something we chase.

Perhaps it is something that can grow. Slowly, gently, sturdily. If we let it.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words. And never stops— at all.

-Emily Dickinson

Wherever you find yourself today, whether you’re living your own messy middle or standing at the edge of it, may you find one small rung of hope. One quiet moment. One breath of space.

Chronic pain has rerouted my life more times than I can count. It has taken me down roads I never meant to travel.

It’s like my GPS is stuck on the back roads setting as I travel cross country. Not quite the way I’d planned. A lot bumpier. Requiring a slower pace. And focused attention. It is often lonely. And misunderstood.

Sometimes a path calls for you to walk alone. And still, it is beautiful.

-Angie Weiland- Crosby

There are places where the forest tends us and our own breath begins to feel like a home again.

Let the air touch your face. Let the light filter in.

Climb one rung of your ladder of hope.

Just one. This will look different for each one of us. Rightly so.

We are still rising.

And that matters.

Winter, come rest your soul on autumn’s weary head. Twirl, shimmer, soften, before tucking fall into bed.

-Angie Weiland-Crosby

Finding Purpose and Beauty Amid Limitation: Healing Through Forest Therapy

pammunkholm

It was November- the month of crimson sunsets and parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind- songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.

–L.M. Montgomery

When chronic pain changes how you move through the world, finding purpose can feel impossible. Discover how forest therapy helps you reconnect with beauty, peace, and meaning amid limitation.

When the World Doesn’t Understand

This week, I’ve run into that old ache of being misunderstood.

A well-meaning friend said, “If someone is important, you find time to visit them.”

Another person offered me a job, a kind gesture, but one that didn’t see what my body needs right now. Despite having had this conversation with her. Recently.

I wanted to explain that my hours in a day are not the same as theirs. That every decision I make comes with the quiet calculation of energy, pain, and recovery. But I get tired of trying to convince people. That I have a nerve condition, that my life requires peace, that my healing depends on rest.

So instead of explaining, I go where I don’t need to explain.

To the forest.

To the lake.

To the soft company of trees who ask for nothing.

Sophistication in Life’s Constraints

There’s a strange grace in limitation. It strips away the noise. It forces you to listen closely to what truly matters.

Silfira (noun)

“silent fire” an inner quiet confidence that doesn’t need to be loud to be powerful

In chronic pain, the world becomes smaller. But sometimes that’s where beauty hides. The simple act of breathing deeply, the sound of wind in pine branches, the reflection of light on water. These moments remind me that purpose doesn’t disappear when your capacity does. It shifts.

Sometimes you have to let go of the picture of what you thought life would be like & learn to find joy in the story you are actually living.

–Rachel Marie Martin

Every visit to the woods rewires something inside me. It doesn’t erase pain, but it helps me hold it differently, with more compassion, less resistance.

Revitalize Your Soul: The Healing Power of Forest Therapy

In November the trees are standing all sticks and bones. Without their leaves, how lovely they are, spreading their arms like dancers.

-Cynthia Rylant, In November

Forest therapy, or shinrin-yoku, the Japanese practice of “forest bathing”, invites us to slow down and let the natural world do what it’s always done: heal.

When I walk among the trees, I don’t have to perform or explain. I can simply be. The forest doesn’t need me to be productive. It asks only that I show up, open, present, and willing to listen.

Science continues to affirm what our bodies already know. Time in nature lowers cortisol, reduces pain perception, and restores emotional balance. For those of us living with chronic illness, that’s not a luxury, it’s medicine.

Unleashing True Intent

Purpose used to look like productivity, working, helping, showing up for everyone else. Now, it looks like protecting my peace.

It looks like saying no when my body whispers, rest.

It looks like walking slowly among through the trees and realizing that healing is still a form of doing.

Living with chronic pain doesn’t mean my life is smaller. It means my purpose has changed shape, quieter, more deliberate, rooted in stillness.

But I am still connected with society. The kindergarten rules that apply to everyone else still apply to me. It just looks a little different. How do these rules apply to you?

  1. Share everything
  2. Play fair
  3. Clean up your own mess
  4. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody
  5. Don’t take things that aren’t yours
  6. Put things back where you found them
  7. Flush
  8. When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic
  9. Hold hands and stick together
  10. Be aware of wonder

And it is this final rule that I want focus on now.

Discovering Hidden Beauty in Your Everyday Surroundings

This is my life. And I can either accept it and find joy in every day, or I can let it ruin me.

-Unknown

Not every day feels beautiful. Some days, it takes effort to see beyond the ache. But the forest teaches patience. It reminds me that seasons change. That even the barest branch carries life within it.

I learned to know the love of bare November days.

–Robert Frost

Healing isn’t a straight path; it’s a spiral. And every time I return to the forest, I find another piece of myself waiting there grounded, calm, and whole enough to keep going.

Dancing with Discomfort

If you, too, are learning to live inside limitation, may you know this: your life is still rich with purpose.

You are not falling behind.

You are not invisible.

You are simply living at the rhythm your body requires.

Step outside. Breathe the air that has touched leaves and sky. Let the forest hold what words cannot.

Because sometimes the most powerful healing happens not when we push harder, but when we finally allow ourselves to be held by something greater.

Please never forget how brave it is to continue to show up in a story that looks so different than what you thought it’d be.

