Tag: mindfulness

The Things I Keep in My Pockets: What Music, Mistakes and the Forest are Teaching Me

pammunkholm

A wrong note doesn’t ruin the music. A painful day doesn’t ruin a life.

Steven Sharp Nelson from The Piano Guys was a guest on my usual podcast. He talked about a time, when he was young, that he was asked to play at a grand, important event. And he played quite poorly.

When he asked his dad how he had done, his father didn’t criticize him. He said he felt every mistake Steve made. Every bit of despair was written across his face, and his dad was pulled into it with him.

I know that feeling.

On a high-pain day, sometimes the people around me are pulled into it too. They see my face, hear my voice catch, watch me move carefully, and somehow begin carrying a little piece of what I’m carrying. I sense what it’s costing them and feel guilt begin to weigh me down.

Other people don’t know what to do with my pain. So they carry on as though it doesn’t exist. As though it and I along with it, are invisible.

Neither reaction is necessarily wrong. But both can leave their mark.

One makes me feel like my pain is consuming everyone around me. The other can make me feel like I’m invisible.

Steve said that now, when he plays a wrong note, he smiles.

Not because the mistake doesn’t matter. Not because he’s pretending everything is fine. But because he knows what he wants to do with that moment.

I don’t think I need to smile through every painful moment of my life either. I’m not interested in pretending chronic pain isn’t real. Some days hurt.

On those days I get an “error 404 💻: human not found 🚫” message every time I try to move.

But maybe there are moments when I can smile anyway.

Not at the pain.

At what I’m accomplishing and creating in spite of it.

Steve said something else about creativity.

He talked about how music and art have helped people through depression and burnout. But creativity isn’t reserved for musicians, painters, writers, or people who happen to be good at something other people can admire.

We are all creative.

And creativity, he said, works differently when we’re doing it simply for the joy of creating. Not to sell it. Not to post it. Not to have someone judge it.

Just to make something. To play. To imagine. To wander somewhere new.

Steve suggests that when we find ourselves making up storylines and placing blame on others, that we need to add more creativity to our life.

Creativity will make its way out of us one way or another. Either by creating what brings joy or creating storylines where we are the victim. Our brains are excellent screenwriters.

Have you ever been in the act of a menial job that requires no thinking? Cleaning the bathroom? Dishes? Driving on a highway? Do you start to picture these stories playing out in your mind?

This is your brain trying to be creative. Give it a joyful outlet to do so or it will create drama in your life.

I think this is one of the reasons forest therapy has become so important to me.

When I’m walking in the forest, I’m creating. I’m noticing. I’m visualizing. I’m meditating. I’m softening.

I photograph a flower because the colour catches my eye.
I make up a story about a crooked tree.
I visualize warmth when the wind cuts through me.
I listen to the creek and let my attention follow it instead of following the argument happening inside my head.

I’m making little moments of beauty and wonder out of whatever happens to be in front of me.

A patch of purple flowers.

The shape of a tree.

The sound of wind moving through the branches.

A silly thought that makes me laugh.

A place my mind can go when my body is screaming for my attention.

I collect these moments.

I tuck them away like little treasures in my pockets.

A purple flower.
A funny moment.
A beautiful view.
A ridiculous thought.
A quiet breath.

Murmuration

The flowing movement of birds flying together across the sky in ever changing patterns. A sight that can feel almost dreamlike, drawing the mind into the present moment as hundreds of wings move with a rhythm that seems guided by something beyond words.

I put them in my pockets. 🐿️ 🌲

Because I know there will be days when I need them. When winter comes (or when pain gets loud 📢) I will have somewhere to go.

Maybe that’s one of the things I’m learning about living with chronic pain. I don’t have to pretend the pain isn’t there. But I also don’t have to give it the entire stage.

I can create something alongside it. I can notice something beautiful. I can wander. I can imagine.

And sometimes, when the wrong note happens, I can even smile.

Not because everything is okay.

But because there is still something inside me creating joy.

And that might be one of the most healing things I can carry home with me in my pockets.

The pain is real. So is the beauty.

Navigating Emotional Struggles Gracefully: Staying Grounded in the Woods

pammunkholm

This line 👇🏼 from a song deserves to stand alone.

The world is hard on beautiful things.

-“Beautiful Things” by Megan Moroney

When I hear this line, I think about the people I know who have been hurt by the world. It takes not only our emotions for a nosedive.

But also our peace.

Our patience.

Our nervous systems.

Our hope.

Our ability to assume the best instead of the worst.

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

–Jon Kabat-Zinn

It feels like we’re all moving through life with our shoulders somewhere around our ears. Chronic illness, fear of aging, financial stress, uncertainty, bad news on an endless loop. Some people are simply trying to get through Tuesday with enough energy to make supper 🙋‍♀️ .

It doesn’t take much to tip us over.🐄

A few days ago, mine came in the form of a boat launch.

Anyone who’s spent time around a busy boat launch knows it’s a fascinating social experiment.

An overabundance of strong opinions and egos exists.

There are no rules. Written or unwritten.

Just enough ambiguity transpires, that everyone believes they’re right.

I’ve been launching boats for about fifteen years. I know the rhythm. I stay out of people’s way, wait until my truck is actually in the water before moving, and do my best to keep things safe and efficient.

Apparently one gentleman decided I’d “cut the line.”

Boat launches really do produce fascinating specimens of humanity.

