Tag: nervous system regulation

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.

Discerning What’s Beneath the Frosty Surface: Setbacks or Breakthroughs

pammunkholm

The snow came back. Not a dramatic blizzard, just a quiet dusting, enough to blanket the tender shoots that had just begun to think about stirring. Only days ago, the air was warm, the earth was waking up, and I felt that familiar pull to move, grow, begin again.

Then Saskatchewan’s subtle, “Psyche!” Mother Nature really needs to work on her comedic timing. It’s not funny anymore.

Mother Nature 👆
Us 👆

There’s a particular kind of discouragement that settles in with such a turn. It’s not sharp or overwhelming, but a slow, heavy ache. Like walking through the late-winter woods, where everything appears still, heavy, yet you sense the hidden bubbling beneath the surface.

Nothing is ‘out of order.’

It’s more akin to the forest floor right now. Frozen on top, but teeming with life underneath, roots holding fast, life paused mid-sentence. Waiting. And that kind of waiting, when your body carries its own complex story, can truly wear a person down.

When movement is a necessity, not merely an item on the ‘someday I should’ checklist, and suddenly it’s interrupted, just as you were finding your rhythm again. That’s its own unique setback.

And if you live here, you know winter isn’t a one act play. It lingers. It’s heavy. It tests you in ways that often go unseen. The cold that steals your breath before you’ve even taken a full one. The way your muscles brace with cold before you reach the car. The ice that transforms every step from less of a stroll and more of a high-stakes game of Twister that I never asked to play. And sometimes, despite my best efforts, I end up in disarray on the ground. 

All it takes is one tiny tweak and suddenly your entire body is engaged in combat against itself. Again.

The scraping of windshields. Running out of gas on the coldest days every time. The endless layering. The constant bracing. The mantra of “just get through this.”

And then, quieter but just as profound, the world shrinks. Fewer visits. Less spontaneity. More effort required for connection. A different kind of painful twinge takes root.

Winter is undeniably hard. And then spring arrives, feeling like a profound release. Your feet meet grass again.

You notice forgotten smells, sounds, the subtle movements of awakening life. Your body remembers something it almost lost. Summer? You’re gone, in the best possible way.

Moving. Living. Saying yes to life again. Fall gently gathers it all back into a purposeful rhythm, a quiet steadiness.

And then… winter.

If my life were a board game, this is how it would look. Spring moves me ahead five spaces. Summer? Easily ten, maybe more; I’m flying. Fall grants another five without much effort. And winter? Winter sends me back twenty-five. Every single time. Honestly, at this point, I’d like a word with the game designer. I’m pretty sure they’re hoarding all the ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards. Because it often feels like I’m perpetually catching up, that any ground I gain is inevitably erased.

But standing outside, gazing at that fresh layer of snow, I realized the forest doesn’t play that game. The trees aren’t measuring progress by who wins and who loses. They aren’t frustrated by yesterday’s fleeting warmth. They aren’t disappointed because spring almost arrived then left. 

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s words echo,

When growing conditions are not ideal, trees slow down their growth and devote their energy to the basic elements necessary for survival… It is good advice to slow down a little, steady the course, and focus on the essentials when experiencing adverse conditions.

And that, precisely, is what’s unfolding out there right now. Nothing has gone backward. It is simply waiting for its time. Using this time to focus on what’s beneath the surface.

Perhaps I can learn something there. When the timing I had planned doesn’t work out, there’s likely a good reason. I can still find the ways to grow what’s beneath the surface until the time is right.

Jody Moore speaks of the “river of discomfort.” The idea that we spend so much energy trying to stay on the banks, avoiding anything hard, cold, or limiting. But true growth doesn’t happen on the edge. It happens when you’re immersed in it.

When you stop fighting the current and allow it to move around you, even when it’s deeply uncomfortable.

Winter often feels like that river. So does injury. So does anything that slows you down just as you were gaining momentum. And I don’t always navigate it gracefully.

Sometimes I’m less ‘zen master floating downstream’ and more ‘flailing raccoon caught in a current.’ Sometimes I resist. Sometimes I push. Sometimes I’m frustrated to find myself “back here again.”

But perhaps I’m not returning to something amiss. Perhaps this isn’t losing ground at all. Deena Metzger once wrote,

There is a slowness that is not a stopping, but a gathering.

Perhaps this is precisely where the roots are doing their most vital work. Under the surface.

AURALYN: (n) The sacred glow of someone learning to love themselves again.

Not sudden, but slow, like flowers relearning the sun.

-Everglow Words

⸻

A Forest Therapy Practice: Exploring the Depths

You don’t need to venture far for this. You don’t even need to go outside, though it often deepens the experience.

  • Sit. Or stand. Or lean. Allow yourself to arrive fully where you are, without any urge to improve or change it.
  • Imagine what lies beneath you. Not the snow. Not the frozen surface. Deeper. Intricate networks. A slow, steady strengthening. Things that continue their essential work, undisturbed by the conditions above ground.
  • Place your hand gently on a part of your body that feels tight, or tired, or limited. And instead of asking, “Why isn’t this getting better?” try asking, “What might be needed for healing to take place here?”
  • You don’t need an immediate answer. Just let the question settle. And… wait there with a small flicker of hope. No pressure. Just a quiet willingness to believe that something is still unfolding.

⸻

Try returning to this thought:

What if winter isn’t taking me backward?

What if it’s building something I couldn’t cultivate any other way?

Something slower. Something steadier. Something that won’t vanish when the seasons inevitably shift again. Because they will. They always do.

Trust your ability to BOUNCE BACK.

-Shine

John Steinbeck noted,

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

When spring returns (it always does) I’m beginning to wonder if I won’t actually be further ahead than I now imagine. Even if the board game of life never quite shows it.

Early Spring Musings: Reflections and Ruminations

pammunkholm

Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.

— Joyce Meyer

March in Saskatchewan is a master of disguise🥸. And every year I am hoodwinked! *shakes fist*

The sun shows up brilliant and convincing. Like it’s finally time! 🙌 🌱 

You start to believe it…🙏 😃 until the wind pelts you in the face and reminds you this is far from over 🌬️🥶😢.  

Honestly it feels like false advertising.

And somehow, that’s not even the hardest part.

Every time I open social media my algorithm pulls an ultimate betrayal of trust and I end up watching everyone else step into spring. Bare ankles, running shoes, patios, fresh air that doesn’t hurt to breathe. I gotta say, I’m a little jealous. 😡 

Meanwhile, we’re still in boots and three layers. Bracing against the bitter cold.

It creates this quiet kind of rage.

Not just for warmer weather…

but for things to finally feel easier. Movement. Outdoor gear. Shivering. It all exacerbates the physical restrictions I am already battling. 

⸻

Chasing the Unquenchable Longing 🏃‍♂️

Lately, I’ve realized that same feeling exists in my body too.

The desire to wake up and just go.

To follow through on plans. 

To make goals and have a say over the outcome. 

To move through the day without pain.

To go nap- free after an event and still pass as human. 

To feel like I’ve rejoined the human race.

But I don’t make the rules. And my body isn’t in a state to join in any races. 

Not against the clock.

Or expectations.

Or the version of life I thought I’d be living right now.

It’s asking for something completely different. My broad assessment is that every body is asking for something different than this “human racing.”