–Liz Newman

Finding Calm in Fibromyalgia: The Power of Forest Therapy

pammunkholm

fibromyalgia- noun, the feeling of being run over by a bus, dipped into a bucket of acid, and repeatedly thrown off a cliff without any physical evidence

So fibromyalgia,

This tale began long before the word fibromyalgia ever entered the room.

Before the angry bees. Before the heat waves. Before the exhaustion that made my bones hum.

Back then, my body was already waving a white flag.

Endometriosis had long been the ringleader of chaos, and hypermobility joined the act with its own flair for the dramatic. My hormones seemed to operate on a “scorched-earth” policy, every cycle left me depleted in every possible way: physically, mentally, spiritually, energetically.

So, after years of living in that internal thunderstorm, I made the decision to have a hysterectomy. It felt like clearing the undergrowth and removing what was fueling the fires, hoping sunlight could finally reach the forest floor. The surgery did bring relief. No more monthly hormonal hurricanes, no more monthly pain to the degree it pulled joints out of place. In this body that closely resembles a badly fastened tent in a windstorm.

But when the dust settled, I was left with a forest that had already burned.

Attending to the Aftermath: When Your Body Refuses to Cooperate

Recovery was supposed to be a time of healing, but my body apparently missed that memo. Surgery, anesthesia, medications, they left their residue. And to top it off, I woke up to find I’d been dropped unceremoniously into menopause.

My body and I have had a complicated relationship, but menopause turned it into a full-on standoff. Hormone therapy was off the table after one tiny patch sent my muscles on an extended vacation. No postcard, no warning, just gone 👋🏼.

So I turned to holistic treatments. Some soothed the edges, helped me sleep, softened the emotional rage that had been living rent-free in my chest. But nothing touched the furnace within. Every thirty minutes, like clockwork, my body would light up with that internal combustion that seems to come from the bowels of Hell itself. Heart racing. Skin buzzing. Brain short-circuiting.

Then came the chills. The kind that made you question every life choice that led to this point.

This cycle of heat, sweat, freeze, repeat, went on for a year. Every. Half. Hour.

But also this 👇🏼

It’s hard to heal when your body never stops sounding the alarm.

Tuirse

(Irish/gaelic) a deep sense of tiredness, weariness or fatigue that can refer to both physical and emotional or spiritual exhaustion. Soul- level weariness, melancholy, or the emotional heaviness of enduring life’s struggles. (gaeilgeoir.ai)

Buzzed and Bothered Bees

Fibromyalgia had been sitting quietly on my medical chart for years. Alongside its equally mysterious companion, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. I used to think they were just polite placeholders for the doctors to say 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♂️ “we don’t actually think you have anything.”

But after the hysterectomy, I learned what they really meant.

It started in my forearms, this sharp tingling that grew into what I now call the angry bees. I picked that up from somewhere. That’s not my analogy.

A swarm of bees that lives under my skin, buzzing, burning, twitching. Eventually, the bees migrated up my arms, into my neck, sometimes triggering migraines that feel like the entire hive moved into my skull.

I’ve come to learn the bees are mood-driven. They thrive on stress and pain but mellow out in sunshine and rest. On a good day, when my toes are buried in natural elements, the bees hum instead of sting.

Fibromyalgia is like that. Unpredictable, wild, and buzzing with sensations that don’t make sense but demand attention.

Contemplating my Clearing

Somewhere in all of that chaos, I found forest therapy.

It didn’t happen with a grand epiphany. It started with a slow walk. A quiet pause. A breath that finally reached the bottom of my lungs.

I began to notice how the forest holds its own balance. Even when trees are damaged as storms tear through, life finds a way to reorganize itself. The underbrush grows back differently. Sometimes softer, sometimes stronger, always intentional.

So I began to clear my own underbrush. The overgrown “shoulds.” The tangles of perfectionism. The toxic patterns that had wrapped themselves around my worth.

As the poet John O’Donohue wrote,

When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm or waves.

In the woods, I let myself unravel a little. My body could buzz, twitch, and ache but surrounded by green, the bees didn’t seem so angry. The forest became a mirror, showing me that healing isn’t about erasing pain, it’s about learning to live among it, gently.

The Healing Continues…

“The forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness, nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself.” – Richard Nelson

The bees still visit. The heat still flares. The fatigue still sneaks up like fog rolling in uninvited.

But now, I have a clearing to return to. A place both within and around me, where my nervous system can remember what calm feels like.

Fibromyalgia taught me that healing isn’t a straight path. It’s more like a winding forest trail that keeps surprising you. Some days you stumble. Some days you sit on a log and cry. And some days—miraculously—you dance with the bees instead of fighting them.

So I keep walking. Slowly. Barefoot when I can. Listening for birdsong between the buzzing.

And when I feel the swarm rising, I head for the trees asap.

Because out there, among the whispering leaves and mossy ground, my body remembers what peace feels like. Even if just for a breath.

I pray this winter be gentle and kind- a season of rest from the wheel of the mind.

-John Geddes

How Forest Therapy Can Transform Your Pain Experience

pammunkholm

Through my chronic pain saga, I’ve tried it all.

I’ve ignored the pain, pretending if I just kept busy enough, it would slip quietly away.

I’ve focused on it, making it my full-time job to “fix” it.

Neither worked.

Today, I practice something else. I notice.

I name what I feel and where it lives in my body.

I soften toward it, rather than tighten around it.

I work with my pain instead of trying to conquer it.

It sounds simple, but it’s a lifelong apprenticeship. This learning to befriend the body instead of managing it like a disobedient child.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

— Henri Nouwen

Can we learn to do that for ourselves?

