Inside me, the Protector, the Wounded Child, the Survivor, and the Healer all dance in a quiet circle. Each one longs to be seen, to be heard, to be held. And when I finally stop to witness them, their chaos becomes a rhythmโฆ and their rhythm becomes my healing. -recoverytrauma.ltd
I heard something recently that has been rolling around in my head. It was a conversation about worry versus wisdom.
The idea was that worry keeps us stuck, while wisdom keeps us moving.
One of the concepts was this, sometimes we feel stuck because we want two things that canโt exist at the same time.
I want to be healthy, but I donโt want to change anything.
I want to feel better, but I donโt want to slow down.
I want to have more energy, but I donโt want to give anything up.
I want my nervous system to settle, but I keep filling every available minute.
And with chronic pain, there can be a whole extra layer of this.
I want to do the things I used to do, but my body canโt always do them.
I want to feel better, but I canโt control whether I have a good pain day or a terrible one.
I want answers, but sometimes there are no tidy solutions.
So I worry. I think. I analyze. I replay. I predict. (Iโm actually a delight. But you wouldnโt know it because Iโm so tired and irritated all the time.)
I consider every possible scenario until my brain has apparently opened approximately 47 tabs, and none of them are helpful.
And somewhere in all of that thinking, I can become very, very stuck.
But then I look at my grandkids.
They might know something I have forgotten.
They donโt spend nearly as much time worrying about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow.
They deal with right now.
If theyโre hungry, they eat.
If theyโre tired, they lie down.
If they see a bug, suddenly that bug is the most fascinating creature on Earth.
If someone says something funny, they laugh.
If they fall down, they may cry. And then, remarkably, five minutes later theyโre deeply invested in something completely unrelated.
They donโt seem to spend a lot of time thinking:
I really shouldnโt have fallen down yesterday.
Or:
What if I fall down again tomorrow?
They are busy being where their feet are. Kids have a PhD in being where their feet are. (Wise little beings.)
Not because the past doesnโt matter. Not because the future doesnโt matter.
But because this moment is the only one I can actually do anything with.
And I think that is part of the difference between worry and wisdom.
Worry keeps asking:
What if?
Wisdom asks:
What now?
What if I stopped trying to solve tomorrow?
One of the things I love about forest therapy is that nature gives me a place to practice being present.
Not by sitting perfectly still and trying to empty my mind.
My brain ๐ง - Director of Unnecessary Mental Load ๐ชช
Instead, I can go outside and let my attention wander.
I call this a sensory wander.
Rather than walking with a destination in mind, I slow down and follow whatever catches my attention.
Maybe itโs the shape of a leaf.
The sound of something moving in the grass.
The smell of wet earth.
A tree with strange bark.
The way sunlight hits one little patch of moss.
A bird I canโt identify.
A spider web I would have walked right past.
I donโt have to figure anything out.
I donโt have to make the experience meaningful.
I donโt have to turn it into a lesson.
I just notice.
What has my attention right now?
Then I follow that.
And when something else catches my attention, I follow that instead.
Itโs quite simple.
I donโt have to live three days ago. I donโt have to live three weeks from now.
I can live right here.
With the trees.
With whatever happens to be in front of me.
Wisdom doesnโt mean having it all figured out
I donโt think the podcast was suggesting that wisdom means knowing exactly what to do.
Sometimes we donโt know.
Especially with chronic pain.
There is a lot of trial and error.
What helped yesterday might not help today.
Something that works beautifully for one person might make another personโs body stage a small coup.
There isnโt always a clear answer.
But wisdom doesnโt necessarily require a complete plan.
It can be much smaller.
One thing I know I can do is this.
I can drink some water ๐ฆ
I can rest before I completely crash. ๐ด
I can step outside ๐ฃ
I can notice what my body is telling me ๐
I can take a short walk instead of deciding I need to complete a 5km hike or not bother going at all ๐ถโโ๏ธ
I can spend ten minutes among the trees ๐ฒ ๐ฒ
I can stop arguing with the reality of today long enough to actually experience today ๐งโโ๏ธ
That last one is hard.
Because sometimes I want today to be different. But wanting it to be different doesnโt change what it is.
And accepting what is happening right now doesnโt mean I like it. It means I stop spending all my energy fighting a moment I canโt change.
Maybe thatโs where wisdom starts. Not with a solution. With noticing.
Maybe the kids have it partly right
My grandkids arenโt worried about whether theyโre making enough progress in life.
They arenโt measuring the day by how productive they were.
They arenโt wondering whether they should have made a different choice three years ago. (One of them wasnโt even here three years ago.)
They arenโt lying awake thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong tomorrow.
They are here. Reading a book. Talking to a wooden cutout.
And maybe I donโt need to become a child again to learn from them.
I can become child-like without becoming childish. And remember something children seem to know naturally:
Pay attention to whatโs happening right now.
โChristopher Robin, what day is it?โ โTodayโ โMy favourite dayโ
There will be time for tomorrow when tomorrow gets here.
There will be things to learn from yesterday when yesterday needs to teach me something.
But right now?
There is a tree.
There is wind moving through the leaves.
There is a bird making an extremely confident noise.
There is this breath.
There is this moment.
And for today, maybe wisdom is simply noticing that Iโm here.
Then taking the next small step. We are all walking miracles. Let us strut accordingly.