I’ve learned that confidence can be surprisingly unsettling to some people. Especially when it arrives in the form of a woman who knows how to load the boat on the trailer without making a production of it.

It’s funny how a little perceived competition can bring out our inner third-grader.

The equipment may have six-figure price tags, but occasionally the conflict resolution skills still come from recess days gone by.

When I calmly explained why I was waiting where I was. And how the process normally works. He didn’t want an explanation.

He began clapping sarcastically.

The world doesn’t just wear us down through tragedy. Sometimes it does it one sarcastic clap at a time.

–Claire played by Molly Gordon in “The Bear“

As he mocked me it became clear he just wanted an audience.

He got one when a couple of other boaters joined in the jeering.

I wish I could tell you I laughed it off.

Instead, my nervous system hit the panic button.

My cortisol rose faster than I can launch my boat. (I’m a pro at both.)

My heart raced. My hands shook.

My cortisol packed a lunch and settled in for two to three business days.

Several days later, I could still feel my body replaying the scene.

I think what bothers me most, at this point, is somewhere out there is a misguided soul telling the story of the woman who “cut the line” at the dock.

How people treat you is their karma, how you react is yours.

–Wayne Dyer

Maybe you’ve had moments like that.

Perhaps someone says something. Misunderstands you. Treats you unfairly.

And your body reacts long after the event is over.

For those of us living with chronic illness or chronic stress, these moments don’t simply sting.

They cost us.

That’s why a line from a recent episode of the Untangle podcast kept coming back to me.

In “Quiet Strength and Equanimity: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World,” Margaret Cullen explores how we stay peaceful in a world that often seems determined to take our peace away.

One story she shares has stayed with me.

A man is rowing through thick fog when he notices another boat heading directly toward him.

The other boat is bigger. He should have the right of way.

He shouts. No response.

He waves. Nothing.

The other boat keeps coming.

His frustration turns to anger.

“Move!”

Just before the collision, he swerves.

As the fog clears, he realizes…

The boat is empty. No one was steering.

Instantly, his anger disappears.

Who was he angry with?

No one.

Since first hearing that story, I’ve asked myself this question.

Is the boat empty?

Not literally.

But is this personal?

Or am I assigning intention where there may be none?

Maybe they’re exhausted. Grieving. Terrified.

Maybe they simply don’t know any better.

Or maybe they’re carrying hurts I can’t see.

None of those possibilities excuse poor behaviour.

But they completely change where I direct my emotional energy.

Sometimes, seeing clearly dissolves the anger.

Pronoia

The opposite of paranoia. it is the belief that people or the world are secretly working in your favour. That events, people and circumstaces are somehow conspiring to help you.

That’s different from stuffing feelings down or pretending they don’t exist.

You can’t bypass emotions.

You can’t slap a positive quote over a nervous system that’s sounding the alarm.

But sometimes the alarm quiets on its own because you suddenly realize…

There isn’t actually an enemy here.

Just another imperfect human.

When the boat is empty, compassion often becomes easier than combat.

Margaret Cullen also offers another perspective I love.

Ask yourself:

How will this feel next week? Next month? Next year?

It’s amazing how many mountains quietly shrink into molehills when viewed from a little distance.

Then she takes it even further.

She talks about astronauts experiencing the Overview Effect. Seeing Earth from space and returning with an entirely different understanding of what matters.

Imagine grandmother’s wisdom. Now multiply it by the view from orbit.

Our arguments. Our bruised egos. Our need to be right.

They suddenly become very small compared with this astonishing little blue planet we’re all sharing.

That doesn’t make our feelings unimportant.

It simply gives them context.

Another surprisingly effective tool?

Humour. Humour interrupts the story we’re telling ourselves.

We’ve all done it.

We become convinced we’ve been wronged in the most spectacular fashion imaginable.

Our spouse is over there admiring a duck while we have mentally drafted the closing argument for a trial that nobody else even knows is happening.

Sometimes all it takes is one ridiculous observation from them to break the spell.

I wish I could say I found “the funny” at the boat launch.

I wasn’t there yet.

Maybe next time.

One tool that has helped me far more consistently is asking:

Am I living this moment according to my values?

Not theirs. Mine.

I can’t control sarcasm.

I can’t control mockery.

I can’t control who decides to clap sarcastically at a stranger.

But I can decide whether I respond with kindness.

Integrity. Respect. Compassion.

Those are mine to keep.

The more our daily lives align with our values, the steadier we become.

Peace stops being something we chase and starts becoming somewhere we live.

The idea of felt safety is something we’ll explore more in the next post.

Felt safety isn’t the absence of fear.

It isn’t the absence of challenge.

It’s your nervous system recognizing that you have enough capacity to face what’s in front of you.

That you are enough.

That you can survive this moment.

Forest therapy has become one of the places where I practice exactly that.

The forest rarely requires me to react in the moment.

It stretches time. It expands perspective.

It reminds me that not everything deserves my nervous system’s full emergency response.

When someone steals my peace…

I take it to the woods.

There, I remember that I’m part of something much older than a rude exchange at a boat launch.

Much bigger than today’s frustration.

And much more beautiful than the story my anxious brain was writing five minutes earlier.

Eventually I remember that peace is a terrible thing to hand over to someone you’ve never met.

A Forest Therapy Invitation

If you’re new here and want to learn more about forest therapy and how it works, check out this page. The Gist

The next time something rattles you, resist the urge to replay it over and over.