Calm.

Quiet.

Attention.

Harmony.

Tranquility.

Stillness.

If you’ve just tuned in. This is me in my slow- stroll era. A far cry from my past 100mph- blur era.

Nowadays is more comparable to a long drawn out forest walk.

⸻

A Shift in the Sands of Seasons

The other day, the sun was spilling in. The kind that makes you think, 🎵 Oh, what a beautiful morning.

So I put on a jean jacket and vest and went outside determined to feel the sun on my skin. 

But within moments, the cold wind cut through my pathetic outer wear, and my body pushed back. Pain hit. Energy disappeared. Cramping like I’ve just run a marathon and forgot to stretch ensued. Then that familiar irritation right under the surface.

I thought,

What’s the hold up?

Yet instead of pushing harder, I tried something different.

I slowed down. I found another way. I went inside.

I sat by the window to feel the warmth of the sun (if not its actual rays). 

Instead of resisting what was happening.

And the irritation softened.

⸻

What Early Spring Knows

The seed grows in the dark.

– Joyce Meyer

Early spring doesn’t rush.

It doesn’t bloom all at once.

Some things are not ready. And that’s alright.

They will begin… quietly. In their own time. So much of what is happening to prepare for spring is beyond what we can see. 

There’s a line by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 

The spring comes slowly up this way.

Maybe healing does too.

⸻

A Forest Therapy Practice

From Yearning to Hope (anywhere outside)

If you’re feeling that same pull toward more, toward better, toward not this. Try this on your next walk.

1. Pause

Stand still for a moment. Feel the air as it actually is. Not how you wish it felt.

2. Acknowledge the longing

What are you wishing for right now? Energy? Relief? Name it.

3. Walk slowly

Let your pace match your body.

4. Notice one small sign of change you can sense. A sign of becoming. 

Melting snow. A drip of water. A patch of earth. A shift in light.

Let that be sufficient for today. (Even if part of you is still hoping for a dramatic, movie-worthy breakthrough.)

5. Receive this thought

I will allow what is ready.

Only what’s ready is happening. Allowing creates opening in me.

⸻

A Truth I Hold Dear

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

Slow doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

It just means it’s happening differently than we expected.

I am reminded of this scripture:

1 To every thing there is a season⁠, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die⁠; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh⁠; a time to mourn⁠, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get⁠, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend⁠, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence⁠, and a time to speak 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-7 KJV

There is a “proper time.” 

🎶 Turn, Turn, Turn 🎶 

Even if March doesn’t feel like it yet.

Even if your body doesn’t feel like it yet.

⸻

Embracing the Slow Transition to Spring

March will keep teasing us. 

The sun will keep shining.

The wind will keep reminding us it’s still winter.

And spring will come anyway.

Slowly.

Right on time.

Maybe healing works like that too.

There is beauty (and warmth) ahead.

That which is to give light must endure burning.

– Viktor E. Frankl

Accessing Strength in Nature and Family: Winter Healing

pammunkholm

Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

–Katherine May

In Saskatchewan right now, the wind still bites and snow still crunches under our boots.

The pale sky stretches wide over frozen lakes and ground.

And yet… we are talking about spring. Not because we see it. But because we remember it.

It has come every year before and we can trust it will come again.

This is one of the most asked questions about forest therapy:

Does this really help when life is hard? When pain is chronic? When nothing feels like it’s changing?

The answer is not dramatic. It is steady.

Forest therapy does not promise cure. It doesn’t offer “complete and totally done with it all 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 .”

That’s not our story.

What it offers is regulation. Relationship.

So I keep returning.

Research around nature exposure shows reduced cortisol, improved heart rate variability, and nervous system settling.

But beyond the science is something quieter. The forest does not rush spring and the body does not rush healing. They know the futility and energy waste that rushing introduce to otherwise perfect systems.

Both the forest and the body move in seasons. Why then do we want spring to hurry up? Why do we expect the body to heal in our prescribed way, on our expected timeline?

🌲 “Can forest therapy help chronic pain?”

As someone who lives with chronic pain, I don’t speak in absolutes.

I speak in terms of mountains. There are days the climb feels vertical. Flares. Illness. Falls. Each with its own devastating consequences.

And still. We climb.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

–Zora Neale Hurston

During the super cold winter of 2021, I learned that our first precious grandbaby was on his way. I wanted. Correction: I needed to be able to hold and snuggle that little one.

But I was so weak. I could barely lift a mug of tea without shaking from the effort. I walked from the bed to the bathroom. Sometimes to the car for an appointment.

The little munchkin, who I hadn’t even met yet, was cheering me on. I could sense it. So with a soup can, a baby blanket, and a prayer, I commenced my grandma- training.

A soup can because it weighed approximately a half pound. My ideal starting weight.

A baby blanket because of what this can of soup represented. He was going to grow over the following months into an actual grandbaby that I would wrap in this blanket. And carry him around to snuggle him. And to put him to sleep. To have deep conversations and sing the songs my mom and grandma sang to me.

And a prayer because that’s who I am.

That soup can, baby blanket and I started with 30 second walks 3x a day. Each walk induced waves of nausea followed by hours of cramping and exhaustion.

Each half pound and each 30 second increase was an excruciating miracle.

There were setbacks. Most evenings were agonizing. Some days I wondered if this was the correct place to put this much time and energy. It was all I could do to find time and energy to eat.

After months of focused grandma- training, I could walk outside! And something shifted. During a particularly stressful week and stubborn muscles, I walked down the lane and into the trees on our farm. I couldn’t go as far as I’d planned. I couldn’t “achieve” what I wanted. I leaned against a frozen trunk and felt foolish for even trying.

The cold, early spring air sharpened my senses. The snow muffled the world. The trees stood, scarred, weathered, unmoving.

Some trees have survived a hundred Saskatchewan winters. I considered how they are wise and do not apologize for seasons of dormancy.

It was around this time I stopped asking, “When will I be better?” And started asking, “How do I live well from this place?”

That question changed everything. And part of my answer was to focus on being a grandma. That little man I trained for months to be able to hold is going to be 4 this summer. And his equally enchanting sister will be 2. They have been the means of my greatest confrontations and of my greatest delights.

Almost like trying to enjoy your favourite therapy during a Saskatchewan winter. We take the intense highs with the intense lows.

🌲 “How do you practice forest therapy in winter?”

Winter forest therapy isn’t about long hikes. It’s about being present in the moment.

Notice how snow softens sound. Notice how your breath becomes visible. Notice how even in dormancy, life is stored beneath the bark and soil.

I have come to the realization that the forest in winter mirrors chronic pain. Nothing looks alive. Nothing appears to be blooming. But beneath the surface, systems are conserving and recalibrating.

Strength. Resilience. Wisdom.

Spring doesn’t shout when it arrives. It begins as a spark. An idea.

A drop. A thaw.

A beam of light catching ice and reflecting its warmth.

The same is true in us. Your good days are coming.

Sometimes we have to trust that promise for a long time before we see it.

Even if all you’ve seen is a spark.

That spark will become a light. That light will become a beam.

That beam becomes you, reflecting what you’ve learned onto someone else.