That’s what forest therapy has become for me: a quiet companion that doesn’t try to fix me. The forest listens. It holds space. It teaches me to listen, too.

A few weeks ago, one of my grands fell on my pinky finger. Such a small thing. My hand was resting on a toy, and when I yanked it back, it twisted and pulled. A teeny tiny trauma, I told myself. But that little pinky has been aching for weeks now. Every time I use my left hand to hold a phone, lift a spoon, or pick up that same grand, there’s an internal ow! 😣 And of course I am left handed. Isn’t that the way it always goes?

When I ignore it, I finish the day with an inflamed, angry pinky.

When I overprotect it, the rest of my hand rebels from overuse.

So today, I notice.

I hold space for that poor sweet pinky.

I breathe.

I ask, What do you need today? Not verbally, not out loud. But an internal question. My body always has an answer when I listen long enough.

Until my physiotherapist can put it back together, I do what I can: soften, listen, and allow.

And if that were all I had to do in a day, it would be enough. But these teeny traumas are always happening. For all of us, physical, emotional, spiritual. So I hold space for how hard my life with chronic pain is. I notice and name the struggles it creates. I practice compassion toward myself, the way I would with a friend.

It takes time. And it takes being in the right energy.

The forest helps me remember how to do that. To remember that some years hold questions. And other years will hold answers.

When I walk among the trees, I’m reminded that healing isn’t a straight line, it’s a spiral. The forest doesn’t rush its growth. It doesn’t apologize for the slow work of roots. It knows that rest and renewal are part of the same rhythm.

Autumn embraces change, even as she is falling to pieces.

— Angie Weilland- Crosby

Perhaps I can too.

If you rush it you will ruin it. Pause, pray and be patient.

— Success Minded

My body, similarly, doesn’t like to be rushed.

It doesn’t like to be cold, so as we edge toward winter, I keep a fuzzy blanket in the car.

It needs rest, so I try. Really try! To make sleep a priority.

And I often have to remind myself: this is not selfish.

Spending time in nature isn’t indulgence, it’s maintenance. It’s what can give you the strength to change another diaper, to wipe another snotty nose. To meet the demands of work, to hold the people who need holding. Or in my case to listen to my body. And find the strength to face another day of pain.

JOGAYOP (is this a thing? if it isn’t, it should be)

Joy of going at your own pace. Staying in your lane and adopting the rhythm and speed of living and working that feels just right for you. Letting go of societal pressure to be where everyone else is at.

When we live in any type of deficit, meaning in lack or shortage, we feel it. No system can continue to function long when it is continually experiencing a deficiency.

When our finances are in deficit, there’s pressure. A business that does not bring in sufficient income for its expenses will have no choice but to close.

When our spiritual life is in deficit, there’s darkness. Someone that is experiencing spiritual darkness and refuses to do the things that invite light to their life cannot expect anything to change. And even their light parts will become dim.

When our physical health is in deficit, there’s pain that grows louder and harder to ignore. We forget that this system will also eventually face breakdown if left unchecked.

After time in nature I can turn down the volume of my pain. I can see it in the broader perspective of life. Just like this jack-o’-lantern. Often things are actually smaller than they appear. Try taking a step back.

So I keep returning to the forest to notice, to soften, to reconnect. To see the bigger picture.

Not to fix.

Not to control.

But to listen.

Because the body, like the forest, is always whispering the way home.

There are four natural sanctuaries in life and nature holds them all. Silence. Solitude. Stillness. Simplicity.

Seek healing in these sanctuaries. It is available. It is real.

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.

— Wallace Stevens

Cortisol Control: The Benefits of Nature

pammunkholm

You know that moment when your brain starts buffering? Like a spinning wheel of doom, but for your entire nervous system? That’s where I found myself recently—somewhere between “I’ve got this” and “please send snacks and an ambulance.”

Today’s yoga pose? Downward spiral.

The Story So Far

In 2020, body was in full rebellion. Pain, exhaustion, confusion, everything hurt, inside and out.

Since then, I’ve been clawing my way back by working on my physical, mental, social, and spiritual health. Like it’s a full-time job. There have been peaks and valleys (and maybe a few deep, dark sinkholes). Working on myself used to take all my time and energy.

But lately? I’ve felt strong. Strong enough to take on more.

More housework. More meals. More people to serve. More responsibilities. More friendships. More everything. The more I took on, the more I was given.

And I love all of it.

But herein lies the problem:

I will take care of everyone and everything until it dang near kills me.

The Wall: From Fortress to Fragments

I thought I was doing great. Managing the stress. Juggling the busyness. Feeling like a semi-functional adult again.

Then, I hit my wall.

And boy, was it a humdinger!. That wall came crumbling down on top of me like an emotional mega Jenga tower. Now I’m lying under the rubble of all my well-intentioned choices, beaten, broken, and weak.

But nobody saw the wall. Or the impact. Or the consequences. It can’t be seen. It can only be felt.

Acedia

A deep inner fatigue where one feels detached from purpose, overwhelmed by meaninglessness, and resistant to both spiritual and worldly engagement

I want to be dependable and capable. But having an invisible illness complicates things. The better I look, the more people assume I must be better.

Here’s the true list of things I am handling well right now:

So I push harder. Because I want to help. I want to contribute. It’s easier to push through the pain than defend my need to slow down.

