He was born into carrying a community on his shoulders. Breaking up with the archaic, while breaking bread with the neighbours. I saw him switch from a fork truck to a boardroom, never wavering in his reverence. I heard him turn down money because he had what he needed, and argue to build systems that would support generations - not egos. And one day, past the age of 80, I saw him sit down in his armchair and declare that he had worked enough.

I - on the other hand - was born into Scandinavian solitude and capitalist corridors. Excelling at tests and predetermined tracks and running over my own signals of exhaustion. Like a machine, fighting for the scraps of humanity and creative thought that productivity left behind. I didn’t even make it to 40 before I caved.

For a long time, I thought that hard work tied us together - like a staple of existence. My heritage said work was the essence of contribution. The world said effort was the currency of my worth.

If only I was staying busy, I could do no wrong. So I worked. A lot.

It took me ages to realise I was creating rifts in myself. While letting the suffocating weight of corporate expectation empty me, and allowing the good girl to roam free under the cloak of legacy - I was burying my geist for life.

That is why, venturing to change this deeply flawed relationship to work also became a portal back into my creative nature.

I spent years protesting the hustle without knowing where it was taking me. I dissected each story and every choice to push harder, with the simple hope of mining more pieces of myself from the rubble.

Only when I had removed enough of the obligations - the stubborn white noise - did I start hearing the gentle pull again. A steady pulse that could not be stopped or denied. The untainted creative force that never left me.

There she is, I exhaled. Still, connecting to my creativity again made me rattle. How do you come to follow something you are estranged from? That you were also taught to fear and diminish?

I can’t say what I did at first. Perhaps I simply reached into that river of ideas and odd observations, and began to make something - if only to feel myself resonate back. And then I got curious about how I make more room for it to live. And then, I got brave to take the tiny steps that my productive self would never raise to the light. And then I did it all again. One more time. Until suddenly where I had been before, felt entirely unlikely.

I was interacting with life again, not just planning for its execution.

Very quickly, I was reminded that a creative life isn’t lined with ease. Creativity doesn’t flee, it participates. Where productivity had told me to plan, simplify, reduce and hurry, creativity said; stay, whatever it is, stay and be moved. Connect to what is asking to be seen.

It didn’t tell me to stop working, it urged me to consider how and why I do. It didn’t order me to prove or punish myself, instead it asked me to move my body in coherence with creation and in honour of what I can give.

I confess, it started mostly as a pursuit for relief - a break - but it became about how to live as a connected, creative being. How to give without self-erasure and make without bypassing the experience of being alive.

Despite my love of the creative, coming off the linear path was destabilising. Debilitating at times too. But instead of grasping at the confusion, I began to look for all the ways that I was not alone. Evidence to show me how creativity is innate to life (and to me). How it is not looking to be invented, only unveiled - or perhaps simply received.

And I trembled. Make no mistake. I’ve seen first hand how tightly woven the things are that bind us together and that whither us to crumbs. But the emptiness of doubt is a birthplace not a graveyard, and faith is a beautiful engine.

So I looked. At every piece of art that I loved. My first poem written at the age of seven. The trees in “my” cemetery responding to the seasons. The gifts that were handed down in my marrow. They all became the roots to steady me - as I came out of hiding.

I decided to weave my myths of work anew.

I had always imagined that I was given unrelenting effort and the perseverance to push without discernment. But that must have been fear speaking, because reaching into my ancestral soil once more, was much more colourful than that. And listening to my own heart and life experiences certainly wasn’t a story of exertion - it was one of rebellion and expression and creating with both care and courage - often where nothing existed before.

Suddenly the threads that tied me to my grandfather and to those before him, where no longer work for the sake of work. They were about being the things that we believe in.

And I was not weaving a manifesto for creation, I was making something curious and sentient that would help me keep creativity alive.

Or even more than that: be a creator.

Letting my creative energy lead is demanding. It asks more of me than any job ever did, but I have never felt more whole or happily flawed.