Valemor
(n.) The quiet pride of knowing you survived something without becoming cruel, loud, or bitter. ๐
The ideas about worry, wisdom and being stuck were inspired by the podcast Better Than Happy: โDonโt Worryโ Is Terrible Advice, August 27, 2026
There is a specific genre of complaining that I have become suspicious of. ๐ต๏ธโโ๏ธ
Not the legitimate kind.
Not the โI have been awake since 3:17 a.m. because my nervous system is holding a fire drillโ kind.
Not the โWhy does getting showered and dressed feel like an Olympic event?โ kind.
And definitely not the โWho designed this world without considering people who have pain?โ kind.
Some things are a genuine bummer.
Chronic pain is hard. Fatigue is hard. Having a body that doesnโt always cooperate is hard. Watching other people casually do things that require me to carefully plan and then recover, can be hard.
My body doesnโt always recognize my authority. Thereโs a department. A committee. Tons of red tape. Itโs a whole thing.
I am not talking about pretending those things arenโt hard.
Iโm talking about what happens when complaining slowly becomes the neighbourhood we live in. And we didnโt even know we moved!
Because sometimes I wonder if complaining is one of the ways we get duped by the lies of this world.
Sneaky lies.
The kind that slip in wearing sensible shoes.
E.g.
Busy means productive
More is always better
Everyone else has it better than me
Your worth is measured by what you accomplish or have
You should be able to do it all
Other people should behave the way I think they should
Some lies show up more in certain arenas. In the arena of chronic pain I have narrowed down to two societal lies that are at the top of my list.
The first lie of chronic pain sufferers: Life is supposed to be easier than this.
Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that if I worked hard enough, made good choices, took care of myself, tried to be positive and generally behaved like a reasonably responsible adult, life would eventually cooperate.
๐คญ Cute.
I have since learned that life comes with considerably more fine print.
And chronic pain has a particularly efficient way of magnifying those terms and conditions ๐ .
You can eat well. You can exercise within your abilities. You can rest. You can take your medication. You can go to appointments.
You can stretch and strengthen and meditate and breathe and try every reasonable suggestion known to humanity.
And then Tuesday morning shows up, completely ignoring the fact that I had a lovely little breakthrough on Monday. My body still hurts. The dust is still judging me from across the room. The laundry has continued breeding. Nothing has been resolved, healed, folded, or otherwise put right.
That doesnโt mean you failed.
It means youโre human.
The second lie of chronic pain sufferers: If I canโt have the life I wanted, I canโt have a good life.
This one is considerably more dangerous.
Because chronic pain can shrink our world.
First we stop doing something because it hurts.
Then we stop doing something because weโre afraid it will make things hurt worse.
Then we stop making plans because we donโt know how weโll feel and we are tired of cancelling.
Then we start thinking about everything weโve lost.
And eventually our attention becomes almost completely occupied by what isnโt possible.
The thing is, nothing has to be invented. The losses are real.
But the brain can take a real loss and turn it into a much larger story.
I canโt live like I used to becomes:
I canโt do anything.
Iโm having a terrible pain day becomes:
Iโm always in unmanageable pain.
I canโt make plans reliably becomes:
My life is completely out of my control.
Thatโs where I think complaining can become a trap.
Weโre no longer simply describing our circumstances.
Weโre rehearsing them.
Over and over.
And our brains are remarkably good at getting better at whatever we repeatedly practice.
But hereโs where I need to be careful.
Because there is another lie that can sneak into this conversation.
โIf people are tired of hearing about my pain, I should just tuck that thought back in the vault where it belongs.โ
No.
Absolutely not.
I have chronic pain.
This is not a part-time hobby.
If something hurts every single day, pretending it doesnโt hurt so that everyone around me can have a more comfortable afternoon isnโt healthy either.
Sometimes I need to say:
โToday really hurts.โ
Sometimes I need somebody to know that Iโm struggling.
Sometimes I need to be able to say, โThis is really hard, especially today,โ without having to immediately follow it with something inspirational so nobody gets uncomfortable.
I donโt need a motivational quote.
I need a witness.
And sometimes the person we need to hear us is the person who is tired of hearing it.
This is one of the hardest parts of chronic pain.
Because pain doesnโt take weekends or holidays off.
It doesnโt understand that those closest to you have already heard about it yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. For what seems infinity.
It doesnโt care that your family has had a long day.
It doesnโt politely wait until everyone is emotionally available.
And the person who loves you may eventually reach a point where they think:
I know youโre hurting. I know. But I donโt know what else to say.
And sometimes that comes out as:
โThat sucks.โ
Then they go back to whatever they were doing.
Ouch ๐ฃ
Because when youโre hurting badly enough to finally say something, โThat sucksโ can land less like validation and more like:
Please stop talking about this ๐ .
But there is another possibility.
Maybe theyโre not saying:
Your pain doesnโt matter.
Maybe theyโre saying:
I donโt know how to fix something I canโt fix ๐ง.
Maybe theyโre exhausted too.
Maybe they have heard about your pain so often that they have become emotionally numb. Not because they donโt love you, but because human beings arenโt particularly good at repeatedly witnessing something they canโt make better.
And hereโs an inconvenient truth:
Both people can be hurting.
The person with chronic pain can need to be heard.
And the person who loves them can need a break from pain being the centre of the room.
Those two things can be true at the same time.
So how do we complain in a healthy way?
