If you’re trying to grow & heal, stop trying to feel good all the time
The trees can teach us a LOT about ourselves and our experiences...
er, "experiences" might feel more like struggles for some of us (all 10 fingers pointing back at me) with the constant striving to feel good/ happy/ accomplished/ excited/ positive, or like there's some clear, outward measure of growth and progress happening.
Real talk: have you ever met a tree or a plant that is always growing, blooming or fruiting?
No, you have not.
Because despite how much we might loooove the sight of green buds on the tips of branches after a long winter, or the scent of flowers that bloomed overnight while we were asleep, or the juicy summer berries that fill us with excitement and nostalgia as much as they fill our bellies– those little pleasures always show up after a season of hibernation, dormancy, and preservation.
In other words, in the winter, the trees slow down and go inward.
Some trees actually do most of their root growth during the winter, because their energy isn't going to budding, fruiting, or photosynthesis through that time.
When it comes to our own human growth cycles, the trees can offer us a model for how to move through the different and inevitable seasons of growth... The question is, are you ready to follow the lead of nature, rather than the made-up, unrealistic expectations of achievement and constant self-optimization that capitalism has laid out for us?
You're here, so I'm willing to bet you're at least cuuuuurious about what it might be like to live, move and grow at a pace that is rooted in your own natural process. That's something.
As I not so subtly hinted at above, trees are not always growing, blooming, fruiting. They have a very clear cycle of growth that flows with the seasons. They work interdependently with their environment, adapting to the conditions around them.
Some seasons that brings big, green leaves or the juiciest of fruits. Some seasons that brings barren branches and a shift in energy from growing to preserving and rooting.
The point is that not all moments in your growth cycle are going to be outwardly beautiful, feel good, or appear "fruitful" in the moment.
That's actually okay. Frankly, it's just a natural part of growth and change.
Where we get into trouble is thinking that something is wrong with us for being in a slow/heavy/dark period. We start striving to create more obvious beauty, excitement, or "feel good" moments and think, "this time the goodness will stick." But it doesn't stick (because, seasons), and then we feel like we're behind, and start hustling harder to change or "fix" what's making us feel low. We end up grasping to make any sort of pleasure or joy that we experience permanent, and think that when it fades, it's our fault.
Capitalism teaches us that if we can just do more, accomplish more, buy more, have more, we'll feel okay. So we do that. We DO more in an effort to find some form of good feelings that last.
But they don't, because THE FRUIT CANNOT FRUIT ALL YEAR LONG, FOR YEARS ON END, know what I mean?!
The trees reassure us that we can actually do a lot of underground root growth during the darker seasons, strengthening our foundation and inner landscape, building our capacity to bloom and fruit when the timing is right.
The hardest part about this is that winter can feel long and dark. And trust me when I tell you I've never considered myself a "winter person."
So then we can ask ourselves:
"What supplies, supports or provisions might I need to sustain and tend to myself through the darker seasons?
"How might I ground into the support that the darker seasons offer, so that I might be even more available to goodness the warmer, brighter seasons when they arrive?"
Whichever season you right be in right now, I'm sending you soooo much love, and permission to just lean in & let it be.
ROOTING for you!
(☝🏼See what I did there?)
XO