Thereโs a quiet crossroads that people with chronic pain arrive at again and again.
In the small, ordinary moments of a day.
When your body says no again. When plans have to be cancelled. When energy runs out before the day even begins.
And at that crossroads, thereโs a choice. Not one I have always recognized. It begins with this question.
What will I do with this pain?
Not why do I have it? Not how do I fix it?
Butโฆ what can I make out of it? Today.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
โ Albert Einstein
Pain, especially chronic pain, has a way of shrinking life if we let it.
It narrows what feels possible. It redraws the edges of our days.
And to be clear. This is not about pretending pain is a gift. It isnโt.
If it were, most of us would politely decline and slide it right back across the table. Thanks but no thanks.
Itโs hard. Itโs exhausting. Itโs unfair.
You are not here to be the perfect, inspiring example of someone who is chronically ill and somehow always positive.
But there is a difference between:
pain that isolates and
pain that becomes a bridge
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls.
โ Kahlil Gibran
Anyone that knows me knows how much I adore my grandkids.
We live in the same house, which means I get to be part of their everyday world. If it were up to my heart, Iโd spend all my time with them.
But my energy doesnโt always agree with my heart.
Today, my grandson wants to go โhwimming.โ
And I want to go with him.
But I already have one โbig thingโ on my list today. And my body has made it abundantly clear, thereโs room for one big thingโฆ or a few small ones.
Not both. Never both! My body is many things, but it is not a reasonable negotiator.
The frustrating part? This is actually an improvement from recent years.
And stillโฆ it stings.
ELPIS– Greek (n) A quiet, persistent hope, even in dark times. It is the last light that refuses to go out, the promise that tomorrow still holds room for healing.
This is the crossroads.
I can let that moment turn into frustration, guilt, or the quiet grief of what I wish I could do.
Orโฆ
I can choose something else.
Maybe I sit with him while he plays. Maybe I listen to him sing from downstairs ๐ซ โค๏ธ . Maybe I ask him to snuggle.
Maybe I let myself feel both things at once:
I wish I could go. And Iโm still here.
Still loving him. Still part of his world. Still showing up. Just in a different way than I would choose, but a real one.
This probably seems trivial. It is. But a lifetime of lost trivial things somehow adds up over time. A succession of lost opportunities. Striking the same chord vibrating that heart string that is still inflamed from the previous strike.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
โ Kahlil Gibran
Pain doesnโt just take.
Sometimes, quietly, over time, it teaches.
It teaches you how to notice what others miss. How to sit with someone without trying to fix them. How to love in ways that arenโt loud or impressive but steady and real.
How to recognize pain in others.
And some days, it teaches you how to lower your expectations to what is possible instead of what is perfect. The real over the ideal.
A forest therapy practice: โFollow What Still Movesโ
On days when your body feels limited, this is an invitation to gently reconnect with possibility.
Step outside. Your yard, a park, or even just one tree.
Begin a slow, wandering walk. No destination.
Let your attention be drawn to movement:
leaves shifting
branches swaying
light flickering
birds moving through space
When something catches your eye, pause and gently mirror it:
shift your weight like the tree in the wind
slowly move your hand like a branch
turn your head to follow light or shadow
Rest whenever your body asks.
This isnโt about pushing through pain.
Itโs about remembering,
Even when parts of you feel stuckโฆ life is still moving.
Thereโs a moment. Itโs often quiet, sometimes overwhelming. When emotion first arrives in the body.
It might feel like a tightening in the chest. A wave of heat. A heaviness behind the eyes. A sudden drop in the stomach.
Something Iโm learning? When this happens, nothing has gone wrong. My body is simply giving me information.
Experiencing big emotions is not a failure of regulation, character, or strength. It is part of being human.
Especially for those living with chronic pain, where the body is already speaking loudly, emotions often arrive amplified and harder to ignore, harder to name, harder to hold.
But after that first signal comes something powerful.
Choice.
Not whether you feel the emotion. But how you respond to it.