Maybe the answer isnโt donโt complain.
Maybe itโs learn how to communicate the need underneath the complaint.
Because sometimes what Iโm really asking isnโt:
โWould you like to hear the latest installment of Everything That Hurts?โ
Sometimes Iโm asking:
โCan you please just acknowledge that this is hard?โ
Thatโs a different request.
Instead of:
โEverything hurts today. My back is killing me, my hips are aching, I barely slept, my hands hurt, and I donโt know how Iโm supposed to get anything doneโฆโ
I might try:
โIโm having a really bad pain day. I donโt need you to fix it. I just need you to hear me for a minute.โ
Or:
โCan I have two minutes to complain without you trying to solve it?โ
Or even:
โI need a little reassurance right now. Can you tell me you understand that this is hard?โ
That gives the other person a job they can actually do.
They donโt have to cure chronic pain.
They donโt even have to have the perfect response.
They just have to be present.
And I think we can give them permission to tell us when their tank is empty.
This one is tricky.
Because if someone says, โI canโt listen to this right now,โ it can feel devastating.
Especially when you already feel like your pain is an inconvenience.
But perhaps we can build a different language around it.
โI love you. I believe you. I just donโt have the capacity to talk about pain right now. Can we come back to this later?โ
(Hold them to talking about it later, or they are just avoiding the issue)
That is very different from:
โIโm sick of hearing you complain.โ
One establishes a boundary.
The other makes the person feel like the problem.
And research on chronic pain couples backs up the importance of this distinction. Validation communicates that the personโs experience is real and understood, while invalidation can interfere with emotional and pain regulation. At the same time, studies also suggest that very frequent pain-related disclosure can wear down supportive responses. (PubMed)
So perhaps healthy communication lives somewhere in the middle.
Tell the truth.
Donโt catastrophize the truth.
Ask for what you actually need.
Give the other person permission to have limits.
And donโt make one person your entire emotional support system.
Because thatโs a lot to ask of one human being.
Even if that human being is married to you.
Your brain is listening to you.
Our brains donโt simply receive information from our bodies like a receptionist taking messages.
Theyโre constantly interpreting what is happening.
Attention, emotion, memory, expectation and perceived threat can all influence the experience of pain.
Chronic pain isnโt simply a matter of damaged tissue sending an identical pain signal over and over again. The nervous system can become sensitized and change the way sensations are processed.
And repetitive negative thinking (ruminating about pain, what it means, what might happen, how unfair it is) can add another layer of distress.
In very simple terms:
What we repeatedly pay attention to gets easier for the brain to notice.
That does NOT mean chronic pain is imaginary.
It does NOT mean positive thinking cures illness.
And it absolutely does NOT mean that if youโre still hurting, you just arenโt trying hard enough.
Puh-lease. โ
I have enough on my plate without wondering whether Iโm handling my suffering correctly.
But it does mean there may be a difference between:
โThis hurts.โ
and
โThis hurts, this always happens, this is never going to change, I canโt do anything, my life is terrible, nobody understands, and why does everyone else get to have a normal body?โ
The first is information.
The second is a story.
And stories can either help us carry reality or make reality heavier.
Validation isnโt the same thing as agreement.
This is an important distinction.
If I say:
โIโm scared this pain will never get better.โ
You donโt have to get in the pit with me and say:
โYes. The dumpster fires persist but so do we.โ
You can say:
โI can understand why youโre scared. Youโve been dealing with this for a long time.โ
Thatโs validation.
Youโre not agreeing with the prediction. You are not forecasting something different.
Youโre acknowledging the experience.
Researchers studying chronic pain couples have found that empathic and validating responses are generally associated with better emotional and relationship outcomes, while invalidating responses tend to be associated with worse outcomes. A 2025 systematic review of chronic pain couples reached a similar overall conclusion. ((PMC)PubMed Central)
And interestingly, even brief training in validation has been shown to improve validating responses from spouses and reduce negative affect in partners living with chronic pain. (PubMed)
Which means perhaps we donโt need our loved ones to become pain experts.
Maybe we just need to teach each other a few life-saving sentences.
๐ โI believe you.โ
๐ โThat sounds really hard.โ
๐ โIโm sorry youโre hurting.โ
๐ โDo you want me to listen, help, or give you some space?โ
Sometimes I need help.
Sometimes I need someone to sit beside me while I have spectacular pity party.
And sometimes I need everyone to leave me alone.
Which brings me to the forest.
The forest is a third party in the conversation.
One of the reasons I love forest therapy is that it gives me somewhere else to take my pain.
Not to hide it. Not to deny it. Just to put it down for a little while.
The forest doesnโt say:
โAgain with the pain?โ
It doesnโt say:
โYouโve already told me this.โ
It doesnโt say:
โThat sucks.โ
It simply gives me something else to notice.
The sound of wind moving through branches.
The texture of bark.
Birdsong.
The smell of damp earth.
Bosky
Covered with bushes, shrubs, and small trees, or having a woody and shady appearance. (Dictionary.com)
Light moving through leaves.
My feet touching the ground.
My breath silent as I watch the deer across the ravine and she watches me.
And suddenly my attention isnโt completely occupied with the running commentary in my head.
Nature exposure has been associated with reduced stress, and research on forest therapy has found changes in measures such as cortisol, heart rate and parasympathetic activity.