🌿 A Simple Winter Forest Therapy Practice

Trusting the Season (10–15 Minutes)

  • Step outside, even if just to your yard or a nearby tree line.
  • Stand still. Feel your feet grounded in frozen earth.
  • Place one hand over your heart. One over your belly.
  • Take three slow breaths. Watch the air leave your body.
  • Ask quietly: What season am I in?
  • Look for one sign of hidden life. Buds beneath bark, tracks in snow, sunlight on ice.
  • Whisper: Spring has come before. It will come again.
  • When ready, take that sentence home with you.

🌲 What Makes Forest Therapy Different From Hiking?

Hiking is about distance. Forest therapy is about experiencing relationships.

You don’t conquer the mountain. You learn from it.

And when you fall (as we all do) you get back up.

Keep climbing. Fall after fall. Flare after flare.

Keep reflecting hope and joy in the middle of the mess. It’s possible.

Anne Lamott defines hope not as naive optimism but as a stubborn choice to believe in goodness and possibilities, especially during dark, uncertain times.

🩶 If you’re reading this from under grey prairie skies, remember:

The trees are not worried about spring. They trust the tilt of the earth. They trust that light and warmth will return.

You can trust too. Your good days are coming. There are bright days ahead.

My bright days in this season, are when I get to be a grandma. If you want to see my grandparent life in reverse, view the following. It’s meant to be scrolled through to get the overall feel of the joy that was ahead of me. That I now get to experience.

Apologies. That was way too fun to go through old photos.

Even if you have to hold on to that promise longer than you wanted to. Hold it tight. The good days make it all worth it.

At this point in my story I can cart around that 2 year old and 4 year old at the same time. Grandma’s got guns. Just kidding. Training for my grandson got me to the point that I can run on a treadmill and ride a recumbent bike. He is my hero.

Keep getting back up. Show a willingness to bend and slow when your crucible is heavy. But keep climbing. Keep reflecting the beams of light.🌲✨

The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.

–Robert Jordan

The Art of Finding Calm: Anchors for Inner Peace

pammunkholm

By the time you reach the last spring, your hands are shaking. You’re sweating. Frustrated. Everything keeps getting more crooked.

You realize too late. You started wrong. 😑

Anyone who has assembled a trampoline knows the rule. You don’t hook the springs in a circle, one after another. If you do, the tension pulls unevenly. By the end, you don’t have the strength to stretch it into place.

You begin with four. Evenly spaced. Then every ten. Then every five. Then every two.

You build balance first. Then you stretch.

Cruising the Chaos of Life’s Pulls

We are pulled by responsibilities👈, expectations👉, needs👆, roles👇, diagnoses🫵, deadlines🫡.

Work. Family. Health. Friendships. Faith. Community. The list goes on.

Each one a spring tugging at the mat of our life.

When we hook ourselves fully to one area without anchoring wisely, the whole thing warps. We overextend in one direction and find ourselves weak in another.

Sometimes that is the season we are meant to live.

After giving birth, your whole being stretches toward that tiny life. Other areas thin out. That is not failure. That is devotion. In time, the tension redistributes.

But chronic pain does not redistribute so gently.

Chronic Pain: The Illusion of Perfect Harmony

When you live with chronic pain, you are constantly pulled toward managing symptoms, setting and going to appointments, pacing yourself, rest, prevention. Your energy budget is small. Other areas stretch thin.

Then something hopeful happens. 😮

You focus on your health. 😧

You improve. 🫢

You feel almost normal. 🥹

Everyone else sees it too. 🙌

Schedules begin to fill 🗓️ Invitations multiply 🥳 Expectations quietly rise 🫴 . The springs of “normal life” begin snapping back into place 🫰.

You let yourself believe it. 😄

Maybe I’m better. 😂

Then exhaustion crashes in 🫩 You stare at your calendar at night and wonder what you’ve done to yourself 😳 A small slip becomes months of recovery 😵 One flare unravels carefully rebuilt stability 😞.

And then come the looks 😒🙂‍↔️

The subtle confusion 🤨

The well-meaning advice 🤓

The unspoken question: Why can’t she just get it together?

Living with chronic illness often means managing other people’s perception of your crooked mat.

There is grief in that.

Grief in not being believed. In being misunderstood. In having to explain your limits and have them questioned again and again.

Eventually, you begin to let springs go.

  • Work (sounds great, it’s decidedly not great)
  • Hobbies
  • Certain relationships
  • Many dreams have to shift

Not because you lack discipline. Because you are learning discernment.

Tregi:

“A tender form of sorrow- one that doesn’t overwhelm but lingers softly in the soul, and it’s the ache of remembering something beautiful that’s gone, the silence after a goodbye, the bitter sweet pull of nostalgia. “

–

The Spring I Learned to Release

Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time.

–Hermann Hesse

One sunny day I carried my journal and scriptures out to our trampoline. It was warm, the sun pooling across the mat. A strange place to do cold, hard work.

I read.

I prayed.

I journaled.

I napped.

I prayed again.

And then I cried.

And cried some more.

To say I wanted one more baby doesn’t begin to explain the years of ache. The doctors knew what my body could not sustain. I knew it too.

But my heart wasn’t ready. I wanted to leave the doors open for God to do His work.

That day on the trampoline, I realized I was hanging on to a spring that was pulling my whole life crooked. The decision to have a hysterectomy felt like unhooking something sacred. I needed my Saviour in it with me.

It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. Letting that spring go felt like loss. But when I finally released it. After some time. I stopped trying to force tension where my body could not hold it. And space opened for healing. Opportunities I never could have seen coming appeared. Energy shifted. My frame steadied.

The mat did not look like I once imagined. But it began to hold me differently.

Calm comes when I choose my springs intentionally.

Cultivating Serenity Amidst the Clutter

Inner calm is not equal distribution. It is intentional tension.

It is knowing which four anchors belong in this season and which ones do not.

There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.

–Ralph H Blum

But we cannot hear that wisdom in noise.

We cannot recalibrate while drowning in comparison, expectation, and urgency. The nervous system cannot settle when constantly pulled outward.

This is why I return to nature.

In the forest, no one critiques the tension of a tree branch as it cradles more and more snow and ice.

The bitter prairie wind does not apologize for taking our breath away.

The river does not hurry spring.

Outer stillness teaches inner calm.

When I step into the trees, the sensory world steadies me:

  • The sharp edges of wind swept snow
  • The cool texture of bark beneath my palm.
  • The sound of wind moving through leaves like breath.
  • Light filtering through branches in patient patterns.
  • Look closely
  • Breathe deeply

The forest is not rushed. It is not impressed or judgemental of us. It simply grows toward light.

And in that space, I can finally ask:

Which springs belong today?

And the incredibly hard question. Where do I need to let go?

The mind, like water, when it is turbulent, becomes difficult to see. When it is calm, everything becomes clear.

–Prasad Mahes

🌲 Forest Therapy Practice: Four Anchors for Inner Calm

This practice is especially for seasons when your life feels uneven.

You are not rebuilding your entire life today. Only choosing your four.

Time: 30–45 minutes

Location: A quiet trail, grove, or open field

1. Arrive in Outer Stillness

Stand still. Feel your feet on the earth. Take three slow breaths, extending the exhale. Let your nervous system soften.

Notice where your body feels tight. Jaw. Shoulders. Back. Belly.

2. Choose Your Four Anchors

Whisper four priorities that truly belong in this season. No more.