{ “you’re looking so strong” “thanks, I can’t wait to cry tonight” }

But the harder I push, the higher my cortisol climbs. Until it’s practically coming out my nose and ears.

The Marvels of Scientific Wonder

Chronic stress and chronic pain are the best of friends 😀! The kind that make each other worse 😟.

When you live with chronic pain, your body is already in fight-or-flight mode. Add stress to that, and your nervous system goes full drama queen.

Cortisol, your main stress hormone, floods your system. Muscles tense. Inflammation rises. Pain intensifies.

And then, because pain is a stressor, your body releases more cortisol 😞.

It’s a vicious, exhausting, cortisol-fueled merry-go-round that no one in their right mind would sign up for.

So when I talk about being under the rubble, it’s not just a metaphor. My body feels it. My pain spikes. My thoughts spiral. My patience with humanity plummets to record lows.

I feel pointless, expendable, futile.

Exploring the Heart of the Forest

When I finally stop long enough to realize I’m drowning in stress hormones. I know exactly where I need to be: the forest.

Not just in it. But IN it.

That’s the difference forest therapy makes for me. It’s not a hike. It’s not exercise. It’s a slow, sensory, presence-filled practice that invites my body to exhale.

When my cortisol drops, which research shows it actually does in the forest (you can find such research here 👉 PubMed and here 👉 Frontiers), everything softens. My mind clears. The lines between “too much” and “just enough” come into focus. I can see my path ahead, appearing gently on my mind like drops of morning dew.

The forest is a hallowed place for me. It is one of the places I find my strength from heaven. I am reminded that I don’t have to hold everything up all the time. There is strength other than mine available for that. I picture the trees taking the weight. They can handle it. They’ve been doing it for centuries.

Beyond the Horizon

The stress of life is intense. The stress of life with chronic pain is compounded. Like someone hit “multiply by 100” on your degree of difficulty button.

There’s the financial tightening. The grief of the life you lost. Watching others live out dreams you’ve had to let go of.

And always, always, the judgment (spoken or not.)

“If you’re broke, go get a job!”

(Maybe it’s just the echo in my head but it’s really loud! 😳)

Then these words from Brene Brown come to mind,

You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.

Yet shame and uselessness that come with not being able to work the way I used to… those feelings are heavy. They sit on my chest like an invisible refrigerator tipped over on my ribcage, unexpected, ridiculous, and very hard to explain to anyone passing by.

But here’s the thing I keep learning:

My worth doesn’t live in what I produce. I need to write that again. My worth doesn’t live in what I produce!

It lives in my presence. In the stillness. In the way I can connect with the world around me, even when my body protests.

And when I take myself to the forest, when I let the cortisol fall and the moss do its quiet task,

I remember that I am still healing. And that’s holy work.

I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it?

-Anne Shirley

Mastering the Art of Getting Back Up

If you’ve hit your wall (again), maybe this is your reminder that you don’t have to climb out of the rubble all at once. It’s okay to have days when your illness and pain win. But chronic illness also means I don’t have the luxury of waiting until I ‘feel better’ to participate in life.

Start by finding one quiet, living thing.

A tree. A bird. The wind.

Let it hold space for you until you can hold space for yourself.

Honored are the ones who hum back at bees, clap for rain, and admire the architecture of spider webs.

–Earthy Herbs

And if you happen to cry on a pinecone…

well, that’s just free aromatherapy. Shine bright darlings. The world needs your light.

October is about trees revealing colors they’ve hidden all year. People have an october as well.

–JM Storm

Mind-Body Connection: Nature’s Soothing Benefits

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.

🌲When Comparison Becomes a Thorn in Your Forest 🌳

pammunkholm

Sometimes my life feels like a forest—dense, shadowed, and uneven.

Everyone else seems to walk a wide, sunlit path: their maps are clear, their steps steady, their packs light.

Meanwhile, I carry heavy bundles of pain and medicine, stumbling often, wondering if I’ll ever catch up.

~Cue the tiny violins 🎻 🤭~

Beyond the Familiar: Embracing a Different Forest

My therapist keeps telling me to stop comparing myself to other people – that life’s not a competition. Which, to be fair, is exactly what I’d say to someone I was trying to beat, too.

-from 22 Quotes About Chronic Pain

Comparison is never useful. It’s like measuring trees by how tall they look in someone else’s forest, forgetting that soil, roots, storms, and sunlight differ wildly. 

Or like judging an oak tree by how quickly the wildflowers around it bloom. Different roots, different seasons, different reasons for being.

And yet I fall into it—measuring my path against someone else’s trail, forgetting we are not even walking in the same terrain.

Comparing … is a waste of time and effort; we are all different people, experiencing and feeling things differently.

San Diego Prepare Yourself: Sisterhood Adventures Await

Next month, my sisters will gather in San Diego. I am so excited for them. And to hear about their adventures. Sunshine, laughter, time to connect. It’ll be fabulous.

I would love to be there. But the cost of my monthly medicine is about the same as what that trip would take.

I live in a different economy—the economy of pain management. So instead of boarding a plane, I stay home.

~Poor lil’ me 🥲👉👈 🤣 ~

It’s hard not to compare. Their togetherness, my absence. Their momentum, my stillness. I remind myself that longing is not failure—but it still stings.

Screenshots of a Life I Don’t Live: Family Call, Personal Spiral

On a recent morning: my sister called from her vacation in London. On a family video call. At 9 a.m., I was still coaxing my muscles awake.