As Daniel Chidiac teaches, Not every emotion needs a reactionโbut every emotion deserves acknowledgment.
โธป
The Story We Tell After the Feeling
On the Better Than Happy podcast, Jody Moore offers a perspective that can feel both freeing and confronting.
Anger is optional.
Disappointment is optional.
Embarrassment is optional.
Humiliation is optional.
Not because we can simply turn emotions off. But because these emotions are often shaped by the meaning we assign to our experiences. Have you experienced any of the following?
You have been dismissed by a medical professional, again.
You didnโt reach the goal.
Someone saw you struggle.
Something didnโt go as planned.
Those are just events. Although they feel huge in the moment.
Disappointment enters when the mind adds the story.
โThis means something is wrong with me.โ
Embarrassment grows when the thoughts spiral into shame.
โThey must be judging me.โ
โI look foolish.โ
โI am foolish.โ
And hereโs the important nuance.
These emotions are optional. But not wrong.
Youโre allowed to feel them. Youโre also allowed to question them.
Nothing ambitious. Just a smidgen at a time. Slow and steady. The way Iโve learned my body needs things to be. Experience has taught me that enthusiasm and capacity are not the same thing.
But then life showed up.
The everyday mess. The dishes. The door in my room that was in desperate need of a good wipe down. The quiet realization that I couldnโt do both.
I had to choose. My body, which had just clocked in was now requesting a lunch break.
And then the grandkids came to โhelp.โ Which, as you can imagine, added more chaos than progress. At this point the mess was winning. And multiplying.
The vacuum stopped working. My arms started to burn.
And just like that, the thoughts came rushing in.
Iโll never catch up.
My house will always feel like this.
Why canโt I just keep up like everyone else?
Because, obviously, one unfinished chore means a lifetime of failure. ๐ฃ
I could see it happening, the spiral. I wasnโt unaware.
But stopping it? That took effort. A surprising amount of effort.
Excuse me while I parent my dramatic inner narrator.
Because even as part of me recognized what was happening, another part was pushing me harder.
Just keep going.
Finish what you started.
If you donโt do it now, it will never get done.
False. What was actually true was much simpler and much harder to accept in the moment.
I was tired. I was in pain. I needed to stop.
My body wasnโt failing me. It was asking me to listen.
And the real choice in that moment wasnโt about dishes or doors.
But this.
Do I keep pushing to meet an expectation I set for myselfโฆ or do I take care of myself?
Eventually, I chose to stop.
Not because everything was done. But because I was.
And that shift didnโt magically clean my house. But it did something more important. It brought me back to myself and my priorities.
Because your nervous system is already working overtime. Because your body has taught you that signals matter and often signal threat. ( If you want to learn how forest therapy supports the nervous system, check this out -> Mending Your Nervous System With Forest Therapy)
Pain doesnโt just exist in isolation. It interacts with emotion, memory, and meaning.
A flare-up can quickly become:
โIโll never get better.โ
โMy body is failing me.โ
โI canโt live the life I want.โ
This is where emotional dysregulation can take hold, much like how Brenรฉ Brown describes it:
Being overwhelmed by feelings that are hard to name and contain, driving behaviors and thinking that donโt align with who we want to be.
And suddenly, weโre not just in pain.
Weโre in a story about what that pain means.
Your body speaks in sensation. Your mind speaks in meaning. Learn to tell the difference.
Brenรฉ Brown shares a powerful story about recovering from injury and trying to engage muscles that simply wouldnโt respond. Her therapist kept reminding her to โfind your ground.โ
But she couldnโt feel it. She couldnโt even find her lats.
She was using her body while being disconnected from it.
That disembodiment, that moving without understanding, existing without connection, is deeply familiar for those with chronic pain.
You expect your body to respond one way. It betrays your expectations. Every time.
And over time, many people stop listening to their bodies with curiosity and start bracing against them with resistance.
Until one simple but profound instruction emerges.
Find your ground.
Not just physically. Energetically. Emotionally. Spiritually.