  1. Health.
  2. Immediate family.
  3. Faith.
  4. One small joy.

Imagine each anchor as a tree spaced evenly around you.

Notice the balance.

3. Walk the Circle

Slowly walk in a gentle circle, pausing at each imagined anchor. Ask:

Is this spring too tight? Is this one neglected? Does this truly belong in this season?

Let answers arise without judgment.

4. Release One Spring

Name one responsibility, expectation, or internal pressure that does not belong right now.

Imagine physically unhooking it.

Notice the shift in your breathing.

5. Sit and Receive

Lean against a tree or sit on the ground. Feel the support beneath you. Let outer stillness hold what you cannot.

Stay in silence.

6. Gentle Reflection

When you are ready, journal:

  • What would happen if I allowed this season to be enough?
  • What does my body need more of?
  • What am I brave enough to release?

True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.

–Eckhart Tolle

You are not weak for having fewer springs. You are wise for choosing them. Balance may not look symmetrical. Your mat may not look like someone else’s.

But even a crooked mat can hold us.

And in the quiet of the forest, we learn to stretch for only what we are meant to hold.

What a blessing it is to look around and see pieces of my old prayers scattered everywhere.

Sarah Trent

How to Grow Rich When Chronic Pain is Your Reality

pammunkholm

Ever notice how the word rich instantly makes people picture a yacht, a corner office, or at least a pantry where I have everything I need from chocolate to chia seeds?

Meanwhile, some of us are over here feeling wealthy because we found a position that doesn’t make our back yell at us.

Welcome to redefining abundance.

When you live with chronic issues, the cultural picture of “the good life” can feel like a club you don’t get invited to. My body has very strong opinions. And she will not yield. And yet, many people walking this road discover a strange, stubborn truth.

Richness is not a circumstance.

It’s a way of seeing.

Better Than Happy host Jody Moore distinguishes between two kinds of discomfort. One is fueled by resistance and the belief that life should be different. The other is accompanied by gratitude and a desire to create meaning from what is here.

In the latter, action becomes possible. In the former, people often remain stuck.

For those with chronic pain, discomfort is not optional. The choice lies in how we relate to it.

Turn your wounds into wisdom.

–Oprah Winfrey

Gratitude does not deny suffering. It widens the field of attention so that suffering is not the only occupant.

There is the ache that says,

“Why me? This ruined everything.”

And there is the ache that whispers,

“Given that this is here, what life can I still grow?”

The first freezes us in place.

The second opens a path.

A rich life might include money. It might include health. It might include work you love or a family that grows together. Or it might be something far less Instagrammable and far more sustaining. Presence, meaning, connection, small mercies, deep seeing.

Gratitude has a way of turning what is here into enough, and from that soil, more becomes possible.

Not because your nerves suddenly behave.

But because your mind has room again.

As Meister Eckhart wrote,

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

Gratitude is not pretending pain is lovely.

It is noticing pain is not the only thing present.

Nature’s Secret Calculus

In the woods, a tree with a twist in its trunk is not considered a failure.

It is considered interesting. Strong. Adapted.

No straight lines required.

Chronic pain can feel like the bend you never asked for. But bends create habitats. They slow us down enough to notice moss, breath, companionship, the sacred ordinariness of being alive.

What if the detour is also the destination?

Chronicles of My Journey

Some days my life feels like a series of unfortunate events. Many of those events are inconsequential to the general population. But to my loose joints they are devastating.

Last August I was enjoying a beach day with friends. Enjoying isn’t a strong enough word. These are the days I live for.

In my rush to support my mom getting off the boat, I slipped. My leg hit twice. On the back of the boat. Then scraped down the ladder.

The pain sent me into waves of nausea. Darkness of passing out kept threatening. I refused to surrender because that seemed embarrassing in the moment.

I was rushed off the beach as my leg swelled into two big lumps. Once I got it raised, it started to stabilize and my senses returned. In the end we decided to wrap it and I got to stay at the beach. But my summer was over.

More devastating was what it did to my gym workouts. I try to get to the gym a few days a week to keep my muscles strong enough to hold me together.

I was finally to a place where I could hold most major joints in for a week or more. This incident set me back months.

The bruise went through the ankle bone and wrapped almost completely around my shin. My tan is hiding most of the damage.

I am pleased to say I am finally back to a place where I can run almost the distance and pace I had before the damage to my leg. But it took all of those 6 months. The rest of my body has yet to catch up.

These setbacks are frequent and challenging. But I am learning there is peace and hope available on all days. No matter what is happening or not happening. And the sunshine will return.

Finding Wealth in the Woods: A Forest Therapy Practice

  • Go somewhere with trees or sky.
  • Let your pace match what your body can honestly do today.
  • Arrive. Feel your feet. Or your walker. Or the place you are sitting. Let the earth hold some of your weight.
  • Notice three forms of wealth already present. Warmth on your face. Air entering lungs. A sound that is gentle.
  • Place a hand on your heart or thigh and ask, “Given my limits, what is still possible for me?” Don’t demand a big answer. Let something small come. A phone call. A rest. A moment of beauty.
  • Say, quietly, thank you.

That’s it. Tiny riches count. And this practice opens doors for more riches to enter your presence.

Navigating the Path Ahead: A Thoughtful Analogy

Imagine inheriting land you didn’t choose. Some of it is rocky. Some days it floods. You can spend years arguing with the map… or you can learn what grows there.

Blueberries love poor soil.

Certain pines only open after fire.

Some of the most resilient beauty requires harsh beginnings.

As Rainer Maria Rilke advised:

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Where Forest Therapy Carries Us

At the outset, when life no longer looks like it did, when identity is disrupted, the forest helps us find where we fit now. Not who we were. Not who others are. Who we are today.

In the middle, when the physical and mental anguish feels loud, nature gives our nervous system something steady to lean on. Wind continues. Chickadees continue. Light continues. We borrow their rhythm.

And at the end, or at least with distance, we often see that pain brought unexpected inheritances. Tenderness, clarity, reprioritized love, a fierce ability to notice what matters.

A different kind of fortune.

You may never get the yacht.

But you might receive awe. Intimacy. Meaning.

Moments of real rest inside the storm.

That is wealth no market can crash.

And forest therapy walks with you through the whole thing 🌲

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

-Rumi

The Influence of Non-Judgmental Awareness: Mending the Nervous System

pammunkholm

There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the distant, but surely coming, summer.

-Gertrude Jekyll

If you’ve ever tried to “think positive” while your body is screaming, you already know who wins.

Pain wins. Exhaustion wins. A nervous system on red alert wins. Any pep talk given to said nervous system is bringing a Post-it note to a tornado.

And then we blame ourselves! Because obviously the problem is a personal moral failure, not a human being a human.

In forest therapy, we take a different approach. We don’t try to out-think the body. We learn to listen to it without judgment. In doing so, the body finally gets what it has been asking for all along. Safety.

Biology’s Rebellion: The Dangers of Overriding Nature

Many people living with chronic pain think they should be able to cope better.

They should be stronger.

They should push through.

They should be more grateful it’s not worse.

But here’s a humdinger of a thought. When your body is sending powerful distress signals, your conscious mind has very little leverage.

The attempt to escape from pain is what creates more pain.

–Gabor Maté

Neill Williams, on the Success Genius Podcast, explains it beautifully. When you are hungry, exhausted, or in pain, your biology overrides your attempts to think or feel differently.