Instead, head outside.

Find one tree that catches your attention.

Stand with it for five slow breaths.

Now ask yourself:

  • Is the boat empty?
  • Will this matter next year?
  • What would this look like from space?
  • What response best reflects my values?
  • How can I become the tenderness this moment needs?

Don’t force an answer.

Just notice what changes.

Sometimes the forest doesn’t solve the problem.

It simply reminds us that we are far bigger than it.

Forest therapy doesn’t help me escape the world. It helps me return to it without becoming like it.

Margaret Cullen ends her book Quiet Strength with words I borrow:

May each of us find a way to bring balance and tenderness to this floating world, moment by moment, drop by drop.

I can’t think of a better response to a world that is hard on beautiful things.

Let’s become one of the beautiful things that refuses to grow hard.

The world may be hard on beautiful things. That doesn’t mean beautiful things have to become hard.

Instead…

Let’s become the tenderness.

In a gentle way you can shake the world.

–Mahatma Gandhi

Female Hormones: Our Fickle Fairweather Friend

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My hormones and I are in a “situationship.”

Years ago, I became convinced I was getting less intelligent.

I would walk into a room and forget why. Lose all my trains of thought mid-sentence. Derailed. No coming back.

I’d constantly search for words that had wandered off unsupervised. They would come back hours later, long after it was needed and with no apology whatsoever.

I blamed stress.

I blamed being busy.

I blamed getting older.

In reality, it was probably all of those things, mixed with hormonal changes I didn’t fully understand yet.

Female hormones are funny. They’re a bit like a Saskatchewan summer storm. One minute the sky is clear, the sun is shining, and life feels manageable. The next, the wind picks up, the clouds roll in, and you’re wondering if you should have brought a jacket, umbrella and storm cellar.

The weather didn’t become bad.

It changed.

Our hormones do too.

Female hormones are a bit like Saskatchewan weather. If you don’t like what’s happening right now, wait ten minutes.

Most of us think of hormones as reproductive messengers, but they influence far more than our cycles. They affect sleep, memory, focus, mood, energy, and even how connected we feel to the people around us.

One of the most interesting ideas I encountered from a recent podcast interview with Dr. Anna Cabeca. While estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone get most of the attention, hormones like cortisol and oxytocin may have an even bigger impact on how we experience daily life.

Oxytocin is often called the love hormone. It’s associated with connection, belonging, trust, laughter, affection, friendship, pets, nature, and community.

Likewise, oxytocin and cortisol tend to pull in opposite directions.

But the story doesn’t end there. The plot thickens.

As any prairie girl knows, sunshine and thunderstorms often share the same forecast.

When stress becomes chronic, such as in a body dealing with chronic pain, connection often suffers.

Many of us don’t just feel tired. We feel disconnected.

From ourselves.

From others.

From the things that once brought us joy.

Progesterone plays a role too. It supports sleep, cognition, brain health, and nervous system regulation.

Testosterone contributes to motivation, confidence, energy, and focus. Both naturally decline as we age, and both can be influenced by chronic stress.

Side note: I would like to point out that aging naturally isn’t nearly as freaky as whatever is happening with the people trying desperately to avoid it. Also, at what age do we start meeting for Bingo? Because I’m ready.

Progesterone naturally declines in women, typically beginning in the mid-thirties as ovarian function gradually changes.

My body got the memo that the warranty has expired. All systems started responding the way you’d expect at the end of a warranty. (despite the fact that I was built in the 70s and should have been made to last)

Looking back at my own health journey, I spent years trying to solve individual symptoms.

If I could just stop the migraines.

If I could just overcome the fatigue.

If I could just break the insomnia.

What I eventually learned is that the body doesn’t divide itself into neat little boxes the way we often do.

Sleep affects stress.

Stress affects hormones.

Hormones affect mood.

Mood affects relationships.

Relationships affect wellbeing.

Pull one thread and the whole thing unravels.

That’s why healing often requires support from multiple directions.

👏 Good food.

👏 Movement.

👏 Sleep.

👏 Stress management.

👏 Connection.

👏 Time outdoors.

The podcast also reinforced something I’ve known for years: nature has a remarkable way of helping us regulate.

Not because it magically solves our problems, but because it reminds our nervous systems what calm feels like.

Like sitting quietly in warm sunshine after a long winter.

Like hearing nothing but leaves rustle in the breeze.

The Practice

One simple forest therapy practice is this:

  • Stop
  • Notice 5 things moving around you (leaves, clouds, grass, insects, birds)
  • Listen for 3 sounds
  • Notice 2 scents
  • Take one slow breath

It’s amazing how quickly the nervous system responds when we give it the chance.

The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness.

–Sakyong Mipham

Ways To Support Oxytocin Naturally

The good news is that many of the things that support oxytocin are surprisingly simple.

  • Hug someone you love.
  • Spend time with a pet.
  • Get outside.
  • Sit around a table with friends.
  • Laugh.
  • Touch grass. Literally.
  • Watch a sunrise.
  • Watch a sunset.
  • Practice gratitude.
  • Connect with people who make you feel safe and seen.

None of these things are revolutionary.

But maybe that’s the point.

Sometimes healing isn’t found in adding another supplement.

Sometimes it’s found in adding another conversation.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

Anne Lamont

Your Most Important Appointment

One idea I loved from another podcast was the concept of holding regular wellness meetings with yourself.