I have stopped looking for medals for my ability to struggle or wear myself thin with exhaustion. As a matter of fact, I’ve stopped doing those things altogether.

The paths I choose are inclusive of me - affirming of life and nature and my place in it. They look beyond the surface and nudge me to make real choices, with my whole body. I’m not sure if what I do makes me an artist or a poet or a writer. Labels never quite agreed with me.

For the most part, living creatively just feels like labour. Because of how labour is birth and birth houses love and aliveness, death and soul-wrenching pain, without once losing the knowing of what will come alive through it all.

I still bounce against the desire of machine-like efficiency, but then I remember where I came from and that above all I believe in our unbound and limitless creativity. So I peel off each thought of ease or to whom I owe my work, look myself in the mirror with all the love I can muster and enquire: where is the best place and the most beautiful way to gift my effort today?

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This autumn I’m deepening. Exploring with even more intention, my own creativity. I won’t make promises about timing. Because it’s about re-building intimacy with my own practice first - before committing to others. But I will promise that I’ll share my reflections and experiences along the way. Join me.

If you are looking for support in your own creative practice - and living:

Explore The Creative Living Oracle - the card deck I am currently writing and hand-painting. It’s online, it’s interactive and it’s there to give you the nudges you crave at a time when you need them.

Listen to Learning from Trees - curious, seeking conversations about learning from trees, being creative and expanding through our interactions with life.

That desire to defend my choices, to lay out the full story of suffering and lessons - rose like bile after a good meal. But I swallowed. Because what was I protecting? An old image of me or an archaic idea of achievement?

Neither seemed worthy of breath, yet the alternative scared me.

Because there is no elevator pitch for where I am.

It’s messy here. I have to be honest. Like every corner I turn I need to reacquaint myself with my contours. And my beliefs. Even the world itself.

I’m committed to a creative life. I listen attentively to my pulse and to my limbs and to the constant pandemonium of ideas that seem to enter my mind without asking permission. It’s spacious, almost seductive. It’s frightening and demanding. And I often have no clue what I’m doing. For every hour I flow there are many minutes where my body turns into a stop sign - and all I do is refuse the places that ask me to be courageous.

My notes are inflated beyond reason. Collected thoughts. Half finished. Sentences with full stops that seem to contain an entire universe. Complete trash that might never make sense beyond the exact moment I wrote it down. I could write for years and still there would be more threads to pull.

The only grand plan is - choosing time and again the cycles of creation over the pressure of efficiency. Reaffirming that creative is not a skill or a project or even a title… it’s a craft, a way of living, the deepest of our nature.

It’s a commitment that requires more than three sentences and a fixation with usefulness.

Every day is a conversation between me and the world that formed me - and keeps doing so.

A quiet revolution against the capitalist ideals that convinced me power points were more important than poetry.

Despite the dedication, I keep finding places where I am still chasing a standard I no longer want to participate in. I visit the idea of step-by-step processes. Question my lack of a niche. Play with the thought of reels and 30 day journeys. Because that predictability of linear and neatly packaged plans used to be comforting. It’s why I can’t stop rubbing against the temptation.

Even so, I always return to the same answer. Each cell in my body tells me - I don’t want the success I’ve been sold. I don’t even believe in the polished composition this world is desperately trying to trade as a necessity.

Life is not a tagline.

Maybe that’s why I still struggle to give it words. This dream that swelled within me long before I had the vocabulary. Long before I ever let it move me.

The idea of success doesn’t sound like straight lines and tall ladders anymore.

It feels like a straight spine on a foggy walk. Little pockets of awe that make you realise how much of this world and its urgency is manufactured to distract us from the things that really matter. How much is made to control our output rather than lift our potential.

I see now, that where I am - may have started in resistance.
The knowing that I no longer wish to be a currency. Or chase after made up deadlines.

But I don’t keep going from defiance. I continue from longing and some kind of deep inexplicable trust. That I am able to create something different.