The evidence isnโt perfect, and the forest isnโt a cure for chronic pain. But it can offer the nervous system a different kind of input. Slower, safer, less demanding.
Sometimes that is enough to interrupt the loop.
Try this the next time you catch yourself complaining.
Donโt shame yourself.
Thatโs just complaining about your complaining. Youโve now created a sequel nobody asked for ๐คฆโโ๏ธ.
Instead, pause.
Ask:
What am I actually needing right now?
Am I needing to be heard? practical help? reassurance? rest? Am I feeling lonely? frightened? angry?
Am I simply needing someone to say:
โThat really sucks.โ
Because sometimes that is enough.
Then ask yourself:
Who is the right person to give me that support right now?
Maybe itโs your spouse.
Maybe itโs a friend who understands.
Maybe itโs a support group.
Maybe itโs a therapist.
Maybe itโs a journal.
Maybe itโs the forest.
And maybe sometimes itโs you.
Iโm not trying to become a person who never complains.
Frankly, that sounds exhausting.
I still complain.
But Iโm trying to notice when complaining stops being a way of expressing something and starts becoming a way of seeing everything.
And Iโm also trying to remember that needing to talk about my pain doesnโt make me a burden.
I can tell the truth about what hurts. I can ask to be seen. I can let someone say, โI love you, but I donโt have the capacity for this conversation right now.โ
I can find more than one place to put my pain.
And I can learn the difference between telling the truth and allowing the pain to tell me the story of my entire life.
So many views from one sit spot. Depending on where I point the lens.
Because maybe thatโs one of the great tricks of this life:
The lie isnโt always that our circumstances arenโt difficult.
Sometimes the lie is that our circumstances are all there is.
Pain is part of my life. It isnโt the whole of it.
Fatigue is part of my life. It isnโt the whole of it.
The things I canโt do are part of my life. They arenโt the whole of it.
And when I walk into the forest, I get reminded of something my occasional complaining brain conveniently forgets:
There is still a world happening outside my symptoms.
There is still beauty. There is still laughter. There are still surprises.
Maybe I donโt have to fight my life into becoming the one I thought I was promised.
Maybe I can stop complaining about the moment long enough to find a life well-lived.
I hear the word retreat and my brain starts packing a bag.
Preferably for somewhere with trees, a mountain, a few trails and nobody asking me whatโs for dinner.
A retreat sounds lovely.
It also sounds like something that requires time, money, planning, a reservation, and quite possibly a whole new wardrobe.
But what if retreat doesnโt have to be a big event?
What if it can be ten minutes? A half hour? Or an afternoon?
What if you donโt have to go anywhere?
Iโve been reading Caroline Sylgeโs How to Retreat, and I love the idea that retreat can be much more accessible than we tend to make it. A retreat can be a deliberate step away from the noise of ordinary life, and it can look very different depending on what you need.
Which got me thinking about a question I probably need to ask myself more often:
What does my soul need today?
Not what does my calendar say? Not what am I behind on? Not what would make me feel impressively productive?
What does my soul need today?
And sometimes the answer is surprisingly simple.
ฤloka
Sanskrit and Pali. Meaning light, brightness, vision or enlightenment. When something inside you finally becomes clear.
Yesterday, apparently, my soul needed to get rained on.
I woke up thinking I should go to the gym.
That meant walking there, working out, and walking home again.
Then I looked outside. It was cloudy and raining.
My immediate response was something along the lines of, Excellent. Perhaps I shall simply allow these blankets to absorb me.
But eventually I got myself moving. Rain gear on. Out the door.
Only a few minutes from home, I noticed something. I was enjoying the rain. I could feel it on my hands. I could hear it hitting my hood. The air smelled different. The whole world seemed quieter.
By the time I reached the gym, I was more than ready to move.
I hadnโt needed to convince myself. I just needed to get outside long enough for my nervous system to catch up with the plan.
Sometimes we donโt need a retreat just a walk in the rain on the way to the gym. And sometimes we need the gym.
Thatโs the tricky thing about asking what your soul needs.
The answer isnโt always rest.
Sometimes it is movement. Adventure. Solitude. People. A nap. Fresh air.
The micro-retreat
I think this is where the idea of a micro-retreat joins well with the idea of forest therapy.
We have somehow managed to turn rest into another achievement.
Apparently we need the perfect location, the perfect playlist, the perfect journal, the perfect candle and three uninterrupted hours to properly relax.
I would like to formally announce this is unnecessary protocol.
Your retreat can be tiny. You could put a plant on your desk. Turn on a little water feature. Put your phone somewhere you canโt see it.
Sit there for ten minutes. Listen. Look. Breathe.
Thatโs it!
You have not travelled anywhere. Your bank balance remains unchanged. No achieved enlightenment. But you stepped outside the usual stream of demands.
That counts.
And tomorrow, your retreat might look completely different.
Maybe you need to sit in a cozy chair and read. Or wander for thirty minutes through a park while the leaves are turning. Perhaps you have enough energy for a three-hour mindful walk through the forest. Or just enough energy to sit on a bench and watch water move.
All valid needs.
Forest therapy makes room for all of this
One of the things I love about forest therapy is that there isnโt a mileage requirement.
Nobody hands you a medal at the end because you managed to walk seven kilometres while being mindful.
You donโt have to conquer the forest. You donโt even have to walk very far.