Not a performance review. Not a guilt session.

A wellness meeting.

Three times a week, ask yourself this:

What do I need today?

Maybe it’s a walk.

Maybe it’s strength training.

Maybe it’s sitting outside with your morning tea and watching the sunrise.

The goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is paying attention before your body starts communicating through burnout, brain fog, anxiety, or exhaustion.

My ultimate goal isn’t to control every hormone. It’s to stop being blindsided by them.

Because hormones may be fickle.

But they’re also messengers.

And sometimes they’re simply asking us to listen.

The greatest wealth is health.

–Virgil

This is the first post in a hormone series. Next week we’ll look at hormone disruptors: where the biggest offenders are hiding, and what to use instead.

You Are a Success Story

pammunkholm

My physiotherapist, “J,” has been with me through it all.

She has seen me on some of my best days over the past 15 years of working with her.

  • The day I told her I was finally pregnant with the baby I had tried nearly a decade to conceive.
  • The day I said, “I’m running again.” After years of pain making even the thought of it feel impossible. My body has approached physical activity like a suspicious cat approaches a cucumber in the past.
  • She heard me process the long, exhausting teenage years of push and pull with my oldest child. And then my second. Followed by my third. The painful years that felt like emotional whiplash and then she celebrated with me when they all graduated. She understood firmly the mentality of, We did it! On each occasion.
  • She walked alongside me through buying and selling homes.
  • When Kenzie got engaged. Jamie transitioned. Riley moved in with his girlfriend.
  • When all three times I found out I was going to be a grandma, she was one of the first people to know.
  • When I started a forest therapy business and dared to believe healing could become something I offered others.

She has witnessed joy. Growth. Milestones.

Baby #4
Grandbaby #1
I’m running outside!
Grandbaby #2
Riley and Grey
Graduation #1
Graduation #2
Engagement #1
Home sale #2

We have laughed together as I walked around in a body that behaved like it’s been assembled from spare parts with vague instructions and one missing screw.

Proof that life can still bloom in hard soil.

And she has also sat with me on some of my worst days.

  • The day I fell off a boat and we both knew recovery would not be quick.
  • The years I fought to be taken seriously by medical professionals before finally getting the MRI that revealed my bone spur. Disappointing specialist appointments. Medical gaslighting.
  • Family job losses.
  • Kids in car crashes.
  • The miscarriage of the baby I had fought so hard to conceive. She cried with me that day. And the day I told her I was going ahead with the hysterectomy that closed that door entirely. We were so hopeful that would help my overall health.
  • Surgeries that did not go well.
  • The passing of dear friends.
  • The painful decision to close my business and then Brent’s and eventually to stop working.
  • Leaving the farm and grieving all that move represented. She understood, she’s a farm girl.
  • And the appointment Christmas Eve where she examined me and realized something was deeply wrong. I had almost no muscle mass. I was so weak and felt so broken, useless, a waste of skin.
Car crash #1
Fell off the boat
An MRI changed everything
Following surgery
Car crash #3
Car crash #2
Farm life

I could write pages about what J and I have discussed over the years. At some point, she became more than someone treating my body. She became someone quietly witnessing my life story unfold.

The size of my kids when I started seeing J
The size of my kids today.

And then one ordinary appointment changed how I saw myself.

It started like any other. I explained where the pain was. What had shifted in my workouts. What stress was doing to my body. What daily life had looked like since we last met.

She examined me, worked through familiar areas of tension, and after a moment of silence she said something I think applies to all my chronic comrades:

“You’re a success story. Do you know that?”

My first instinct is always to deflect a compliment.

I think you have me confused with someone whose joints aren’t held together by determination and prayer alone.

But it felt true. It felt like the most true diagnosis I’d ever been given.

She continued, (and I want you to see yourself in this,)

When you look at where you’ve been on your lowest days and where you are now. This is a success story.

You could have closed the doors on life. Stayed in bed. Turned inward. Leaned into fear of the future. You could choose to live frustrated and depressed. White-knuckling your way through existence.

But instead, you keep rebuilding. You keep getting stronger. No matter what knocks you down, you come back.

Like one of those punching balloons from childhood. The ones you smack into the floor and somehow they pop right back up, mildly annoying and aggressively optimistic.

I have a core memory of my cousin’s party. They had one of those balloons in the backyard. As I played with it I wondered what was inside that made it keep popping up.

If resilience had a mascot, I might nominate a half-inflated punching balloon and a woman with heating pads.

J was right though. That’s me. That’s you.

What is it that’s inside us that keeps us popping up, time after time?

Not graceful. Not elegant. Occasionally leaking air. But still coming back up.

Again. And again. And again.

J encouraged me to start writing it down. My story. To let others read it. And that is where this blog began.

A success story, heavily disguised as a challenging life story.

Chronic Pain Does Not Stay in One Box

If you live with chronic pain, you understand this. Pain does not politely stay in your shoulder. Or your spine. Or your hips. Or your joints.

It leaks. It spreads.

It enters your sleep, your patience, your relationships, your finances, your confidence, your work, your parenting, and your identity.

It is never just physical.

The dis-ease spreads just like disease. Not because we are weak. But because pain is invasive.

Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival.