The vagus nerve, your internal communication highway, links brain, heart, lungs, digestion, and the stress response. If that system is dysregulated, focus, creativity, decision-making, and connection all suffer.

Your body is a boundary of your soul. Treat it with care.

–Jean Shinoda Bolen

As I’ve said before. This isn’t a motivation problem. It’s a nervous system problem.

And until the body feels safer, it will keep turning up the heat.

Rushing: The Trap That Keeps Us in Survival Mode

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

–Ghandi

I dare say, we hurry through the day, override our limits, stay stimulated late into the night, fall into bed, wake up feeling four days past our bedtime, and repeat.

Then we wonder why our system is constantly braced for danger. We keep hitting refresh on the same nervous system and expecting a software update.

From a survival perspective, it makes perfect sense. Nothing in that cycle signals “You can stand down now.”

So the body continues to send messages. And they are rarely gentle. Whispers don’t usually create change. Pain often does.

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

–Mary Oliver

“I Would, But I Simply Can’t.”

I often hear how wonderful forest therapy sounds.

I wish I could. Maybe someday. When life calms down.

But healing asks for time. Attention. Slowing down. Repetition.

Until then, forest therapy remains a lovely idea instead of lived remedy.

Word to the wise. Your body will keep requesting the appointment. It has an unlimited follow-up policy and will keep calling until someone answers.

If you don’t schedule a break, your body will take one for you, and it probably won’t be at a convenient time.

-Unknown

The Remarkable Power of Non-Judgmental Awareness

Here is where the shift happens.

When we practice noticing sensations without evaluating them, we step out of the inner fight.

Instead of:

  • This is bad.
  • Why am I like this?
  • I should be better.

(There are no gold stars for hating life correctly)

We try:

  • Warmth
  • Tightness.
  • Pulsing.
  • Cool air on my cheek.

No argument. No story.

Judgment activates defense. Awareness invites regulation.

The nervous system reads neutrality as safety.

The organism knows.

–Eugene Gendlin

Nature: The Ultimate Stage for Inspiration

The forest is a masterclass in non-urgency.

Nothing is asking you to be different.

Everything belongs. You. Belong.

Research into nature exposure consistently shows reductions in cortisol, blood pressure, muscle tension, and rumination.

But experientially, I’ve seen something even more important. People soften. Attention and breathing widens.

The body begins to renegotiate its alarm state.

Nature provides gentle sensory anchors. Light, texture, birdsong, air movement. These allow awareness without overwhelm. For someone with chronic pain, this is crucial. We are not adding more intensity; we are expanding capacity.

Astravore: (n) A soul that keeps feeding on hope even after disappointment- light-hungry, resilient, unbreakable. -ViviJan

You are larger than what is happening to you.

–Michael Singer

Silencing the Alarm: A Lesson in Balance

Imagine a car alarm that has been blaring for years.

You wouldn’t yell affirmations at it and tell it to be quiet.

You would look for the threat it thinks it perceives.

Non-judgmental awareness in nature is how we open the hood.

Each calm moment says, “No one is breaking in right now.”

Over time, the alarm system recalibrates.

My Story

I’ve experienced moments in my forest therapy practice when I wanted to do it all perfectly. To follow all the “right steps.”

When I go in with this focus I notice the pain is still there. The frustration is still there. I start thinking about all the years of pain I have ahead of me. Of financial strain. And the weight it adds to every relationship.

Then I remember to just breathe. Focus on today. Right. Now.

I start to feel the breeze on my face and hear it making its way through the trees around me. I sense the solid earth beneath me.

The pain does not vanish. But it’s not the only voice anymore. It has just been hogging the microphone in my head. 🎤 🤫

There is support available here whenever I need it. In the birds and the trees and the solid ground. This may sound odd. But this shift in thinking moves the pain inside a larger field of safety.

This is regulation. I just keep coming back to it.

The best way out is always through.

– Robert Frost

A Gentle Invitation to Explore

  1. Find something in nature that feels steady. A tree, a rock, the shoreline.
  2. Let your eyes rest there.
  3. Now widen your awareness to include three additional sensations that are neutral or pleasant.
  4. Move back and forth between the discomfort and the wider field

    You are teaching your nervous system that pain can exist without emergency.

    Do this regularly and the vagal pathways that support calm begin to strengthen.

    Don’t just do something, sit there.

    –Sylvia Boorstein

    The Real Result: Persistence in Life

    When regulation improves, people often notice clearer thinking, better sleep, and easier connection. Not because they forced positivity, but because their biology finally cooperated.

    You are no longer fighting upstream. You are being carried. Like these little bitty icebergs I watch on the river. Floating by. 👇

    The Closing “Peace”

    If we keep living in a way that ensures the alarm stays active, nothing changes.

    But when we make space, even small, consistent space for non-judgmental sensory awareness in the forest, the body hears something new.

    I’m safe. I can soften. I don’t have to shout today.

    And maybe, that is where my healing lingers. I just have to take time away, to meet it there.

    The body always leads us home… if we can simply learn to trust sensation and stay with it long enough for it to reveal appropriate action.

    -Pat Ogden

    Take care, my friends. I leave you with these February thoughts that gave me a little chuckle:

    My February workout plan is mostly just shivering until my muscles get tired.

    Love is in the air this February, but so is the flu, so please stay back.

    The Biggest Rocks, Near Enemies, and the Stillness That Tells the Truth

    pammunkholm

    As a forest therapy guide, I spend a lot of time listening. Not just to birds and wind, but to the quiet wisdom that surfaces when life slows down. Recently, while listening to the Follow Him podcast with guest Dr. John Hilton III, I was struck by how clearly their insights mirrored what I see every day in nature-based healing.

    The Silent Saboteur of Greatness: Settling for “Good Enough”

    Dr. Hilton shared a story Warren Buffett once told about his pilot, Mike Flint. Buffett asked Flint to list his 25 most important goals, then circle the top five. Flint assumed the remaining 20 would simply be addressed later, as time allowed.

    But Buffett surprised him.

    Those other 20 goals, he said, were not “later” goals. They were avoid-at-all-costs goals. Why? Because what most often pulls us away from our very best work isn’t something bad. It’s something good. Interesting. Worthy. Pretty good.

    And that’s the danger. Pretty good competes quietly. It distracts us without alarming us. It drains time and energy while convincing us we’re still doing something valuable.

    Choosing Wisely: Balancing Big and Small in a Limited Jar

    You’ve probably heard the “big rocks” analogy: if you put the big rocks in the jar first, then the small rocks, then the sand, everything fits. It’s a powerful visual reminder to prioritize what matters most. In a day. In a year. In a life.

    But Dr. Hilton pointed out something that often gets overlooked. In real life, no one measures out the rocks and dirt ahead of time so it all fits. Neat and tidy. Many of us simply have too many big rocks.

    The daily work.

    The self care.

    The appointments.

    The responsibilities we can’t opt out of.

    At some point, the work becomes less about fitting everything in and more about asking a braver question:

    Which rock is the biggest?

    And then: Which one comes next?

    For those of us living with chronic pain or limited energy, this question isn’t philosophical. It’s survival.

    The real work is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

    — Stephen Covey

    Near Enemies: The Perils of Almost Right

    Psychologist Kristin Neff teaches about near enemies. Qualities or choices that look helpful on the surface but quietly undermine what we actually need.