The forest isnโt a treadmill with better scenery. Itโs an invitation to slow down and notice.
And the beautiful thing is that you can scale that invitation to whatever your life (and your body) can manage.
Nature can be a forest. It can also be a tree outside your door. A houseplant. A garden. Rain on your hood. The sound of a creek. Ten minutes watching birds. A patch of grass.
There is some pretty fascinating neuroscience behind this.
We donโt have to make nature complicated. Sometimes we just need to stop long enough to realize it is there.
Your brain might thank you
Our brains spend a tremendous amount of time directing attention, filtering distractions, making decisions and responding to demands.
Nature seems to give that hard-working attention system a bit of a vacation.
Researchers call one part of this soft fascination.
Instead of forcing yourself to concentrate on something, your attention gets gently captured by things like moving leaves, clouds, birds, water or sunlight.
You arenโt doing nothing. Your brain just isnโt working quite so hard at doing everything.
A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found that nature exposure was, on average, more cognitively restorative than non-nature exposure, particularly for working memory and attentional control. Interestingly, around 30 minutes appeared to be a particularly useful window in the studies they examined.
And a 2026 review looking across 108 neuroimaging studies found evidence of changes in brain networks involved in stress, attention and self-referential processing following exposure to natural environments.
Now, before we all start dumping our meds out the window, putting a houseplant beside our bed and declaring ourselves neurologically healed, a little caution is appropriate.
This is promising research, though not a magic prescription.
Studies differ in their methods, environments and participants, and researchers are still figuring out exactly what kinds of nature experiences work best, for whom, and for how long.
But the evidence is increasingly pointing in an interesting direction:
Getting away from the constant demands on our attention may actually give our brains some room to recover.
And I will happily take more reasons to go sit in the sun.
What if creativity is the point?
Unused creativity is not benign. It metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, judgment, sorrow, shame.
-Brene Brown
This is another part of Sylgeโs thinking that really caught my attention.
Creativity can be part of the retreat.
But it can also be what comes out of the retreat.
Sometimes you retreat because you need to write.
Other times you finally get quiet enough for the idea youโve been carrying around in your head to come knocking.
Maybe you take photographs or write or sketch or paint.
Maybe you start noticing colours, shapes, textures and tiny details you normally walk straight past.
You donโt have to be an artist. You donโt have to produce anything profound.
Take a picture of a leaf because you like the way it looks. Write three sentences. Draw a tree that looks like a potato. Itโs okay! The potato tree has value.
The point isnโt necessarily to create something impressive.
The creative act may simply be another way of paying attention.
And sometimes, when we stop trying so hard, something unexpectedly creative finds its way through.
My Micro-Retreat Menu
So, if you are wondering what retreat might look like today, here are a few possibilities.
๐ฑ 5 minutes: Find one living thing. Look at it properly. Notice something youโve never noticed before.
๐ง 10 minutes: Sit beside water. Real water is excellent. Tiny tabletop water feature? Also acceptable.
๐ 20 minutes: Make yourself a cozy space and read. No multitasking. No โIโll just check one thing.โ
๐ 30 minutes: Take a slow seasonal wander. Notice what has changed.
๐ท 45 minutes: Take your camera and photograph whatever catches your attention. No theme required.
๐ฒ 2โ3 hours: Go into the forest. Walk slowly. Sit down. Listen. Notice. Journal. Rest. Let the experience unfold instead of trying to accomplish it.
And then there is:
๐๏ธ The โmy body has votedโ retreat: Stay home. Make tea. Read. Listen to rain. Look out the window. Rest without turning it into a failure.
Because sometimes the most mindful thing you can do is listen when your body says no.
Aging is when your brain says, โWe ride at dawn.โ And your body says, โWe absolutely do not.
Retreat so you have something to give
There is another aspect of this that I think gets overlooked.
We donโt retreat only so we can feel better. Sometimes we retreat so we can return. Because when weโre depleted, we donโt have much left to offer anyone.
Our patience gets shorter. Our creativity dries up. Everything feels like one more demand.
And sometimes we need to step away. Not because we donโt love people, but because we do.
Iโve written about this before in A Grid of Love and Light, because I believe our light is meant to reach beyond ourselves.
But we canโt shine indefinitely on an empty tank. Sometimes we need to step back and replenish. Not so we can become more productive. So that we can return with a little more presence.
A little more patience. Creativity. Light.
So ask the question
Before you automatically do what you always do, stop for a moment.
Put down the phone. Look out the window. Take a breath. And ask yourself:
What does my soul need today?
Maybe it needs a forest. Or rain. Perhaps a workout. Or a book. Maybe it needs creativity. Or a friend. Maybe solitude. Or ten quiet minutes beside a plant.
Maybe it needs to crawl back under the covers and put out a Do Not Disturb sign for the world.
The answer doesnโt have to be the same tomorrow.
Thatโs the beauty of it.
A retreat doesnโt have to be a place. It can be a response.
A response to what your body needs. What your mind needs. What your soul needs.
And perhaps the goal isnโt to retreat far enough away that we become someone else. Perhaps it is simply to step out of the noise long enough to remember who we already are.
You donโt have to escape your entire life. You can simply step out of it for a little while.
โThe music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.โ โoften attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Iโve been thinking about the pause. The spaces between the things we think make a life important.
We live in a culture obsessed with the notes.