Yet many people living with chronic pain quietly continue. They raise children. Show up to work. Try to exercise. Cook supper. Pay bills. Care for aging parents. Smile through appointments (and cry after.) Fold laundry while wondering why their body feels like it was assembled by a distracted Ikea employee.

And still… they continue.

That is not failure. That is resilience. That is success.

Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

–JK Rowling

The Exhaustion of Not Being Believed

One of the hardest parts of chronic pain is not always the pain itself. Sometimes it is the disbelief. Unfortunately, this can include close family members. Friends. Employers.

And yes, medical professionals.

When symptoms are invisible, people often assume they are exaggerated. If scans are unclear, they question your tolerance. If you “look fine,” they assume you must be fine.

And so many of us become defenders. Explainers. Evidence gatherers.

Trying desperately to prove that our pain is real. Trying to earn validation. Trying to convince others that suffering exists even when they cannot see it.

But constant defense is exhausting.

As Dallin H. Oaks said:

When attacked by error, truth is better served by silence than by a bad argument.

That quote hit me.

We do not need to defend ourselves from every misunderstanding. Not every person deserves access to our explanations. Not every accusation needs a rebuttal. Not every skeptical glance deserves our emotional energy.

There is a time to inform. And there is a time to walk away.

Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

–George Bernard Shaw

Silence is not surrender. Sometimes silence is strength. Sometimes it is peace. Sometimes it is refusing to spend precious energy proving your pain to people committed to misunderstanding it.

Do not explain. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you.

–Elbert Hubbard

You Are a Success Story Too

If you live with chronic pain and still carry on…

You are a success story.

If you’ve had to explain your pain as a weird hip or angry neck. Here is your medal in interpretive medicine 🏅…

And you are a success story.

If, like my friend described it, you have been blindsided at a medical appointment and you keep seeking your answers…

You are a success story.

If you got out of bed today and every day, despite exhaustion…

You are a success story.

If you parent through pain…

You are a success story.

If you grieve what your body once was while still learning to care for the body you have now…

You are a success story.

If you feel misunderstood. Lesser. Frustrated. Invisible. You are still a success story.

Do not let anyone take that from you.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.

–Bob Marley

A Forest Therapy Practice: Seeing Yourself in the Landscape

One of the most grounding practices I return to comes from forest therapy.

Take a small mirror with you into nature.

Stand among trees.

Or beneath open sky.

Hold the mirror so your reflection appears framed by branches, clouds, leaves, or light.

Look at yourself. Really look. See your face inside the larger landscape. Notice how you are not separate from nature. You belong here too.

Then ask yourself:

Where was I a year ago?

What have I survived?

How far have I come?

What strength still exists in me?

Appreciate where you are now. Not because healing is complete. But because progress deserves to be witnessed. And because you still have what it takes to continue.

Rivers don’t apologize for moving slowly at some points on their path.

Seasons do not shame themselves for resting.

Maybe we shouldn’t either.

My Success Story Is Still Being Written

I used to think success had to look polished. Strong. Linear. Easy to explain. Now I know better.

Sometimes success looks like rebuilding muscle. Sometimes it looks like surviving grief. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like walking instead of running. Sometimes it looks like closing one chapter when life forces your hand. Sometimes it looks like bouncing back up like an emotionally exhausted inflatable clown with stubborn determination.

I have bounced back like a plastic bag caught in a prairie wind.

Messy. Crooked. Still rising. Still trying.

And maybe that is enough.

Actually

Maybe that is extraordinary.

You are a success story.

If pain has tried to rewrite your life and you still continue…

🫵 You are a success story.

And don’t you forget it. 😉

Healing from Burnout: Lessons from Forest Therapy

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.

Nourish Your Nervous System: Forest Therapy Insights

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.

Diefenbaker Lake: A Childhood Sanctuary

pammunkholm

Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and stars mirrored in your own being.

-Rumi

There are places that shape us before we’re even old enough to understand what’s happening. Places that imprint themselves on the soles of our feet, in the rhythm of our breath, in the part of our memory that feels more like home than any house ever could.

For me, that place has always been Diefenbaker Lake.

Some places are so deep inside us that we carry their shoreline in our bones.

-John O’Donohue

I’ve been coming here since I was tiny. Even before I had words for belonging, but somehow already knew I belonged here. Grandpa always made sure of that.

My grandparents had a cabin and a sailboat tucked along these windswept shores. Some of my earliest memories are stitched together with the smell of woodsmoke from backyard fires, the sweetness of my grandpa’s violin, and the rowdy chorus of siblings and cousins running wild between the cabin and the water. With the constant reminder to “wash the sand off your feet before you come in!”

And then there were the cozy, indoor moments that stitched themselves into my heart just as tightly as the beach days. Evenings around the table playing Phase 10, some of us a little too competitive for their own good. And we watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks over and over and over again. Never questioning why, just letting the magic and music wash over us like it was brand new every time.

Mornings were their own kind of ritual. Waking up to Grandma making bacon and something (it didn’t matter what, it’s the bacon that mattered) and the smell of fresh coffee drifting through the cabin. To this day, I associate the scent of coffee with pure happiness, because it always meant family, warmth, and the safe little world we built at the lake.

Teenage awkwardness made an appearance here too, because of course it did. Blushing, fumbling romances that felt monumental at the time. Even with his hair plastered to his face. Perhaps this was done by those winds that could have knocked over a small cow 🤔.