And I can’t always explain that the same person who once sought grades with the same fervour as she breathed - now knows beauty is enough of a reason to do anything.

Not the superficiality of pretty clothes and made up faces. The beauty that lives in warm hands touching yours, in trees that turn yellow, in pieces of art that have been painstakingly put together, uninhibited laughter and deep belly breaths. Where for a second you can do nothing but stay.

I don’t always know how to say; that I will no longer run to please anyone. Much less for the sake of running alone. Rather than whipping everything into neat formats and tight comprehensible headlines, I wish to sit with the chaos - slow and curious - until it reveals its own order. And it always does.

There is more nuance and possibility outside of the binary constrictions we build for ourselves, when we desperately try to force a result.

And while I crave clarity as much as the next person, I long for the things that ask something of me. That beg for my emotion, my participation - not to commoditise my attention or claim my time or my money. But to hold me and enrich me. It’s also how I want to serve and contribute to others.

I don’t know if anyone might call that a career.

So finally, I settled on a short reply, and answered her: I still want to do well for myself, I’m just exploring a different way of doing it.

That makes sense, she nodded.

And I thought, perhaps this practice of creation is against the current (in every sense of the word) but in the end, none of it feels like negation - or even resistance. It feels like an affirmation of being human. And that is closer to success than I ever was before.

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This autumn I’m deepening. Exploring with even more intention, my own creativity. I won’t make promises about timing. Because it’s about re-building intimacy with my own practice first - before committing to others. But I will promise that I’ll share my reflections and experiences along the way. Join me.

If you are looking for support in your own creative practice - and living:

Explore The Creative Living Oracle - the card deck I am currently writing and hand-painting. It’s online, it’s interactive and it’s there to give you the nudges you crave at a time when you need them.

Listen to Learning from Trees - curious, seeking conversations about learning from trees, being creative and expanding through our interactions with life.

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

When I worked in corporate I used to talk about the difference between executing a change and being IN change.

Between seeing change as a project versus experiencing change as our nature.

It gave enthusiastic nods, but little understanding of the devotion and intention it demands of us.

Foregoing cookie-cutter routines for relational rituals. It’s a big ask.

Even more so in a system that screams for our even output.

I was often frustrated, by the willingness to abandon awareness and discernment.

How we would rather run over our instincts and quirks, than risk even a moment of downtime. Or rest.

Because living life by seasons - whether external or internal - or even living life at all…can never be monotonous.

Rarely even predictable.

Our wellbeing and genius rarely depends on the rigidity of our plans, but on our ability to build relationships and be in relation - in movement.

To ourselves.

To the other.

To nature.

To our roots and history.

To our community.

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In this episode we lean on the lens of Ayurveda to understand the structures that feed our life and our wellbeing. An episode that asks you to arrive with your own senses, experiences and inner compass.

I am joined by Veronica Paige, an SĀ - Ayurvedic Health & Digestive Life Coach and dear friend. We talk about what it means to tend to our inner flame through the innate chaos of life and as seasons change.

Starting in the fire of summer and inspiration, we move through the “mechanics” of harmony - both in body and mind - not through dogmatic rigidity, but by cultivating a relationship with ourselves.

Through the millenia old medical system, we talk about how our energy shifts and evolves, the downfall of fixed labels over a practice of curiosity and how we build personal, lasting rituals in a world of excess information and decision fatigue. An idea which can be medicine in and of itself.

An invitation to listen to your rhythm and refine your discernment - not to create more fixed routines but to build a relationship with yourself that can move with whatever season you’re in. And still hold you.

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About Veronica:

Veronica is an SĀ - Ayurvedic Health & Digestive Life Coach, meridian yoga therapy practitioner, somatic relational trauma specialist, and integrative nutrition chef for retreats.