I listened to the bagpipes she was sharing and checked out the sights in the background. I marvelled at what she has been able to accomplish and see in her life. I joy in her success.

Inevitably another emotion starts to rise. As on the screen, this is what I see:

  • One sister in her home office, thriving in a job that suits her perfectly.
  • Another in her kitchen, caring for her family and home.
  • A sister-in-law outdoors, likely at the park or on a walk with her two littles.
  • My parents smiling in their living room, enjoying retirement and seeing their family.
  • And then there was me—tired, clearly still in bed, clearly accomplishing nothing.

That’s how I saw it. In truth, no one said that. But comparison painted me useless in bold letters across the screen.

~Woe is meee 🐌💤 😜 ~

A Sermon I Couldn’t Speak

At church, I tried to answer a question on a bad pain day after a sleepless night. My words came tangled, incomplete.

I saw my husband’s face and thought, I’m taking too long. I gave up. Without tying my random thoughts together. And I gave him the microphone. He expertly gave a clear, concise answer that was perfectly on point. My effort looked weak next to his polish.

Comparison whispered: why even try?

Fredrik Backman once wrote:

“My brain and I, we are not friends. My brain and I, we are classmates doing a group assignment called Life. And it’s not going great.”

But here’s the truth: trying counts. Even stumbling words are a kind of courage.

The Math of Measuring Up Never Works: The Broken Ruler I Keep Using

Comparison is a thief. It always leaves you with less than you started.

It’s like weighing a feather against a stone and expecting the scale to balance it out. It demands a sameness life never promised. It blinds us to the worth in our own story.

As a people, we tend to magnify the strengths and blessings another person receives. But minimize our own gifts, talents and opportunities. Social media is as helpful as a screen on a submarine when it comes to perpetuating this problem.

There’s no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn’t be ranked, because pain is not a contest.

No one truly wins the “Pain Olympics”.

–Lori Gottlieb

Living with chronic pain means my days will never look like someone else’s. But that doesn’t mean they’re lesser—it just means they’re different.

Brene Brown says:

Fear and scarcity trigger comparison and we start to rank our own suffering.

Brown calls this comparative suffering. She goes on to say,

The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough.

Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world

This toxic pattern of comparison blocks emotional processing and prevents genuine empathy, creating isolation rather than connection. 

My worth is not judged by what I do in comparison to others, but by what I do with what I have—what love, what compassion, what presence I can offer. Even just in showing up.

Measuring By Love, Not Ladders

I’ve decided to measure my life by something else: in every conversation, I want the other person to leave feeling better about themselves than when we started.

If they do, then I’ve accomplished something real. It may not be a promotion, a trip abroad, or a picture-perfect moment. But it’s love, and it’s within my reach.

In such a headspace there should be no time for shame and comparing. Only felicitations and adulation.

Broken But Still Moving

Mandy Harvey is a singer/ songwriter. I saw her on an America’s Got Talent clip. Mandy lost her hearing when she was 18. Interestingly enough she has EDS which is similar to my connective tissue disorder.

On the show, she spoke about initially going to dark places. And when she decided she wanted more for her life, she wrote this song. And performed it in front of a live audience and judges and cameras.

She beautifully sings,

“I don’t feel the way I used to / The sky is grey much more than it is blue / But I know one day I’ll get through/ And I’ll take my place again… So I will try…

There is no one for me to blame/ Cause I know the only thing in my way/ Is me…

I don’t live the way I want to/ That whole picture never came into view/ But I’m tired of getting used to/ The day

So I will try..

Those words hold me when comparison tries to unravel me.

Forest Therapy: A Way Forward

If comparison is a thorn, forest therapy can be a balm.

The forest floor is messy. Layers of leaf litter, moss, dead wood. It doesn’t pretend to be clean and perfect. It is rich because of its imperfections.

Your struggles, limitations, pain give richness and texture to your life story—not flaws to hide.

Walking a path in woods, you may have to step over roots, navigate mud and stray branches. But each step gives you awareness, grounding, breathing space.

Comparison often makes us spin like leaves in the wind; forest therapy anchors us.

When comparison grabs tight, I go to the woods.

The forest does not compare:

  • Trees don’t measure their height against one another.
  • Moss doesn’t resent the ferns.
  • Streams don’t ask why the river runs faster.

Each element grows where it is, as it is. That is enough.

Roots, Rituals and Small Resets

Here are ways the forest has supported me:

Leaning against a tree and letting its rootedness remind me that I, too, belong.

Listening to the birds until my thoughts soften.

Sitting by water and imagining my comparisons floating downstream.

From Forest Floor to Open Sky

Yes, I still compare. Yes, it still hurts. But when I remember that comparison steals joy, I find space to choose something else.

I may not be in San Diego, or London, or even fully awake at 9 a.m. (to those who are, Have as good a time as possible, given that I’m not there. Heehee 😊)

~Life said nope 🙃🍋~

I can still offer kindness, presence, and love.

And maybe that is enough.

I want to feel good about my life. Not in the sense of “as good as anyone else,” but as my life, full of the shape I have.

Chronic pain is part of the soil I grow in. It’s changed what I can do, yes—but also deepened what I can feel, what I can appreciate.

If everyone else seems to be walking on sunlit paths, I may be walking in dappled shade, or in a different time of day. But my path is still mine, and still worthy. Because even in the shaded parts of the forest, light still filters through.