The promotion. The house. The vacay. The degree. The business. The six-figure salary. The awards. The followers. The accomplishments we can put on a rรฉsumรฉ.
More. More. More.
More recognition. More experiences. More things.
These things absolutely have their place and purpose. But somewhere along the way, we started measuring ourselves and others by those notes. What if, hear me out, the music is actually in the silence between? In the pause.
A forest is never truly silent. There is wind moving through the branches, birds calling, insects buzzing, leaves rustling, footsteps on the trail.
But there are pauses between the sounds. If you notice them, those pauses make you notice the sounds that much more.
Maybe life works the same way. Maybe the pause isnโt empty. Maybe it is where we hear what we would otherwise miss.
I donโt have the wealth or notoriety or conventional accomplishments that can make a life look impressive from the outside.
And often, Iโll admit, I struggle with that.
I want to work. I want to contribute. I want to be useful. I want to afford to live. I want nice things. I want to go fun places.
I want to get groceries without having to figure out which ones I can afford to put back (calculus- level grocery shopping.)
I want to say yes to things without factoring in the 2-3 business days of recovery. I donโt want to be a burden on others.
And when I look around and see everyone else accomplishing things, building careers, travelling, buying houses, starting businesses and living their lives, comparison can sneak in.
And comparison has never once left me somewhere good. It usually leaves me grieving the life I thought I was โsupposed to have.โ
Maybe Iโm not missing the music.Maybe Iโm living in the pause.
That reoccurring thought has changed some neural pathways in my brain.
Billy Graham once said, โYouโve never seen a hearse with a U-Haul behind it.โ
We donโt take our houses. We donโt take our bank accounts. We donโt take our titles. We donโt take the things weโve accumulated. We donโt even take our accomplishments.
People sometimes leave a legacy through museums, buildings, scholarships, roads and schools named after them. (And there is nothing wrong with that.)
But Iโve started asking myself a different question:
What if the most important legacy isnโt what has my name on it?
What if itโs who I became while I was here? And whose name I have written on my heart at the end of it all?
What if the real question isnโt, โWhat did you accomplish?โ
But:
โWho did you become?โ
Did I become kinder? More compassionate? More patient? More generous? More loving?
And, if you believe as I do, โDo you pause to recognize this is who you have become with Godโs help?โ
That changes the way I look at my days.
I believe the only things I ultimately get to take with me when I leave this life are my relationships with the people I love and what I have become in the process of living it.
So if this is the pause, I donโt want to waste it.
I want to live here intentionally.
Interruptible-y.
Iโve spent a lot of my life focusing on productivity.
Whatโs next? What needs to get done? What am I accomplishing? How do I fit everything in?
But what happens when I build my life so tightly around my plans that there is no room for interruption?
What if the interruption is the point?
I still have a loose outline for each day. Things I want to accomplish.
But I want to be interruptible. I want to leave room for God.
For people. For a conversation. For a need. For beauty. For a compassionate detour.
What does living in the pause look like for me?
Iโve started organizing my life around four areas.
Not perfectly.
But intentionally.
1. Spiritual growth
I start with God. I pause to pray to speak to Him. Then I read scripture to listen.
Sometimes Iโll sit in the sunshine while I pray. Thereโs something about feeling the warmth of the sun on my face, noticing the light, and remembering that Iโm part of something much bigger than whatever is happening inside my own head. Or my body.
Soulucence
A coined spiritual and artistic term meaning the radiant, unarmored light of your true soul, shining to the world.
I try to carry that awareness with me through the day. That light. That connection.
The reminder that my life has a purpose beyond what I can accomplish.
Because if I spend all my energy trying to build a life that looks successful but neglect the person Iโm becoming, Iโve missed the point.
I donโt have to earn my worth by being useful.
I can simply be His.
And from that place, I can become more interruptible. More available. More attentive.
More willing to notice what He might be putting in front of me.
2. Physical health
My body gets a significant portion of my attention these days.
I go to the gym three days a week. I have a routine for each visit.
I generally walk there, which means going to the gym can consume a surprisingly large portion of my day.
Not much keeps me home.
Ribs out? Still going.
Bone structure held together by ligaments there more for decoration than integrity? Still going.
Bad weather? Still going.
The people who were supposed to meet me there cancel? Still going.
Apparently I have become that person.
Until. Ice. Then I stay home.
I also spend time trying to support my body in other ways. Light therapy, castor packs, and other things that have become part of my detox routine.
Iโm working toward an anti-inflammatory way of eating. Letโs just say this is a work in progress.
I can make a beautiful, healthy breakfast and then my good intentions meet a snack.
My next goal is finding healthy lunches I actually enjoy and snacks that donโt make my inner snack gremlin revolt.
Iโm also working on drinking more water. If you have a solution for this other than โjust drink more water ๐,โ Iโm listening ๐.
I make homemade body products and cleaning products too. One day a week is usually devoted to refilling whatever is running low.
Itโs not glamorous. But it is part of caring for the body Iโve been given. And Iโm learning that caring for my physical health isnโt about forcing my body to perform like it used to.
Itโs about listening to it. Respecting it. Working with it. And sometimes, that means adjusting the plan.
Which brings me back to:
Being Interruptible.
A healthy life isnโt necessarily a perfectly executed schedule. Sometimes itโs knowing when the schedule needs to change.
3. Intellectual and creative growth
โLive as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.โ
โ often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I donโt want to stop learning just because my life doesnโt look the way I once imagined it would.