She supports those who can’t shake digestive discomfort, bloating, skin flares, exhaustion, hormonal chaos, or have anxious patterns that keep showing up no matter what they try. With over six years of experience, she addresses the root of dis-ease rather than managing symptoms, helping people move from fawning to empowered-embodied living. Veronica most recently is expanding into conscious conception support, at-home Pancha Karma care, and full-spectrum doula work. Her driving mission: to support people and families digest life through holistic education, mentorship, and integrative Āyurveda. Veronica is currently based in Temecula, California.

Get in touch:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veronicapaige_g/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/vernsbalancingpaige

Email: veronica@ayuembodied.com - if you want to explore 1:1 support in healing through holism with Āyurveda (with a svastha acharya and or an ayurvedic doctor from anywhere in the world).

This episode in headlines:

• The sensation of the season

• Finding the inner flame

• Becoming an observer

• Curious self-talk

• Responsibility & discernment

• Doshas explained

• Living with complexity

• What is harmony & health?

• Softening decision Fatigue

• Systems for energy

• Self study and choice

• Finding our flavour

• Building our own routines

• Season transitions

• Expand your inner dialogue

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

I’m exhausted by all the things we are somehow expected to be good at.

Like optimisation is a sport that exempts us from failure - or change.

If only we follow the 1000-step process we will feel amazing. We will do great.

Yet somehow, that is not reality. For anyone.
And instead of being better for following the rules, we only feel more lost and frustrated.

Tense with excuses of all the tips we’ve neglected.

I think optimisation has less to do with supplements and sleep schedules.

And more to do with the curiosity we are able to apply to our experience of life.

There is a power in looking at each sensation with inquiry. Not rigidity. To meet situations with a little bit of kind, playfulness, without the harshness of performance. It makes us willing to try. To learn to trust the signals of our body - as well as our world. And to pivot our choices as life evolves. And we with it.

When we stop outsourcing our judgement and our decisions nakedly to external advice and data-points, we tend to find the things that fit us best.

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This episode is an invitation to dive into that exactly. To reconsider what it might mean to change and to find the ways that fit us - not through discipline or force, but through noticing what’s actually there, and letting that lead.

I am joined by Frida Rångtell, a sleep researcher and coach behind the Curious Sleep Lab, who brings to sleep the same sensibility she brings to life: curiosity, playfulness, and a willingness to test what’s actually true rather than follow what’s supposed to be.

From Love is blind watch-parties and writers’ gatherings, curiosity takes us into sleep. Not the optimized, data-tracked, rule-heavy version, but sleep as something with its own paradoxes, signals, and strangeness.

We move through what good sleep actually means and why one number rarely tells the whole story; through the in-between state of falling asleep that no one can quite catch; and the mysterious things that we experience at night (that are stranger and more common than we tend to admit). We talk about what our dreams seem to be made of, and why we so often sleep better next to someone even when the objective data disagrees.

And through all of it, Frida keeps returning to the same notion. Not “what should I be doing to sleep better”, but “how we can learn to trust our senses and listen to the signals that our body offers” - both during the day and at night.

A warm, wide-ranging conversation about sleep, rest, presence, and the surprising usefulness of not knowing the answer yet.

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About Frida:

Frida Rångtell, PhD, is a sleep scientist and founder of Curious Sleep Lab - a space to explore sleep with openness and curiosity, without judgement or strict rules. She works with individuals through coaching, organizations, sports clubs, and schools. Her goal is to help others create better relationships with their sleep and to find the magic of the night.

Get in touch:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frida-rangtell-phd/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slumraofsweden/

Website: www.slumra.nu

This episode in headlines:

• Curiosity as a compass

• Playful living

• Lazy hosting and bringing people together

• A curious relationship to sleep

• The paradox of sleep - control vs. non-judgement

• What is good sleep?

• The signals of sleep

• Bedtime rituals to transition into sleep

• The in-between sleep state

• Sleep mysteries

• Strange things that are normal

• Sleep as an experience

• Sleeping together - the impact of social connection

• Listening to our body

• Small steps that stick

• The value of experiments and observation

• Build habits first

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

I started laughing. And crying. Because, seeing myself in the mirror was as liberating as it was terrifying.