    In compassion practice, for example, self‑compassion’s near enemy is self‑pity. In mindfulness, it might be zoning out instead of being present. Near enemies are dangerous not because they are wrong, but because they are convincing.

    They imitate wisdom.

    They borrow the language of care.

    They feel responsible.

    And yet, they subtly pull us away from what truly nourishes us.

    Familiar Foes: Chronic Pain’s Close Encounters

    When you live with chronic pain or chronic illness, near enemies show up everywhere:

    • Filling your day with “useful” tasks instead of the few essential ones that protect your health.
    • Trying every therapy instead of committing energy to the one or two that truly help.
    • Positive thinking that bypasses your body’s real signals.
    • Staying busy so you don’t have to feel how tired you actually are

    Even healing practices can become near enemies when they cost more energy than they restore.

    In these seasons, discernment matters more than discipline.

    Unearthing Clarity: The Truth of Forest Therapy

    Nature has a way of clarifying what belongs and what doesn’t.

    In the stillness of the forest, the nervous system softens. The noise quiets. And without effort, priorities begin to rearrange themselves.

    Here, the biggest rocks often reveal themselves as simple, foundational truths:

    • Enough sleep
    • Nourishing food
    • Gentle, appropriate movement
    • Nervous system regulation
    • Emotional safety

    These are not optional extras. They are the largest rocks.

    From there, we can begin to see the next biggest rocks. Helpful therapies, meaningful connection, creative expression, without confusing them for the foundation itself.

    And finally, with compassion, we can begin to sift out what simply does not fit in this season of life. Not forever. Just for now.

    Arabic proverb: Sunshine all the time creates a desert.

    Perhaps, in the storms, roots deepen and rain helps us grow.

    The Significance of Near Enemies

    Near enemies are dangerous because they:

    • Masquerade as wisdom
    • Drain limited energy
    • Keep us busy instead of well
    • Pull focus from what truly supports healing

    For those living with chronic pain, the cost of mistaking a near enemy for a true ally is high. Energy is precious. Attention is finite. Choosing the wrong “good thing” can mean losing access to the best thing.

    You can do anything, but not everything.

    — David Allen

    Letting Go

    There was a season when I was frantically searching for a diagnosis. Searching not just for answers, but for validation. I was living with constant, invisible pain that no one could see and few seemed to understand. And so I chased understanding wherever I thought it might live.

    I pursued every avenue. Every referral. Every therapy that sounded even remotely promising. I read, researched, pushed, argued, advocated. Believing that if I just searched hard enough, fought clearly enough, or proved my case convincingly enough, I would arrive at the answer. A conclusion. A resolution. A moment where someone would finally say, “Yes. This is real.”

    What I didn’t recognize at the time was my near enemy.

    On the surface, what I was doing looked responsible. Even admirable. I was being proactive. Informed. Determined. But underneath it all, my hope had quietly become tangled up in outcomes, test results, and external validation. The search itself, though it looked like healing, was slowly exhausting me.

    I needed to let go of the illusion that my life might have been different.

    It’s in my eyes. I tried to hide it. But I see now I was not overly successful in that attempt. Through that time, I could best be explained. By these words someone wrote, “she’s got the hospitality of a Southern belle and the emotional stability of a raccoon in a Dollar General.” Or these accurate words, “I’m currently looking for a moisturizer that hides the fact I’ve been exhausted since 2019.”

    Each clear test result landed not as relief, but as another erosion of trust. My pain was getting worse, not better. And I suspect my medical charts were, too. Notes growing heavier, more complicated, perhaps less in my favor as frustration mounted on both sides.

    Still, I kept searching. Because stopping felt like giving up.

    Eventually, I had to face the truth. This relentless pursuit wasn’t leading me toward healing. It was pulling me away from it.

    I still don’t have clean answers or a tidy diagnosis. But something essential has shifted. I no longer outsource my validation. It doesn’t come from a test, a label, or a professional conclusion. It comes from listening to my own lived experience.

    These aren’t the only people. But it’s a good chunk of them.

    I’m deeply grateful for the people in my life who try to understand my pain, even when they can’t see it. They may not witness the pain itself, but they see me. And that has mattered more than I once believed possible.

    Some answers have arrived gently, settling on me soft as a sunbeam. Others have been harder, more confronting. But I no longer search frantically.

    That frantic searching. The good‑looking, well‑intentioned chase for certainty was my near enemy. And laying it down made space for something quieter, truer, and far more healing.

    What you tend grows. What you ignore fades.

    Forest Reflections

    Near enemies are not mistakes. They are invitations to deepen our discernment.

    When we learn to tell the difference between the important and the essential. Between the helpful and the healing. We begin to live with greater integrity toward our bodies and our limits.

    And often, it is the forest. Quiet, patient, and uncompromising that helps us remember which rock truly belongs in our hands today.

    Rest is not idleness. Sometimes lying on the grass under trees on a summer’s day… is hardly a waste of time.

    — John Lubbock

    Forest Bathing: Breaking the Pain Cycle

    pammunkholm

    What if the goal isn’t to eliminate pain? But to change your relationship with it.

    Not by forcing positivity. Not by chasing the next miracle cure. But by learning how to stand in a forest, breathe, and gently step outside the storm long enough to see it clearly.

    That’s where mindfulness in the forest becomes powerful. Not as an escape from pain, but as a way to interrupt the pain cycle itself.

    Benefits don’t emerge from merely experiencing mindfulness as a state. Instead they happen when we cultivate mindfulness as a personal trait.

    –@brilliantlegalmind

    Breaking the Chains of the Pain Cycle

    Chronic pain is never only physical. It is neurological, emotional, and deeply shaped by our stress response.

    This is not to say that you don’t experience actual, real, physical, deep pain. Only that our pain experience can be altered according to how we choose to interpret it. Which is especially important in chronic pain when so often there are no answers or treatments.

    Pain feeds on:

    • Fear of what’s coming next
    • Hyper-vigilance in the body
    • Frustration over what we’ve lost
    • The endless search for a fix

    This creates a familiar loop.

    Pain → tension → fear → more pain.

    Mindfulness, especially when practiced in nature, doesn’t deny this cycle.

    It teaches us how to step out of it.

    Don’t stress the ‘could haves’, if it should have, it would have.

    MINDFULNESS (n):

    “The practice of being aware of your body, mind and feelings in your present moment, thought to create a feeling of calm.”

    Finding Harmony: In Nature’s Whispering Wisdom

    Mindfulness anywhere can help.

    Mindfulness in a forest does something more.

    Natural environments gently regulate the nervous system without any concentrated effort on our part:

    • Heart rate slows
    • Breathing deepens
    • Muscles soften
    • The brain shifts from threat mode to restoration mode

    Research on shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) shows that time in forests lowers cortisol, reduces blood pressure, and increases parasympathetic nervous system activity (the part of us responsible for rest, repair, and emotional balance.)

    In other words, the forest doesn’t erase pain.

    It loosens pain’s grip.

    Captaining the Currents of Our Existence

    Mindfulness helps us understand the waters in which we are swimming.

    If you live with chronic pain, the pain is not you.

    It is the water around you.

    Some days you can float on your back.

    Some days you need the survival position.