🍂Forest Therapy: A Refuge from the Battle of the Pill

pammunkholm

If I stand on my tip toes I can see autumn from here.

-Unknown

There are nights when pain feels like a forest fire. It consumes everything, licking at nerves, muscles, and bones, until even the smallest ember becomes unbearable. For me, forest therapy has always been a refuge—trees that don’t ask me to explain, the wind that listens without judgment. But no walk in the woods can erase the reality of the deep harm that comes when the medications I rely on are suddenly out of reach.

Biophilia

the ancient memory that li ves in our bones- a quiet longing to belong to the earth, a deep and sacred bond that awakens our senses and nurtures our souls.

Tales from My Trek

Recently, I went to fill my prescription. It’s a narcotic, tightly controlled with a note that says it can only be filled every 30 days. The problem? It was day 29, and I was out. 😳

For some prescriptions, waiting until the next day is an inconvenience. But when you’re on a heavy narcotic at the highest dose, one missed pill isn’t just painful—it’s catastrophic.

That night without medication meant I wasn’t just “in pain.” It meant shaking, twitching, and detoxing against my will. For a medication I’d have to take in the morning!

I’ve missed this pill before. My body, already fragile, spiraled: my nervous system hijacked by fight-or-flight, my hormones in chaos, my temperature regulation broken. I’d overheat, then sweat, then shiver, round and round. All while my pain screamed louder and louder. It is my definition of Hell.

And the damage doesn’t end when the sun rises. One night like this unravels days—sometimes weeks—of careful work to bring my nervous system into alignment. Forest therapy sessions that usually soothe my body’s alarms are erased by the fresh trauma of unmanaged withdrawal.

One pill—just one—becomes the difference between fragile balance and collapse.

The Pharmacy Door 🚪

This wasn’t the first time.

Years ago, when I was short on medication, it was actually the pharmacy’s mistake. A tech who knew me—a kind soul who remembered my name—looked closer. While others repeated, “Sorry, you can’t have more. Come back tomorrow,” he dug into the records and discovered their count was off by the exact number I was missing. He trusted me. He believed my story. He saw me.

This time was different. My tech friend wasn’t there.

When this new tech told me I couldn’t have more until tomorrow, he must have seen the terror in my eyes. Or noticed me standing in shock for 5 minutes. Just standing by the pharmacy. Holding back tears, while physically and mentally spinning in circles. But instead of offering solutions, he shrugged and said, “Come back in the morning.”

Being someone who hates to cause a stir, I went home. But home is where the panic broke through. I sobbed uncontrollably. My body already gearing up for withdrawal.

Then I realized: silence won’t help me survive this.

I called back. I asked about options. The tech said I could talk to the pharmacist. Why wasn’t that offered before? 🤨

When I spoke with the pharmacist, his tone was dismissive, almost mocking: “So what do you want me to do about it?”

I explained again, told him what would happen if I went without. He finally asked if I’d even come pick it up that night IF he were to fill it.

Sir, I thought, I just told you what a night without it would do. Do you think I’d let that happen if I had any choice?

Eventually, he relented and filled it twelve hours early. I picked it up feeling like I should bow at his feet in gratitude. As if he’d granted me a favor rather than spared me a night of needless suffering. I felt the need to thank him repeatedly.

The petty side of me still wants to send him a Get Better Soon card. Not because he’s sick. But because I think he could do better. As a human being. I’d have to send it anonymously because this is not a person I want to be on their bad side.

The Bigger Picture

I know narcotics require tight monitoring. I know the system has to guard against abuse. But what about patients like me—the ones who never asked for this, who were put on these medications by doctors, and who don’t have the option of just going off of them. When there is something physiologically happening that is not right.

If only I could put into understandable words. This is what is happening everywhere in my body. ☝🏼

Why does losing one pill make me look like a drug seeker? Why is my lived record of years not enough to earn trust? Why is the assumption always suspicion?

Do they want me to be all natural? Do they realize it is people like me who keep them in business? I literally pay their bills!

I wouldn’t have to if I could live every day in the forest—if I could soak in the mossy quiet, breathe in the pine air, let the gentle rhythm of birdsong reset my nervous system—perhaps I wouldn’t need the pills.

But my reality is different.

My reality is managing chronic pain in a system that too often treats me like the problem instead of the patient.

🍂 Whispers of the Woods

As I write this, I think of a line from poet Wendell Berry:

“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.”

What if the same was said of patients? To cherish them. To foster their renewal. To see them not as potential criminals but as human beings navigating unbearable pain.

Another lesser-known verse comes to mind from Antonio Machado:

“Between living and dreaming there is a third thing. Guess it.”

For me, that “third thing” is surviving. It’s clawing through nights without medication. It’s cobbling together therapies—like time in the forest—that offer some relief, though never enough.

Compassion: The Heartbeat of Humanity

I don’t have the solution. But I do know this: when we treat patients like addicts instead of people, we add more pain to lives already saturated with it. I believe we can find a way to monitor responsibly while also practicing compassion, dignity, and trust.

So I’m asking you: have you experienced something like this? Have you been caught in the impossible bind between regulations and your own survival? Do you have ideas for how this system could better serve those who truly need it?

Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s start a conversation. Because one pill shouldn’t have the power to undo everything.

It was a lovely afternoon-such an afternoon as only September can produce when summer has stolen back for one day of dream and glamour.

-L.M. Montgomery

The Economy of Chronic Pain

pammunkholm

I got saved by the beauty of the world.