How human of me. How utterly human to want to be loved and not lonely. And how deeply frightening, that I was no longer oblivious to the more aligned route.

Contrary to how it may sound, this wasn’t a flash breakthrough. It was an imperfect arc of conversations, realisations and questions - over months (maybe even years), with many people - that finally came to a head on a regular Wednesday. With a beautiful woman seeing me through the screen. And me, raw from everything that was chafing and ready. Restless, for something to finally change.

The next morning - in front of an actual mirror - little insights started drizzling. I saw myself as a child. In the promotion of my work. In conversations with new connections and familiar faces too. I saw what I spent my time on and what made me frustrated. I felt the twitch of longing for what I really want to direct my energy to. How I want to be.

And I understood. Something that hadn’t been obvious before. That I was hiding behind my creativity - not within it as I have often caught myself doing. But suddenly, looking back, this pattern was part of my every choice and interaction.

Most of my life I’ve been a shape-shifter. Twisting and moulding to hold any shape that is presented. Not to please, but to be easier to accept, and take in. Torn between my contrasting instincts of personal expression and that of belonging and being seen. For me, it’s meant I’ve taken it upon myself to do other people’s work for them. Like a mama bird chewing her babies’ food. Making myself digestible and bite-sized. Always leading with what is easy to say yes to. Always fearing what will happen when I show up in all my whimsical complexity.

So now, I am taking inventory.

Of all the ways that I am trying to seep in instead of show up.

Of where I love my bendy nature and where it is sheltering me.

Of what resonates in my heart and what is “just” strategically sound.

I’ve always known myself to take refuge inside of my ideas. Snuggled within the process of creation. Cocooned in the making. Hands busy. Thankfully, I’ve learnt to tell apart - at least mostly - my hermit tendencies from the signals of my deep belief.

Hiding behind my ideas is different. I see it isn’t just masking as “the creative person” - having ideas en masse. But actually the choice to front and prioritise the things that I believe others may understand - or that they won’t turn away. All the while reserving my more authentic artistry for small spaces and closed notebooks.

Even writing this, I’m battling my desire to be general and not personal.

Ultimately, whatever means of disguise I’ve used, the opportunity has been the same. It was never about picking a niche, but rather about being courageous enough to not use my creative power to put off visibility. To not turn the quantity of my creations into a means of staying stuck in perpetual ideation. If I am using my ideas to distract myself from honing my craft and giving focus to what I truly care about - it’s not adaptability, it’s avoidance.

This is sticky. Translating what I saw into a pattern that is new. Into movement that brings me into light and helps me stay there. Daring to try even if I don’t know quite what it looks like to be a version of me that isn’t fitting around other people’s shape like grout.

Each day since, I’ve been looking at my work. How I distribute my time. What has worked before. Resonance - inside me and around me.
Breathing deeply. Closing circles that encourage my escape. Opening wider, those that can house me.

There is no gripping for efficiency. Certainly not comfort.

I’ve learnt that the undulations of creativity aren’t clear cut or predictable. It is a conversation between the idea, the practice and the form. With me, somewhere in the middle, herding the friction into movement (or stillness). And turning the featureless survival strategies and humming heartbeats beneath - into brave, focused choices. Actions that bring me closer to myself in the present, rather than trying to save me from the fears of my past.

It’s made me rewrite my expectations of what a creative life should be. Not everything is fluid. Nor fun. I need the ache and the doubt and the surprising bursts of aliveness to orient myself in the process of (my) creation. There is no skipping the tension and the contrast. They are as much the fuel as the engine.

I’ve looked at myself in the rearview mirror and remembered that the strategies I once chose to hide and to survive are not dumb. They are an excessive use of a talent I already possess. And my goal needn’t ever be to eliminate that capacity, but to understand when and where it is magic… and when it is a mask.

It is where I direct my compassion, not my shame.