Speaking of cows. They are a regular feature of this lake that is surrounded by pasture land. Two rules. Don’t use a cow as a landmark when giving directions. They tend to move eventually. And don’t pick a beach with a cow path into the water. You can guarantee there’s a few cow pies in there.

Swimming lessons were basically an extreme sport back in my day. With waves bigger than me, wind that felt like knives, and instructors yelling cheerful encouragement while I questioned all of my mom’s life decisions that brought me to this point.

Still, I kept going back.

I lived for the days Uncle David would haul out the power boat. Kneeboarding, tubing, laughing so hard my face hurt. Those were the moments that made childhood feel endless. We’d tear down the path to the beach, towels flying behind us, younger siblings and cousins trailing like joyful chaos. We swam, we snacked, we visited, we repeated. Every day was an epic saga of sunshine and soggy towels.

Sailing days were their own kind of magic. My mom loves to retell the story of my sister and me being so little our feet didn’t touch the floor as we sat at the table down below. Meanwhile grandpa and dad were tacking hard and smiling harder. Every time the sailboat leaned, we’d just… slide helplessly under the table like tiny bewildered penguins. Apparently we were adorable. At the time, I remember thinking, Is this normal? Are we sinking? Should I be able to see the lake out that window?

Dad and grandpa were always smiling so I took that to mean we were safe.

As I grew older I loved sitting at the very front of the sailboat, facing forward, wind whipping around me, I felt like I was flying. When the water was calm, the spinnaker would make an appearance billowing out like a living thing. My grandpa worked the ropes and held the tiller with the easy smile that only comes from loving a place so much. Those are memories I hold like treasures.

My youngest son a few years back in his favorite spot on the sailboat, that front seat.

And now seems like the appropriate moment to confess something to my parents…

I did, in fact, steal the keys and “borrow” the cabin for one weekend as a teenager 😬. I had “a few friends” over. I threw exactly one party in my entire life. And I was so sick with worry the entire time that I basically grounded myself for the rest of my adolescent years. Lesson learned. Sorry. Mostly. It’s been a good story over the years.

I spent my honeymoon at the lake- 26 ½ years ago. We fished, built sandcastles, and solved the great riddle of rural Saskatchewan: there are no gas stations open on Sundays. (At least, not back then.)

About five years ago, my parents bought their own place by my lake It took a some time but something inside me reconnected. Something long since silent woke back up.

I listen excitedly to hear about the ice breaking in the spring. The booming, cracking, shifting sound like the earth stretching after a long sleep. Then, in an instant it seems, the ice is gone. Summer brings shimmering waves, familiar laughter, and barefoot days that always feel too short. Fall arrives in gold and red and farewell winds. Winter… winter brings a darker, quieter beauty. A solemn stillness that somehow feels honest. Vulnerable.

The older I get, the more I find that the quiet places are the ones that speak the loudest.

-Unknown

We’ve camped along these beaches. We’ve laid in the sun. And now, when I head out on my power boat with our next generation, I think of Uncle David. I feel him in the hum of the engine, in the ripple of the wake, in the bright splash of joy that comes with speed and water and family.

The pinnacle of our lake experiences has to be when we helped save our friend’s boat from sinking. When the bladder around the leg came off and they started taking on water, they quickly headed to the boat launch. Seeing they wouldn’t make it, they beached the boat. Then with two other power boats and a cacophony of helpers, they managed to get two boat tubes under the leg and the front of the boat. One of the support boats towed. Two people bailed. People sat on the tubes to balance. And in this ridiculous state we slowly made our way through the marina and up the launch. To the laughter and cheers of watchers nearby.

I have found beauty in the whimsically ordinary.

-Elissa Gregoire

These days I walk the trail by my lake often. I slow down. I breathe.

And somewhere along the way, I realized,

This place has become part of my healing.

Chronic pain forces you to live differently. More slowly, more intentionally, more gently. Forest therapy taught me to seek connection with the natural world, to let my nervous system rest in the presence of trees, water, sky. And here, wrapped in the sounds and rhythms of my lake, something in me softens. Pain quiets. My body remembers safety.

When the heart is overwhelmed, the earth invites us to rest.

-Unknown

My parents host endlessly now, filling their summers with family, friends, neighbours. Anyone who needs a taste of peace.

They are the sailboat owners. And they love it just as much as my grandpa did.

The legacy continues, like wind passing from one generation to the next.

My lake is healing. This home of my parents is healing.

And after all these years, I am still finding new ways to belong here.

There are days the lake knows my story better than I do.

-Unknown

Fluctuat nec mergitur (latin phrase):

She is tossed by the waves but does not sink.

An Ode to My Lake

O Lake of my childhood, keeper of my summers,

You who taught me courage in cold waves

and laughter in the spray of speeding boats

I return to you again with a heart that remembers.

You cradle my earliest joys.

Grandpa’s violin threading through evening air,

firelight warming our faces,

cousins tumbling down the path like wild things set free.

You were witness to awkward teenage hopes,

to frozen swimming lessons and winds that stole my breath,

to stolen keys and the single party I regretted

before it even began.

You held my honeymoon,

my young love learning its way,

and you held me still years later

as chronic pain reshaped my life.

Now I walk your trails slowly,

letting forest therapy guide my weary body

back into rhythm with the world.

Your waves teach me presence.

Your ice teaches me patience.

Your seasons teach me trust.

Grandparents gone on, Uncle David gone on,

Memories gone on,

yet their echoes remain in your wind.