If youโre trying to find your way back to yourself, back into your body, the answer isnโt usually one big solution.
Itโs small, grounding practices.
Journalling. Meditation. Art. Spiritual connection. Time in nature.
Each one opens a door.
Forest therapy is where those doors meet, creating a space that supports not just awareness, but true reconnection.
โธป
The Tree as Teacher
In The Secret Therapy of Trees, Marco Mencagli and Marco Nieri describe the trunk of a tree as something remarkably similar to the human core.
It is a channel of connection. A stabilizing structure. A vital center.
If damaged, the whole system struggles.
Like the human torso, home to breath, circulation, and strength, the treeโs trunk is both anchor and conduit.
And yet, trees do something we often forget to do. They remain rooted while experiencing everything.
Wind. Storm. Drought. Seasonal loss.
They do not avoid conditions. They adapt within them.
โธป
What Actually Matters (Hint: Itโs Not the Dishes)
Another truth worth holding onto.
You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
So much of what consumes our emotional energy, what people think, whether we looked polished, whether everything went perfectly, is, in the grand arc of a life, remarkably small.
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.
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 Saskatchewanโs subtle, โPsyche!โ Mother Nature really needs to work on her comedic timing. Itโs not funny anymore.
Mother Nature ๐
Us ๐
Thereโs a particular kind of discouragement that settles in with such a turn. Itโs 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 โout of order.โ
Itโs 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 โsomeday I shouldโ checklist, and suddenly itโs interrupted, just as you were finding your rhythm again. That’s its own unique setback.
And if you live here, you know winter isnโt a one act play. It lingers. Itโs heavy. It tests you in ways that often go unseen. The cold that steals your breath before youโve 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 โjust get through this.โ
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? Youโre 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 thenโฆ 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; Iโm flying. Fall grants another five without much effort. And winter? Winter sends me back twenty-five. Every single time. Honestly, at this point, Iโd like a word with the game designer. Iโm pretty sure theyโre hoarding all the โGet Out of Jail Freeโ cards. Because it often feels like Iโm 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 doesnโt play that game. The trees arenโt measuring progress by who wins and who loses. They arenโt frustrated by yesterdayโs fleeting warmth. They arenโt disappointed because spring almost arrived then left.ย
When growing conditions are not ideal, trees slow down their growth and devote their energy to the basic elements necessary for survivalโฆ 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 whatโs unfolding out there right now. Nothing has gone backward. It is simply waiting for its time. Using this time to focus on whatโs beneath the surface.
Perhaps I can learn something there. When the timing I had planned doesnโt work out, thereโs likely a good reason. I can still find the ways to grow whatโs beneath the surface until the time is right.
Jody Moore speaks of the โriver of discomfort.โ The idea that we spend so much energy trying to stay on the banks, avoiding anything hard, cold, or limiting. But true growth doesnโt happen on the edge. It happens when youโre immersed in it.
When you stop fighting the current and allow it to move around you, even when itโs 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 donโt always navigate it gracefully.
Sometimes Iโm less โzen master floating downstreamโ and more โflailing raccoon caught in a current.โ Sometimes I resist. Sometimes I push. Sometimes Iโm frustrated to find myself โback here again.โ
But perhaps Iโm not returning to something amiss. Perhaps this isnโt 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
โธป
A Forest Therapy Practice:Exploring the Depths
You donโt need to venture far for this. You donโt 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, โWhy isnโt this getting better?โ try asking, โWhat might be needed for healing to take place here?โ
You donโt need an immediate answer. Just let the question settle. Andโฆ wait there with a small flicker of hope. No pressure. Just a quiet willingness to believe that something is still unfolding.
โธป
Try returning to this thought:
What if winter isnโt taking me backward?
What if itโs building something I couldnโt cultivate any other way?
Something slower. Something steadier. Something that wonโt vanish when the seasons inevitably shift again. Because they will. They always do.
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
When spring returns (it always does) Iโm beginning to wonder if I wonโt actually be further ahead than I now imagine. Even if the board game of life never quite shows it.