So I read. I listen to books and podcasts. Not mindless gibber-jabber. I want to learn things. Understand things. Try things.
Iโm interested in how people work, how the brain works, how the body works, how nature affects us, how faith shapes us, how we can live better.
And then I try to do something with what Iโm learning. I recognize itโs about more than just taking in. Our output of that knowledge benefits us and others.
I write. I blog. I create. I try new skills. I play. I experiment. I make room for curiosity.
And Iโm trying to bring meditation back into my routine this fall. That one has fallen somewhat spectacularly off the summer wagon schedule.
Maybe summer isnโt the season for stillness for me. Maybe itโs the season for gathering enough light to carry me into the winter pause.
Living in the pause doesnโt mean creating another impossible list of things I must accomplish in time.
It means paying attention and following what works for the day. Or pursuing a completely unplanned thought.
Such as taking a compassionate detour.
Which brings me to the fourth part.
4. Relationships
This might be the most important one.
I start my day with a loose outline.
But I try to remain interruptible.
If a friend needs to talk, I want to have room for that.
If someone needs support I can give, I want to be available.
If my husband and I have an opportunity to go for a walk or grab a treat, I donโt want to be so committed to my schedule that I miss it.
Weโve had some top tier walks this season.
I intentionally build visits with friends into my week. Sometimes we go for a walk. Lay on the beach. Or we just sit and talk.
Some people leave me energized. Some people deplete my energy.
Iโm learning to recognize the difference, being mindful without judging either one. Because relationships are not an optional extra to a healthy life. They are part of a healthy life.
I believe that the people I love are part of what I take with me into eternity, so investing in those relationships isnโt time away from my purpose.
It is part of my purpose.
Being interruptible means leaving enough room in my life for another human being to matter.
I still have days when I desperately want the notes.
I want the accomplishments. I want the freedom. I want to contribute more. I want to travel more. I want to buy something without having to calculate whether itโs practical.
I want a life that feels bigger sometimes.
But I donโt want wanting them to blind me to the life Iโm already living.
The pause isnโt wasted time.
I used to think of the spaces between accomplishments as empty.
Waiting. Stuck. Behind.
Iโm starting to see them differently.
Maybe this is where the music is. Where I learn to listen to God. Where I learn what matters. Where I become.
And maybe the pause isnโt the part of my life that happens while Iโm waiting to get back to the real thing.
Maybe this is the real thing.
So Iโm going to try to live here. In the pause.
To pray. To learn. To care for my body. To create. To laugh. To love my people. To take compassionate detours. To notice the rain. To sit in the sunshine. To walk through the forest.
And to become the kind of person I hope to be when all the notes have finally ended.
Because perhaps the music was never in the accomplishments.
Perhaps it was always in the silence between them.
And maybe thatโs one of the reasons I keep coming back to the forest.
Forest therapy teaches that you donโt have to force a forest to perform for you. You simply enter it, slow down, notice what is already there, and become receptive to what you might otherwise miss.
The wind between the trees. The birdsong between the sounds. The light between the branches. The breath between one moment and the next.
The pause. Iโm due for another sit beside the rushing water beneath the tall trees. A lay down under clear, bright, starry skies.
So hereโs a question for you:
What would change in your life if you stopped seeing the pause as wasted time and started asking what it might be teaching you?
A wrong note doesnโt ruin the music. A painful day doesnโt 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 didnโt 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 Iโm carrying. I sense what itโs costing them and feel guilt begin to weigh me down.
Other people donโt know what to do with my pain. So they carry on as though it doesnโt 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 Iโm invisible.
Steve said that now, when he plays a wrong note, he smiles.
Not because the mistake doesnโt matter. Not because heโs pretending everything is fine. But because he knows what he wants to do with that moment.
I donโt think I need to smile through every painful moment of my life either. Iโm not interested in pretending chronic pain isnโt real. Some days hurt.
On those days I get an โerror 404 ๐ป: human not found ๐ซโ message every time I try to move.
But maybe there are moments when I can smile anyway.
Not at the pain.
At what Iโm 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 isnโt 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 weโre 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 Iโm walking in the forest, Iโm creating. Iโm noticing. Iโm visualizing. Iโm meditating. Iโm 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.
Iโm 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. ๐ฟ๏ธ ๐ฒ
Because I know there will be days when I need them. When winter comes (or when pain gets loud ๐ข) I will have somewhere to go.
Maybe thatโs one of the things Iโm learning about living with chronic pain. I donโt have to pretend the pain isnโt there. But I also donโt 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.
It feels like weโre 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 ๐โโ๏ธ .
It doesnโt take much to tip us over.๐
A few days ago, mine came in the form of a boat launch.
Anyone whoโs spent time around a busy boat launch knows itโs 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 theyโre right.
Iโve been launching boats for about fifteen years. I know the rhythm. I stay out of peopleโs 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 Iโd โcut the line.โ
Boat launches really do produce fascinating specimens of humanity.
Iโve 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.
Itโs 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 didnโt want an explanation.
He began clapping sarcastically.
The world doesnโt just wear us down through tragedy. Sometimes it does it one sarcastic clap at a time.
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. (Iโm 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 โcut the lineโ at the dock.
How people treat you is their karma, how you react is yours.
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.
โMove!โ
Just before the collision, he swerves.