In every sail that fills,

in every motor that roars to life,

I hear them.

My lake,

always changing, always faithful,

you have become a sanctuary,

a place where the ache eases

and beauty remains.

Thank you for holding my childhood.

Thank you for holding my healing.

Thank you for holding me still.

My lake.

Some memories are not moments at all, but places.

Victoria Erickson

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.

Harnessing Positive Energy: Boost Your Vibration Daily

pammunkholm

Outside the open window, the morning air is all awash with angels.

-Richard Wilbur

I am loving the sunshine today! It makes me so happy. Welcome to thighs- sticking- to- plastic- chair weather!

Today we are talking energy. When I talk about energy. The most common questions are, do you mean how much energy we have in a day? The energy in a space? Energy from the earth? The answer is Yes! It all goes together.

Energy: The Bright, The Dark, and The Dreadful

Everything has an energy to it. People have energy. You can tell when you sit beside someone that has a bad energy. Or a bright sparkly energy. Before they even speak.

Animals have energy. I understand that all dogs have good energy. Unless they take on the energy of their negative- energy owner. I can’t say the same about cats.

Even plants and nature itself hold an energy. It is positive flowing energy. That’s why we feel so good when we are in a forest. We can feel the good energy all around us. It permeates our bodies.

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What to Expect—And What Might Just Surprise You!

Today I will be exploring why seeking to be a positive energy is so important. How to tell if you are stuck in a negative energy. Energy drainers, that we want to avoid, when possible. And energy givers. Those things we want to take in profusely. What does a healthy, positive energy look like? What do those people need to watch out for? We will discuss ways those with a negative energy can turn that around. Finally we will talk about how the forest helps and affirmations to protect your energy.

In essence, learn how to heal your energy, protect your energy, understand your energy. Plus, learn how to schedule your most relaxing hour. To bring your energy back up and regulate your nervous system. Stick around.

Your Positive Energy Is the Only Currency That Won’t Get You Audited!

Your positive energy is your greatest currency. Your family, your work buddies, your friends. They all seek it. Because good energy is contagious. Have you ever been around someone with infectious energy? You can’t help but feel a little lifted after being around them.

We all know the 11th commandment, thou shalt not let low- vibin- sketchy energy penetrate thine aura. Learn how to protect your energy. Fiercely. It is not selfish to do so; it is- self preservation.

The energy we seek to emit is embodied in the Bulgarian word, Ailyak. Based on the definition by theintrepidguide.com, it translates to, “The subtle art of doing everything calmly and without rushing, whilst enjoying the experience and life in general.”

Signs You’re Trapped in a Cycle of Negativity

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com

Let’s talk about signs of being stuck in a negative energy. These are some of the signs. You will sense that you are struggling to set and achieve goals. That underlying sense of anger and frustration always being right under the surface. Having a general dislike of people. More than usual. One may have a sense of impending doom. Contention seems to follow you. A lack of mental and physical energy. When you do sleep it is anything but restful. Communication with others is difficult. Accessing concentration is a struggle.

This is an odd person for me to reference. But Brent follows HeavyD Sparks religiously. And we were listening to an older podcast of his the other day. I can’t find the actual quote but he was talking about negative feedback. When you hold two live microphones together you get a high pitch squeal. It will grow and grow until you take them apart. The same goes for a person with negative energy. When they enter a space, the energy shifts. And if they have another “live” negative energy seeker. The squeal gets louder and louder until we step away. I am not speaking only of people in this energy having an argument. That is one example. But more likely we get two negative energies together and they play off each other. They can begin by being upset with a cause or a circumstance. By the end of the conversation, that cause or circumstance is the scum of the earth! How dare they?

Where focus goes, energy flows.

You will have the opportunity to practice keeping your energy high and positive when negative energy enters your space. It is not easy. Keep in mind. You have an affect on those in your space for good or bad. Depending on your response.

What are some other things that are draining your energy? Do any of these apply to you?

  1. overthinking
  2. social media
  3. gossiping
  4. resentment
  5. dehydration
  6. clutter
  7. poor sleep habits
  8. negativity
  9. skipping breaks
  10. complaining
  11. one- sided relationships
  12. people pleasing
  13. unclear boundaries
  14. negative self talk
  15. stress
  16. worry

Such a jumbled mix of things. But they all, at times, have taken me to a place of anger or upset. If used inappropriately or as a form of avoidance these are all on my Do Not or at least Use Cautiously list. Overall, just a general violation of my own rhythm is what results.

Discovering Your Inner Sunshine: A Trove of Positive Energy

Now let’s flip it around and look for those things that feed us energy. The right things for us will always give us energy. That’s how we know they are good.

  1. nature
  2. fresh air
  3. friends and family
  4. inspiring music
  5. hydration
  6. movement
  7. sun on my skin
  8. whole foods
  9. good sleep
  10. creativity
  11. dancing
  12. hugs
  13. doing something you love
  14. meditation
  15. positive thoughts
  16. cold shower

Your energy is sacred. Like a delicate flame, it can be easily influenced by the winds of those around you. Build strong boundaries to protect your inner light, allowing it to shine brightly without being dimmed by the energies of others.

=Candice Erickson- Perham

Are you a person that has a high energy? Or some would call it a high vibration. I think of them as people who feel like sunshine.