March in Saskatchewan is a master of disguise๐ฅธ. And every year I am hoodwinked! *shakes fist*
The sun shows up brilliant and convincing. Like itโs finally time! ๐ ๐ฑ
You start to believe itโฆ๐ ๐ until the wind pelts you in the face and reminds you this is far from over ๐ฌ๏ธ๐ฅถ๐ข. ย
Honestly it feels like false advertising.
And somehow, thatโs 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 doesnโt hurt to breathe. I gotta say, Iโm a little jealous. ๐ก
Meanwhile, weโre still in boots and three layers. Bracing against the bitter cold.
It creates this quiet kind of rage.
Not just for warmer weatherโฆ
but for things to finally feel easier. Movement. Outdoor gear. Shivering. It all exacerbates the physical restrictions I am already battling.
โธป
Chasing the Unquenchable Longing ๐โโ๏ธ
Lately, Iโve 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 Iโve rejoined the human race.
But I donโt make the rules. And my body isnโt in a state to join in any races.ย
Not against the clock.
Or expectations.
Or the version of life I thought Iโd be living right now.
Itโs asking for something completely different. My broad assessment is that every body is asking for something different than this โhuman racing.โ
Calm.
Quiet.
Attention.
Harmony.
Tranquility.
Stillness.
If youโve 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.
โธป
A Shift in the Sands of Seasons
The other day, the sun was spilling in. The kind that makes you think, ๐ต 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 Iโve just run a marathon and forgot to stretch ensued. Then that familiar irritation right under the surface.
I thought,
Whatโs the hold up?
Yet instead of pushing harder, I tried something different.
I slowed down. I found another way.ย I went inside.
I sat by the window to feel the warmth of the sun (if not its actual rays).ย
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 yetโฆ 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 itโs changing?
The answer is not dramatic. It is steady.
Forest therapy does not promise cure. It doesnโt offer โcomplete and totally done with it all ๐๐ผ๐๐ผ๐๐ผ .โ
Thatโs 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?
๐ฒ โCan forest therapy help chronic pain?โ
As someone who lives with chronic pain, I donโt 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.
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 hadnโt 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 thatโs 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 couldnโt go as far as Iโd planned. I couldnโt โachieveโ 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, โWhen will I be better?โ And started asking, โHow do I live well from this place?โ
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.
๐ฒ โHow do you practice forest therapy in winter?โ
Winter forest therapy isnโt about long hikes. Itโs 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 doesnโt 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 youโve seen is a spark.
That spark will become a light. That light will become a beam.
That beam becomes you, reflecting what youโve learned onto someone else.
๐ฟ A Simple Winter Forest Therapy Practice
Trusting the Season (10โ15 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.
๐ฒ What Makes Forest Therapy Different From Hiking?
Hiking is about distance. Forest therapy is about experiencing relationships.
You donโt 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. Itโs 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.
๐ฉถ If youโre 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.๐ฒโจ
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
By the time you reach the last spring, your hands are shaking.Youโre sweating. Frustrated. Everything keeps getting more crooked.
You realize too late. You started wrong. ๐
Anyone who has assembled a trampoline knows the rule. You donโt hook the springs in a circle, one after another. If you do, the tension pulls unevenly. By the end, you donโt 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 responsibilities๐, expectations๐, needs๐, roles๐, diagnoses๐ซต, deadlines๐ซก.
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. ๐ฎ
You focus on your health. ๐ง
You improve. ๐ซข
You feel almost normal. ๐ฅน
Everyone else sees it too. ๐
Schedules begin to fill ๐๏ธ Invitations multiply ๐ฅณ Expectations quietly rise ๐ซด . The springs of โnormal lifeโ begin snapping back into place ๐ซฐ.
You let yourself believe it. ๐
Maybe Iโm better. ๐
Then exhaustion crashes in ๐ซฉ You stare at your calendar at night and wonder what youโve done to yourself ๐ณ A small slip becomes months of recovery ๐ต One flare unravels carefully rebuilt stability ๐.