-Mary Oliver

A dear friend once said something to me that I can’t get out of my head: chronic pain has its own economy. She suggested I write a post on it. So here we are. (@soulfullifebyamanda)

For anyone under the impression that disability payments and medications cover everything in chronic pain, this quote is for you.

Illusion is the dust the devil throws in the eyes of the foolish.

-Mina Antrim

For anyone suffering financially and energetically, let this post be your validation. And don’t worry. “Whatever doesn’t kill us only makes us weirder and harder to relate to.”

Does anyone else feel like their body’s ‘check engine’ light has been on for months and you’re still driving like, “it’ll be fiiiiine,” because you can’t afford to do anything about it anyway?

When I think of the economy of chronic pain. I picture myself stepping into the forest with only a small shopping basket. Every choice I make—financial or physical—has to fit inside that basket. There’s no room for waste, no luxury of tossing in extra. Just like in the forest, every twig, every step, every breath matters.

For those of us living with chronic pain, our baskets are small. They hold both our financial and our energy reserves—and both run out faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

In Canada, disability payments exist, but they are like shafts of sunlight that barely break through a dense canopy. They aren’t enough to warm the forest floor.

And so, we ration. We stretch. We weigh every step carefully. And in the process provoke our fussy nerves into an outraged uproar over and over again.

Surviving the Price Tag

Here’s one example from my own life: every month, I spend about $600 on medication for pain relief. There’s no coverage for it. It’s outrageously expensive, but it’s what allows me to keep moving through the forest at all.

Others I know make different choices. Some decide not to medicate, and instead spend their limited resources on healthier food, therapy sessions, or simply keeping a roof overhead.

There is no right way. Each of us is navigating our own overgrown path, deciding what can fit in the basket we carry.

Even those of us diagnosed with chronic pain conditions may not see the myriad of options. Of what could go in the basket. Given the resources. More frustrating is the knowledge that some therapies, while proven extremely effective, will not be financially viable. In some cases, not even offered in my area.

  • counseling sessions; the cost coming out of pocket (no job=no benefits) is high, yet the benefits of CBT and ACT psychotherapy for pain have been shown to be impressive, marriage support is also much needed in the case of ongoing pain and illness
  • therapies; acupuncture, Reiki and other energy healing work, physiotherapy, massage, chiropractor, aqua therapy, hypnotherapy, the list can seem limited for your specific needs, but there are always new options coming available
  • medications; these are also ever evolving, I believe in a combination of medicine and natural therapies, this is a personal decision
  • lifestyle changes; Saskatchewan winters call for a gym pass to stay active, these are not free
  • dieticians; can support with ongoing needs
  • stress reduction therapies; FOREST THERAPY!!, meditation courses and classes, yoga, tai chi, music, art or pet therapy,
Spinkie- Den: Scottish; a woodland clearing filled with flowers.

The Grove of Dilemmas

When you live in this economy, everything has a cost. The pressure keeps me marvelously productive. I entered the kitchen to do the dishes, but saw the pile of laundry on the floor, so I watered a plant, while looking for my phone to make the doctor’s appointment. To sum up, I couldn’t find it in time and now my leg is swelling and I have to put it up again. I accomplished nothing. 😤

Given the choice, where are you willing to “pay” extra?

Do you get help with your home to attend to the piling dishes, laundry and dog hair, or put on blinders to the mess because there are no funds for such frivolity as clean dishes, clothes and floors?

“Any dog can be a guide dog if you don’t care where you’re going.”

Do you take the shorter trail to an appointment (closer parking) or save money by forcing your body down the longer route?

Do you use precious energy to cook a nourishing meal, or save your strength and spend more money on convenience?

Do you go out to meet a friend, knowing it will mean a day of recovery afterward, or do you stay home and bear the weight of loneliness?

The forest is full of paths, and each one demands a toll.

Costs That Lurk Beneath the Canopy

The cost of connection. Friendship and belonging are like wildflowers in the undergrowth. But they don’t bloom without effort. They often require money for transportation, or the strength to leave the house, or both. Yet the cost of isolation can feel heavier than any of it.

The cost of time. Chronic pain asks us to wait. Waiting for appointments. Waiting for medications to maybe work. Waiting for healing that never seems to come. Time here drips slowly, like water from moss after rain, and once it’s gone, it cannot be gathered again.

“The hardest thing about illness is that it teaches patience by stealing time.

-Unknown

Both remind me that even in this strange economy, even in this forest of loss and trade-offs, there is still gentleness. There is still strength in being here, still roots growing quietly beneath the soil.

Forest Therapy: A Rich Investment in Well-Being

And this is where forest therapy becomes not just a metaphor, but a lifeline.

When my basket is empty, when my reserves are gone, the forest offers a kind of wealth that doesn’t demand dollars or energy I don’t have. Sitting under the trees, breathing in the scent of pine, listening to the rustle of leaves—these are exchanges that give more than they take.

Forest therapy reminds me that not everything of value is bought or measured. The forest doesn’t charge for its healing. It simply offers. It allows us to rest, to breathe, to remember that even when our budgets—financial and energetic—are painfully small, there is still abundance to be found.

The economy of chronic pain is harsh and unrelenting. But the forest’s economy is different. It trades in stillness, in breath, in presence. It offers shade when the sun is too much, and quiet when the noise of survival is too loud.

This is why I keep returning to the trees. Because while the world asks me to spend what I don’t have, the forest reminds me: here, you are enough, just as you are.