As the fog clears, he realizesโฆ
The boat is empty. No one was steering.
Instantly, his anger disappears.
Who was he angry with?
No one.
Since first hearing that story, Iโve 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 theyโre exhausted. Grieving. Terrified.
Maybe they simply donโt know any better.
Or maybe theyโre carrying hurts I canโt 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.
Thatโs different from stuffing feelings down or pretending they donโt exist.
You canโt bypass emotions.
You canโt slap a positive quote over a nervous system thatโs sounding the alarm.
But sometimes the alarm quiets on its own because you suddenly realizeโฆ
There isnโt actually an enemy here.
Just another imperfect human.
When the boat is empty, compassion often becomes easier than combat.
How will this feel next week?Next month? Next year?
Itโs 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 grandmotherโs 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 weโre all sharing.
That doesnโt make our feelings unimportant.
It simply gives them context.
Another surprisingly effective tool?
Humour. Humour interrupts the story weโre telling ourselves.
Weโve all done it.
We become convinced weโve 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 โthe funnyโ at the boat launch.
I wasnโt 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 canโt control sarcasm.
I canโt control mockery.
I canโt 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 weโll explore more in the next post.
Felt safety isnโt the absence of fear.
It isnโt the absence of challenge.
Itโs your nervous system recognizing that you have enough capacity to face whatโs 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 systemโs full emergency response.
When someone steals my peaceโฆ
I take it to the woods.
There, I remember that Iโm part of something much older than a rude exchange at a boat launch.
Much bigger than todayโs 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 youโve never met.
A Forest Therapy Invitation
If youโre 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?
Donโt force an answer.
Just notice what changes.
Sometimes the forest doesnโt solve the problem.
It simply reminds us that we are far bigger than it.
Forest therapy doesnโt 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 canโt think of a better response to a world that is hard on beautiful things.
Letโs become one of the beautiful things that refuses to grow hard.
The world may be hard on beautiful things. That doesnโt mean beautiful things have to become hard.
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.
Iโd 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 didnโt fully understand yet.
Female hormones are funny. Theyโre 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 youโre wondering if you should have brought a jacket, umbrella and storm cellar.
The weather didnโt become bad.
It changed.
Our hormones do too.
Female hormones are a bit like Saskatchewan weather. If you donโt like whatโs 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. Itโs 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 doesnโt 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 donโt 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 youโd 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 doesnโt 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.
Thatโs why healing often requires support from multiple directions.
๐ Good food.
๐ Movement.
๐ Sleep.
๐ Stress management.
๐ Connection.
๐ Time outdoors.
The podcast also reinforced something Iโve 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
Itโs amazing how quickly the nervous system responds when we give it the chance.
The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness.
This is the first post in a hormone series. Next week weโll look at hormone disruptors: where the biggest offenders are hiding, and what to use instead.
My physiotherapist, โJ,โ 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, โIโm running again.โ 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 #4Grandbaby #1Iโm running outside!Grandbaby #2Riley and GreyGraduation #1Graduation #2Engagement #1Home sale #2
We have laughed together as I walked around in a body that behaved like itโs 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 Brentโs and eventually to stop working.
Leaving the farm and grieving all that move represented. She understood, sheโs 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 #1Fell off the boat An MRI changed everything Following surgeryCar crash #3Car crash #2Farm 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:
โYouโre a success story. Do you know that?โ
My first instinct is always to deflect a compliment.
I think you have me confused with someone whose joints arenโt held together by determination and prayer alone.
But it felt true. It felt like the most true diagnosis Iโd ever been given.
She continued, (and I want you to see yourself in this,)
When you look at where youโve 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 cousinโs 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. Thatโs me. Thatโs you.
What is it thatโs 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 stillโฆ they continue.
That is not failure. That is resilience. That is success.
Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
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 โlook fine,โ 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.
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.
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.
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 donโt apologize for moving slowly at some points on their path.
Seasons do not shame themselves for resting.
Maybe we shouldnโt 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 continueโฆ
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 โoff-road capable,โ 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 wasnโt actually built for daily gravel roads. Then every winter the same part broke because it apparently also wasnโt designed forโฆ winter?
I remember thinking, Well neither am I, but you donโt see me breaking down.
(foreshadowing ๐ณ)
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 couldnโt move and a brain that couldnโt think.
I didnโt 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.
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 โfine.โ 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.
Thatโs 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 10โ20 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 โachieveโ 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 systemโs 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.
Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities. Always see them, for theyโre 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
Thereโs 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.
People tell me itโs wonderful that Iโve 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 itโs 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 weaknessโฆ that stillness is healingโฆ that her nervous system deserves gentlenessโฆ that she is allowed to stop fighting every battleโฆ
Then maybe this story matters.
An Invitation To The Forest
So if you are exhaustedโฆ
If your body hurts all the timeโฆ If your mind never stops spinningโฆ 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.
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.ย
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.ย
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.ย
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 โsaving of circumstanceโ 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 โfight or flightโ response). This internal friction creates a โnoisyโ environment where the body cannot easily access its natural repair mechanisms. By owning our choices, we create a clearing. We allow the โrest and digestโ (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 โStone and Streamโ 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: โThis was my choice. I acted with the knowledge I had. I am human, and I am here.โ
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 โwhy is this happening to me?โ to โthis is where I am, and this is how I choose to grow.โ 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.