And then come the looks ๐๐โโ๏ธ
The subtle confusion ๐คจ
The well-meaning advice ๐ค
The unspoken question: Why canโt she just get it together?
Living with chronic illness often means managing other peopleโs 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, itโs 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.
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 doesnโt begin to explain the years of ache. The doctors knew what my body could not sustain. I knew it too.
But my heart wasnโt 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.
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 elseโs.
But even a crooked mat can hold us.
And in the quiet of the forest, we learn to stretch for only what weare meant to hold.
What a blessing it is to look around and see pieces of my old prayers scattered everywhere.
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 doesnโt make our back yell at us.
Welcome to redefining abundance.
When you live with chronic issues, the cultural picture of โthe good lifeโ can feel like a club you donโt 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.
Itโs 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.
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,
โWhy me? This ruined everything.โ
And there is the ache that whispers,
โGiven that this is here, what life can I still grow?โ
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 isnโt 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, โGivenmylimits, what is still possible for me?โ Donโt demand a big answer. Let something small come. A phone call. A rest. A moment of beauty.
Say, quietly, thank you.
Thatโs 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 didnโt choose. Some of it is rocky. Some days it floods. You can spend years arguing with the mapโฆ 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 ๐ฒ
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the distant, but surely coming, summer.
-Gertrude Jekyll
If youโve ever tried to โthink positiveโ 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 donโt 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 itโs not worse.
But hereโs 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.
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.
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 โYou can stand down now.โ
So the body continues to send messages. And they are rarely gentle. Whispers donโt usually create change. Pain often does.
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
Research into nature exposure consistently shows reductions in cortisol, blood pressure, muscle tension, and rumination.
But experientially, Iโve 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
Imagine a car alarm that has been blaring for years.
You wouldnโt 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, โNo one is breaking in right now.โ
Over time, the alarm system recalibrates.
My Story
Iโve experienced moments in my forest therapy practice when I wanted to do it all perfectly. To follow all the โright steps.โ
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 itโs not the only voice anymore. It has just been hogging the microphone in my head. ๐ค ๐คซ
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
Find something in nature that feels steady. A tree, a rock, the shoreline.
Let your eyes rest there.
Now widen your awareness to include three additional sensations that are neutral or pleasant.
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.
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. ๐
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.
Iโm safe. I can soften. I donโt 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 homeโฆ if we can simply learn to trust sensation and stay with it long enough for it to reveal appropriate action.
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 โlaterโ goals. They were avoid-at-all-costs goals. Why? Because what most often pulls us away from our very best work isnโt something bad. Itโs something good. Interesting. Worthy. Pretty good.
And thatโs the danger. Pretty good competes quietly. It distracts us without alarming us. It drains time and energy while convincing us weโre still doing something valuable.
Choosing Wisely: Balancing Big and Small in a Limited Jar
Youโve probably heard the โbig rocksโ analogy: if you put the big rocks in the jar first, then the small rocks, then the sand, everything fits. Itโs 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 canโt 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 isnโt philosophical. Itโs survival.
The real work is not to prioritize whatโs on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
โ 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, selfโcompassionโs near enemy is selfโpity. 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 โusefulโ 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 bodyโs real signals.
Staying busy so you donโt 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 doesnโt.
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 โgood thingโ can mean losing access to the best thing.
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, โYes. This is real.โ
What I didnโt 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 wasnโt leading me toward healing. It was pulling me away from it.
I still donโt have clean answers or a tidy diagnosis. But something essential has shifted. I no longer outsource my validation. It doesnโt come from a test, a label, or a professional conclusion. It comes from listening to my own lived experience.
These arenโt the only people. But itโs a good chunk of them.
Iโm deeply grateful for the people in my life who try to understand my pain, even when they canโt 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 goodโlooking, wellโintentioned 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 summerโs dayโฆ is hardly a waste of time.
SUNBEAM ACRES 