mental health – 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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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. 🧼 🚪

Nourish Your Nervous System: Forest Therapy Insights

April 7, 2026April 9, 2026 pammunkholm

This Spring is literally that friend who always says they’re, ‘on their way’ but hasn’t even left the house yet.

As a forest therapy guide, I spend my days watching the silent, slow-motion choreography of the woods. I see trees that have been bent by storms, scarred by fire, or crowded by neighbors. Yet, in the quiet of the understory, there is a profound truth that the forest whispers to those who listen.

A tree does not blame the wind for its lean; it simply grows where the light is.

In our human lives, we often find ourselves stuck in a thicket of blame. When we face chronic pain, illness, or the heavy consequences of past decisions, it is easy to retreat into a victim narrative.

We point to our circumstances, our upbringing, or our luck as the sole architects of our current reality.

But staying in that space is like a sapling trying to grow in the permanent shadow of a fallen log. It is exhausting, and eventually, it leads to stagnation.

The Forest of Our Making

Even when we are navigating the complex terrain of chronic conditions, we must recognize that our current reality is, in part, a map of the choices we have made. This is not about shame or self-flagellation. In fact, it is the opposite. To own our choices is to reclaim our agency.

To be clear. This is not to say that our choices have caused our chronic condition. (Despite what medical professionals tell us.) There is a level of listening to our bodies that leads to health and healing. But the way you have lived life is not always the answer to why your body has chosen this course of action. Often this is out of our hands.

Or as the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza noted:

The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you.

This “saving of circumstance” begins with the radical act of ownership. When we look back and see the moments where we acted to the best of our ability, even if those actions led to mistakes, we begin to see our humanity not as a flaw, but as a shared condition. We have all stumbled. We have all misread the trail. But there is no medicine in shame, and there is no repair in blame.

Rooted Connections: The Nervous System as Fertile Ground

For those living with chronic pain, this shift from victimhood to ownership is more than a psychological pivot; it is a physiological necessity. Our nervous systems are like the forest floor. A complex, sensitive network that requires the right conditions to repair and thrive.

When we are stuck in blame or victim mode, our system remains in a state of high alert (the sympathetic “fight or flight” response). This internal friction creates a “noisy” environment where the body cannot easily access its natural repair mechanisms. By owning our choices, we create a clearing. We allow the “rest and digest” (parasympathetic) system to take the lead.

Just as the forest brings our nervous systems to a natural state of regulation through phytoncides and fractal patterns, the act of self-forgiveness and ownership brings our internal landscape to rest. It provides the space required for the nervous system to settle and begin the slow work of repair.

A Forest Therapy Practice

The “Stone and Stream” Invitation

To help move through these human emotions with strength and confidence, I invite you to try this practice, whether you are in a literal forest or simply sitting by a window.

1. Find Your Anchor: Find a place where you can sit or stand comfortably. Notice the weight of your body.

2. The Stone of Choice: Pick up a small stone (or imagine one). Hold it in your hand. Let this stone represent a choice you have made that you currently carry with weight. Perhaps one you have blamed yourself or others for. Feel its texture, its coldness, its reality.

3. The Stream of Time: Look at a moving part of nature. A stream, the wind in the leaves, or even the movement of clouds. Recognize that like the water, time has moved on. The choice happened, but you are here now.

4. The Offering: Place the stone down. Not with a sense of getting rid of it, but with a sense of placing it in the landscape. Say to yourself: “This was my choice. I acted with the knowledge I had. I am human, and I am here.”

5. The New Growth: Notice a small sign of life. This is your next action. Trust in your experience. Trust that you can act again, informed by the past but not imprisoned by it.

Embracing the Quest

As Baruch Spinoza noted in his correspondence:

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Owning our lives is an excellent thing. It is difficult because it requires us to look at our mistakes without blinking. But it is rare because it is the only path to true strength. And not everybody finds it.

When we own our choices, we stop fighting the terrain and start walking it. We move from a place of “why is this happening to me?” to “this is where I am, and this is how I choose to grow.” In that shift, the nervous system finally finds the quiet it has been searching for. Just like the forest, we are always in a state of becoming.

Trust your roots. Reach for the light.