    Some days you just enjoy swimming. (But those days are few and far between.)

    Some days you simply tread water and keep breathing.

    Mindfulness helps us step just far enough back to see,

    This is the water. This is not my identity.

    That small shift changes everything.

    Untangling Hope: Innovative Lessons for a Brighter Tomorrow

    In the podcast Untangle: What Does it Mean to Live a Good, Meaningful Life? Despite the (really) Hard Stuff, philosopher Kieran Setiya reflects on living with chronic pain and the trap many of us fall into. Hoping only for a cure. His story resonates with me. Because it is also my story. Is it yours too?

    For years, he moved from doctor to doctor thinking, maybe this one will fix it. When he stopped, something unexpected happened. He felt freedom. Less frustrated. More grounded in how he would actually live his life.

    At first, he thought he had rejected hope.

    Later, he realized he had simply changed what he hoped for.

    Not hope for a magic solution.

    Hope for a life that would still feel meaningful. Even if pain remained in the background.

    He describes the exhausting seesaw many of us live on:

    hope → despair → hope → despair.

    And suggests something radical. Getting off the seesaw altogether! That doesn’t mean stop seeing doctors or looking for answers. What it does mean is this.

    The real question isn’t:

    Should I hope or despair?

    It’s,

    What is realistic to hope for right now?

    Mindfulness in the forest supports exactly this shift. Grounding hope in lived possibility instead of fantasy cures.

    Choosing Joy in a Body That Hurts

    It’s been said that one person’s joy ride is another person’s panic.

    I love riding on the back of my husband’s motorcycle. Joy.

    I love sitting at the front of a sailboat as it bounces across the water. Joy.

    Someone else might question my sanity.

    I don’t like roller coasters that go upside down. Panic.

    I have no desire to drive an F1 car. Panic.

    I question the sanity of people who enjoy those things. Which made me wonder.

    What influences our desires? Our thoughts? Our emotions?

    Are we just born joyful or grouchy? And that is how we have to live out our days?

    Or do we choose? Can we choose our thoughts, our desires and thereby influence our emotions?

    What if, even in a tangled mess of pain, emotions, relationships, and loss, we are allowed to choose joy?

    Not reckless joy.

    Not denial.

    But brave joy.

    The kind that says:

    I will still step into wonder.

    I will still feel exhilaration.

    I will still live.

    That is what mindfulness in the forest has given me.

    I get to decide.

    And honestly?

    There’s no need for recreational anxiety around here. There’s enough regular anxiety to go around.

    Inward Insights: The Wisdom Within

    Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

    -Marcus Aurelius

    The forest helps us dig. Quietly, gently, without force.

    Mindfulness reduces activity in brain networks that amplify pain through rumination and emotional reactivity, lowering perceived suffering even when pain remains.

    Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

    -Simone Weil

    When we give attention to our own experience. Without judgment. We change how pain lives in us.

    Nature’s Cradle: A Forest Therapy Practice

    Interrupting the Pain Cycle (7 minutes)

    You can do this in a forest, park, or anywhere you can sense the natural world.

    1. Arrive (1 minute)

    Stand or sit comfortably. Let your eyes soften. Notice three natural textures. Bark, stone, leaf, snow, or water.

    2. External Anchor Practice (2 minutes)

    Choose one steady element in the landscape. A tree trunk, rock, horizon line, or patch of ground.

    Let your attention rest there. Softly.

    When your mind drifts toward pain or worry, gently return your awareness to that anchor.

    This shifts the nervous system from internal threat scanning to external safety awareness. Especially helpful if breath-focused practices feel uncomfortable.

    3. Name the Water (2 minutes)

    Silently say:

    This is pain. This is not me.

    Notice sensation as experience, not identity.

    4. Choose Your Stroke (2 minutes)

    Ask yourself:

    Do I need to float, swim, or rest today?

    Let your body answer.

    Mindfully Brave

    For a long time, I thought mindfulness meant becoming calmer.

    What I didn’t expect was that it would make me braver. Braver about feeling, braver about choosing joy, braver about living fully even when my body hurts.

    The forest didn’t take away my pain.

    It gave me back my choice.

    Key Takeaways

    Mindfulness in the forest teaches us:

    Pain is real. Suffering is optional. Hope doesn’t have to live on a seesaw.

    We can step out of the waters long enough to see them clearly. And then choose how to move within them.

    Or as one forest therapy guide once said quietly on a trail,

    We don’t come to the woods to escape life. We come to remember how to live it.

    Trek Into the Frosty Adventure

    If this spoke to you, you may also enjoy my post on finding connection through group forest therapy walks, where I explore how shared presence in nature reduces isolation and builds resilience for people living with pain and fatigue.

    Faeloria (n):

    The beauty that comes from the wounds you thought would destroy you.

    Research at a Glance: Why This Works

    Bottom line.

    Mindfulness in the forest doesn’t cure pain. But it interrupts the feedback loop that keeps pain amplified by fear, stress, and resistance.

    For those interested in the research, check out the following links. Let me know what you think in the comments.

    1️⃣ Forest environments reduce stress hormones and activate relaxation responses

    The 2010 Shinrin-yoku studies show forests lower cortisol, pulse rate, blood pressure, and increase parasympathetic nervous system activity (relaxation response).

    👉 “The Physiological Effects of Shinrin-yoku…” — Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine (Park et al.)

    Also see:

    👉 Forest bathing reduces cortisol and stress — systematic review on cortisol as a stress biomarker

    2️⃣ Forest bathing supports psychological well-being, mood, and anxiety reduction

    Systematic reviews and meta-analyses show forest exposure reduces anxiety, depression, and improves emotional well-being.

    👉 The effects of forest bathing on psychological well-being 

    Additional evidence on emotional and stress benefits of forest settings:

    👉 Forest bathing: effects on mood and stress recovery

    3️⃣ Forest immersion reduces negative affect and enhances mindfulness & introspection

    A recent systematic review shows forest bathing decreases negative effects and enhances mindfulness and introspection. Key components of emotional regulation and pain resilience.

    👉 Effects on self-criticism, self-compassion & mindfulness 

    4️⃣ Mindfulness and Pain Research : Neuroscience & Catastrophizing

    ✔ Mindfulness meditation alters how the brain processes pain

    Studies show mindfulness meditation changes pain-related brain activity. Indicating real nervous system engagement, not just placebo.

    👉 Mindfulness meditation helps reduce pain through distinct neural mechanisms 

    ✔ Mindfulness is associated with lower pain catastrophizing

    Research suggests higher mindfulness traits correlate with lower pain catastrophizing and greater ability to cope with pain.

    👉 Trait mindfulness linked to higher pain thresholds & reduced catastrophizing

    5️⃣ Mindfulness meditation itself has measurable effects on pain perception

    Comprehensive reviews of mindfulness meditation include clinical and experimental insights into how it reduces pain intensity and unpleasantness across conditions:

    👉 Mindfulness meditation–based pain relief review

    January for the 5 senses:

    Sight: late morning and early evening light on bright, blue clear days
    Sound: shushing of steps in the snow
    Taste: hot teas with honey
    Smell: evergreen trees
    Feel: the touch of cold noses and toes

    “Just Tired” Isn’t Even Close: Living with ME–CFS and Finding Healing

    pammunkholm

    The body is not an obstacle to the soul, but its instrument and means of expression.