Sunshine People: Natural Attractors

People are drawn to you. Kids and animals pick you out in a room. Strangers open up to you easily. You have the ability to shift the energy in a room. Toxic people are offended by your existence. It mocks their ability to control the mood. People are envious of you but they couldn’t exactly say why.

These types of people are like a magnet. They are highly sought after. These people are often the ones who are so worn out by their 40s that they are getting physically sick. Just an observation of mine.

What can these people do to protect their good energy? What should you do if you are one of these people?

  • take time to relax, restore, reflect
  • choose your battles
  • speak to yourself kindly, especially when emotions are high
  • remember you can step out of any social situation
  • ground yourself every morning (find rituals that bring that sensation)
  • reply to texts and phone calls when you have energy, not at the earliest possible moment
  • in an argument; remember what Brene Brown says,” I am not here to be right, I am here to get it right”

There is so much chaos and upheaval in the world today. This generates a lot of excess, discordant energy in our collective, human field. Make it a daily practice to clear your energy at least once a day. So much of whatever discomfort you might be feeling may have nothing to do with you. Protect your space accordingly.

-saratogaocean.com

Transforming Your Negative Energy: Steps to a Lighter You

What if you are the problem? If you are the holder of negative energy, are you doomed to be the destroyer of energy henceforth and forever? No. There are many ways to clear your negativity. You just have to be willing to take the steps. Including any of the following:

  1. Practice gratitude with a guided meditation or start a gratitude journal
  2. Breathing exercises e.g. box breathing (in for a count of 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4, repeat)
  3. Lie in the grass to absorb the earth’s energy
  4. Burn sage to cleanse the air of negativity
  5. Put on a song you love and dance
  6. Go for a nature walk (barefoot if possible)
  7. Take a shower
  8. Visualization of negative energies draining away
  9. Repeat affirmations to increase your good vibes
  10. Bath in epsom salts to cleanse your energy

Be careful that you do not carry the burdens of other people. You are not in charge of any other person’s responsibilities but your own. You are not responsible for how someone responds to the boundaries you create. You do not need to worry about the emotions of another, be aware, but do not take them on. When you are deciding if something is worth your energy, make sure you are involved. Do not put yourself into the conflicts between others. That excludes your own children while they are under your care. Some of those conflicts you should definitely step in on.

From Shadows to Sunshine: The Forest’s Energy Shift

There are so many ways that the forest can bring you good energy. Just being able to see green spaces. A patient’s hospital stay time is decreased and they use less pain medication. Time in nature with trees reduces stress and brain fatigue. Physical movement is generally good for a body. At any level to start.

Did you know that just looking up at trees branches can increase alpha brainwave activity. Making us feel more relaxed and yet more alert. It has to do with the fractal patterns formed by the branches. Add a little glint of sunshine through them and my day is made.

Specifically speaking, pine trees are known for bringing peace of mind and for being a helper tree. It can calm a restless mind. Thoughts and feelings become more harmonious. Just being in contact with a pine tree can start this healing process. Or so “they” say.

Affirm Your Power: Protecting Your Energy with Positive Words

Affirmations seem like a silly practice to some people. But those who have tried it know the power in them. An affirmation is a positive statement. Starting with “I am” or something similar, to bring your energy up or in this case, to protect your energy.

  • I am rooted and grounded, I have all the support I need in this present moment
  • I am choosing to feel grounded, calm, peaceful and secure
  • I am the only one that gets to choose how I feel
  • When I feel overwhelmed I can pause and breathe
  • I choose the power to rise above negative emotions that are not serving me
  • I am strong, steady and grounded
  • I am a powerful, peaceful, abundant energy
  • I am in charge of my energy, I get to choose how I feel in every moment
  • I am always supported and protected
  • I appreciate my ability to remain calm and peaceful in all situations

Find your tiny happy things. like sunshine. Singing along with the radio. Talking to animals. Reading a book you love. Fuzzy blankets. Lunch with a friend. When you find someone as goofy as you. Yummy desserts. Choose to be uplifted by your tiny happy things. To constantly fill your tank.

Cynefin

(Welsh) a place where one feels it ought to live and belong. where nature embraces and whispers its welcome.

This is my unending source of good energy. Nature.

And now for the most relaxing hour! Drumroll, please.

One Hour to Recharge: Shifting Energy from Gloom to Glow

If you have an hour to yourself, this is one way to use it to bring your energy up and regulate your nervous system in the process.

Step 1: 5 min of a breathing meditation, guided or self led

Step 2: Listen to ambient music for 10 min. I highly recommend weightless by Marconi Union

Step 3: For 15 min just close your eyes, nap if you want or just rest your eyes and your brain

Step 4: Find a gentle way to move for 20 min. Yoga. Tai chi. Sway dancing.

Step 5: For the last 10 min write a list of things you are grateful for.

Such a simple list. The benefits are far reaching. Try to schedule an hour to yourself once a week.

Today: soak in what’s real and what’s real is unhurried. The ground. The air. The exhale. The planted seed. The shift. The season.

-Victoria Erickson

That’s all folks. I hope you can relate to some of what I am talking about today. If you are enjoying what you are reading, subscribe with the button at the bottom of the page. If you’d like to hear more about a specific topic, let me know. And if you’d like to go even deeper with me. Shoot me a message and we can find a time for a forest walk. Take care.

It is the month of June, 
The month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes,
And pleasant scents the noses. 
-Nathaniel Parker Willis