The forest hides more than it reveals, yet what it reveals, sustains us.

-Unknown

The True Currency: Compassion

To those supporting people with chronic pain, we love you and we thank you. Please remember to lead with compassion. Your person is not lazy or careless, but living within an economy most cannot imagine. Lead with compassion and the way forward can be made clear.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

-William Hazlitt

To recap, I caution against developing chronic pain and illness. It is terribly expensive and inconvenient for others. 😏

September you are promising. The beginning of a gorgeous and necessary decay. The edge of triumph before the deep rest.

-Victoria Erickson

Minor Injury and Connective Tissue Disorder: Cue My Prison Sentence

pammunkholm

To tell me I cannot run is to hold my body in contempt.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

This past weekend I was out boating with friends. The sun was shining, laughter was everywhere, and the water was perfect. My absolute favorite kind of day. Until it wasn’t.

The beach is so amazing. We all lay around in our undies with complete strangers eating sandy sandwiches and chips. What a world!

But this trip was too eventful for me. I slipped off the back of the boat. A simple misstep—my foot chose the slippy part before the ladder instead of the grippy part. My skin slid down the metal and scraped in a couple of places. For most people, it would be a painful annoyance. Maybe a couple of Band-Aids and an “ouch” when the rubbing alcohol stings.

But for me, with a connective tissue disorder, a “minor” injury isn’t minor. It’s my own prison sentence.

Day 3 post slip

The moment my leg hit and the skin tore, my body responded like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Two points, swelling to the size of small eggs appeared instantly. My vision swam, nausea hit, and I nearly fainted. I had to be rushed off the beach. Reluctantly, I might add. I just wanted to stay and play. 🤷‍♀️

And yet, as I moved it around, the swelling went down. After a few ginger steps, walking proved feasible. So, I stayed on the beach. Carefully. Pretending things were fine. Until the next day, when I accidentally touched one of the angry spots and nearly fainted again from the pain. Cue swelling, round two.

This bruise on the back of my leg also happened in the fall.

Nothing feels broken. This isn’t a cast-and-crutches type of injury. This is a – my tissue is angry and having a meltdown kind of injury. The kind that will ripple through every layer of healing, slowly, stubbornly, piece by piece.

The Cascading Consequence

Here’s what happens with mobile joints and connective tissue disorders:

  • Immediate tantrum. Tissue swells, pain spikes, body goes into shock.
  • Muscle aftermath. Even if the muscle wasn’t directly injured, it’s recruited in the act of catching yourself, and now it’s tight, inflamed, and waiting its turn to protest.
  • The balancing act. I need to keep running to maintain the strength that keeps my joints in place, but I also can’t overwork what’s injured.
  • Scar tissue sneak attack. When scar tissue forms, it doesn’t just “heal.” It tugs on joints already prone to slipping, pulling them out of place.

This 👆is why what looks minor to you becomes a long-term balancing act ⚖️ for me.

There is no test, no monitor, no scan that can tell us exactly what’s happening.

It’s me, listening to my body.

And my physiotherapist J, patiently piecing me back together one session at a time.

Photo by Mohamad Salam on Pexels.com

👆🏼 Me as Humpty Dumpty right before needing to be put back together again. 👆🏼

What most people heal from in days, I will heal from in months. 🗓

K️oekentroost

Dutch. “the emotional support cookie you eat after a mildly inconvenient day. (in my case it will be pretzels dipped in nutella)

The Weight of Waiting

The hardest part isn’t the pain. It’s the waiting.

Waiting to run.

Waiting to trust my joints again.

Waiting to see what the scar tissue will do this time to wreak havoc.

It feels like all the work I’ve put in at the gym—months of biking, running, strengthening—could slip away in the span of a single misstep.

That’s the prison. The confinement. The pause button ⏸️ on a life I’ve fought so hard to keep moving ▶️ .

Forest as Healer

But here’s where I return to what always saves me: the forest.

When I step (or hobble) into the trees, I remember that healing doesn’t always look like forward motion. Sometimes it looks like stillness. A dense canopy could be covering spectacular growth. The river’s gentle flow might be a glimpse of the heavy current below. The trees stand, patient and unwavering, reminding me that growth and repair take the time they take.

Forest therapy gives me what no physiotherapy session can: the intuition to hear what my body is really saying.

My blessing in life is to have a physiotherapist that encourages me to spend time there. And to follow my body’s intuitive pace and direction. J pursues us and provides support along the way.

It’s in the quiet green spaces 🌲 where I learn when to push 😖 and when to rest 💤 . Where I can breathe out the frustration 😮‍💨 and breathe in the steadiness of the earth 🌍 beneath me.

It is in the forest where I believe that healing isn’t just possible—it’s already happening.

When you read the list of benefits, do you see the connection? Grounding will be one of my greatest therapies in each phase of mending.

Words to Carry Me

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” – Galatians 6:9 

“The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” – Moliere

“Even the strongest storms don’t last forever. The sun always returns to the forest.” – Unknown

And she will keep coming back to life, over and over again, because beneath the skin of this gentle human lives a warrior unstoppable.

-Annabelle M Ramos

Healing with mobile joints is a marathon made of tiny sprints and long pauses. It’s the art of balancing strength with surrender. And when the world feels like it’s closing in—when a scraped leg feels like a prison sentence—the forest opens its arms and says, you are safe here. Take your time. Heal.

My veins are filled with stories of survival.

– Mitali P.