    — Pope Saint John Paul II

    When I tell someone I have chronic fatigue, they often laugh softly, like I’ve made a dramatic overstatement.

    Don’t we all have chronic fatigue these days? I imagine them thinking.

    And I get it. Life is exhausting. The world is loud. Everyone is stretched thin.

    But when you add the ME part. That’s the myalgic encephalomyelitis. Suddenly the picture changes. Here is a quick breakdown of ME and some of its symptoms.

    ME–CFS isn’t about being worn out from a long day of being human. It didn’t start from lack of conditioning. I did not cause this.

    It’s about being tired all the time.

    Pushing through all the time.

    And paying dearly for it afterward.

    I like to share this graphic 👇🏼 that shows a breakdown of the name of the condition. More than a bad night’s sleep or a long, hard day. This isn’t a mindset problem. It’s not laziness. It’s not weakness. It’s a body that can no longer produce or distribute energy the way it once did.

    And that comes with grief.

    Grief for the skills and abilities I no longer have.

    Grief for the version of me that could say yes without calculating the cost.

    Grief for the way I worry I’ll be perceived (unreliable, flaky, distant) when really I’m just surviving in a body that demands a different rhythm.

    Unmasking the True Price of “Energy Takes Everything”

    I’ve had to pattern my life after my condition instead of pushing through like the rest of the world celebrates doing.

    And some days, that still feels like failure. Even though I know it isn’t.

    I’ve found a rhythm that works for me.

    And I want to be confident in it.

    It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

    — Confucius

    But here’s the part people don’t see:

    Everything takes energy.

    Take the feelings you have at the very end of a long day:

    Hard to find something to eat because every step feels heavy. Hard to have patience for the people in your space. Hard to think creatively or problem-solve.

    Normally, you’d say: I just need a good night’s sleep. Then I will be myself again.

    But when that good night’s sleep never comes. Neither does the motivation, the emotional regulation, or the clarity to solve even the smallest dilemmas.

    And those complications build… and build… and build.

    Then there’s the big life stuff I feel like I will never be able to address when I am always dealing with constant minor emergencies. A migraine. A vertebrae stuck out. Spasms.

    What’s my purpose? How do I set priorities? How do I live well in this body? How do I figure it all out when my brain just wants to sleep?

    Sometimes I end up spinning in a washing machine of choices that made sense in the moment:

    Made sense in the moment: “I have to eat well.” I go get groceries. Get home. Collapse. Can’t get back up. Order pizza (the dirty laundry I get stuck in a spin cycle with).

    Made sense in the moment: “I have to practice self-care.” I gather everything. Run the bath. Lay down… and don’t have the energy to actually do the care. Back to bed (the dirty sheets I get tangled up in).

    Made sense in the moment: “I have to take care of myself.” Someone needs help. I don’t respond. Then guilt rushes in and it steals what little peace I had left. (those laundry items that always pass on a grease stain, no matter how many times its been washed)

    So I’ve learned to live differently.

    My rhythm now is:

    • rest
    • spiritual study
    • learning
    • creating
    • easy self-care
    • easy and somewhat healthy meals
    • visiting like-minded souls
    • serving where I can
    • protecting my peace

    Nothing is set in stone.

    Nothing is required.

    It’s simply what works for me

    My story of ME

    It seems easy. I’m tired. I should sleep. But sleep doesn’t help. I just go between varying types of tired.

    Nerves are easily triggered with this condition. So bringing the vibrating down and the peace level up is critical.

    I enjoy baths. They initiate a truce with my body. Where the pain subsides. I can lay suspended and liberated.

    When I am in need of one of these sessions I lay in bed and think about how wonderful it would feel.

    Often I don’t have the strength to begin. To gather myself and my stuff. To stand while the tub starts to fill. To change temperatures by changing rooms. To rise and remember all the places in my body that are not aligned.

    It all becomes too much. And the fabulous results are lost in the desire to conserve what little energy I have.

    Your pace is not a moral issue.

    — Devon Price

    What the Science Says and Why the Forest Helps

    As a forest therapy guide, I’ve seen again and again how nature meets people where their bodies are not where culture thinks they should be.

    ME–CFS involves:

    • dysregulation of the nervous system
    • chronic inflammation
    • impaired cellular energy production (mitochondrial dysfunction)
    • heightened sensitivity to sensory input
    • post-exertional malaise, where even small effort leads to disproportionate crashes

    This means the body is stuck in a protective mode, constantly conserving resources.

    And here’s where the forest becomes more than beautiful scenery. It becomes medicine.

    Nature’s Recharge: Forest Therapy’s Cure for ME–CFS and Exhaustion

    1. Calms the nervous system

    Time in natural environments lowers cortisol and shifts the body from “fight-or-flight” into “rest-and-digest.” For someone whose system is always on high alert, this is profound relief.

    2. Reduces inflammation

    Phytoncides, which are natural compounds released by trees, have been shown to support immune balance and reduce markers of inflammation. The body doesn’t have to work as hard to regulate itself.

    3. Restores attention without effort

    Nature offers soft fascination. A gentle sensory input that allows the brain to rest while still being engaged. This is vital when cognitive fatigue makes any thinking feel heavy.

    4. Reframes worth and productivity

    In the forest, you don’t have to prove anything. Trees don’t rush. Streams don’t apologize for slowing down. The environment itself models a different definition of enough.

    For those of us living with ME–CFS, the forest reminds us:

    We are not broken machines. We are living beings adapting to different conditions.

    Embracing Serenity: Forest Therapy for ME–CFS & Deep Fatigue

    This practice is designed for very low energy days. No hiking. No goals. No fixing.

    The “Enough as I Am” Practice

    Time: 10–20 minutes (or less)

    Place: A bench, porch, backyard, park, or even near an open window

    • Arrive without performing
    • Sit or lie in a comfortable position
    • Let your body choose
    • Let one sense lead. Instead of scanning everything, pick just one: listening to birds or wind feeling air on your skin noticing light through leaves
    • Breathe like the trees. Inhale slowly. Exhale even slower.
    • Imagine your breath moving at the pace of a growing branch (not a ticking clock)
    • Offer yourself one true sentence. Silently say: “In this moment, I am doing enough.”
    • Leave before you’re tired. Ending early is not failure. It is wisdom.

    There is a difference between resting and quitting. One restores you. The other abandons you.

    — Bansky

    Strength in Unexpected Places

    Living with ME–CFS has taught me that strength doesn’t always look like endurance.

    Sometimes strength looks like:

    • stopping early
    • saying no gently
    • choosing peace over productivity
    • letting the forest hold what I can’t

    I am not lazy.

    I am not weak.

    I am not failing.

    I am adapting.

    Your best is what you can do without harming your physical or mental health. Not what you can accomplish when you disregard it.

    -Unknown

    And in the quiet wisdom of trees, I’ve learned something the world forgot to teach.

    A life lived slowly is not a life lived small. Sometimes, it is the bravest life of all.

    Us on New Year’s Eve before getting too tired and heading home around 10:00. Usually we are the people that when asked if we want to get together at 8:00 we wonder am?!? or pm?!? Actually never mind, both are a hard pass.

    Happy New Year! To all those suffering, you are not alone, your worth is not diminished by your ability, you are seen and welcomed here.