I have walked in the fog day after day and experienced that the clarity I am looking for is in the movement itself. In accumulating enough experiences to understand. So I resist the urge to label or squeeze the diffuse into a frame. What truly helps is staying attuned to the pulse - the voice of what feels true - and letting it claim space one breath at a time.

Knowing that it doesn’t need to make sense, but trusting that it will.

Here, there is often a reflex to let go. Shed layers of responsibilities and expectations I’ve taken on. Putting my hands up to signal stop. No more.

And I often do.

But sometimes the most powerful space I make for myself doesn’t make me shake because I release my grip.

It doesn’t feel like abandoning something I love. A place of safety. I hesitate because I don’t know what that new place looks like. I tremble because I move towards committing more deeply to myself and the creations asking for a home through me.

In the end, that is how I know.
And how I move.

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PS. I’m determined to show up more powerfully for what makes my heart sing - guiding the creative process. In all its chaos and glory, it is the most beautiful thing I know. Moving towards it on shaky legs and with an open heart.

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Have you ever felt like you need to pretend to fit in?
Or maybe to reduce yourself to crumbs, or hide parts of yourself away?

I’ve always found intrigue in the statements we have around identity.
How much of them are rigid and either-or in nature.
How few of them account for our richness, our adaptability, our contrast, our complexity.
Molds that leave little room for change, let alone evolution.
Even less confusion.
And rarely discovery.

The message seems to be:
“Give me your label, so I can know who you are”

An ask for us to pre-determine and narrow which I’ve always bucked against.

But, we respond to one another.
We exist alone and in relation to the people and parameters we meet.
Any answer we give has the possibility to change.

So why do we keep performing labels instead of meeting each other - and ourselves - with questions?

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This episode is an invitation to consider what it might mean to be fully yourself — not as a fixed identity to protect, but as something alive and curious that shows up differently in every room.

I am joined by Rachel McNamee, a dancer with eleven years in a repertory company who spent a year away - not to leave dance, but to find herself outside the only frame she’d ever known. Together we move through what it actually feels like to return somewhere changed, and the question of how to bring a new shape back into an old space without losing it.

We explore what Rachel carries from a life in dance: the discovery that freedom doesn’t disappear inside structure - it often lives there. And what it actually takes to translate someone else’s vision through your body. The observation, the relationship, the trust that builds between a dancer and a choreographer over time. And how much of that, it turns out, is just what it takes to truly meet someone.

By seeking answers together, finding awe and laughter and surprising ourselves with what we find, we land on something neither of us expected: that receiving someone fully might be the most generous thing we can offer.

A warm, unhurried conversation about expression, honesty, and what it means to actually meet each other.

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About Rachel:

Rachel describes herself firstly as a human - one who spends a lot of time dancing, performing, creating, writing, talking, listening, loving. She grew up in Vancouver, Canada. In 2014, she moved to Europe to start her career as a professional dancer with Nederlands Dans Theatre. She is currently based in Göteborg, Sweden, dancing with GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, amongst other things. Rachel is interested in the body in all its forms of expression - how it holds and gives.

Get in touch:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachmacxx/

desire, words, and other human stuff

still not sure yet

By Rachel McNamee

This episode in headlines:

• Stepping away from comfort and into exploration

• Entering old spaces in new shapes

• Growth moves in more directions than we think

• Finding improvisation and liberty inside every frame

• Meeting the unknown with curiosity

• Translating vision into movement

• Languages - what do we really understand?

• Feeling fully expressed

• What the body gives and what the body holds

• Taking up space when you’re wired to adapt

• Performance is honesty

• Receiving as giving, giving as receiving

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

As a child I dreamt of being an interpreter.
I guess because I always already was.
That someone who translated from one perception and language to another. Transitioning equally between the verbal and the unspoken.

It was there that my fascination started.
For how we come to understand things - not just to know them, but to be them.
In relation to each other, but also in connection with how we choose to live.

With time I sensed - that clarity is often not immediate.
It is edged by confusion and trials and misunderstandings.
And it takes time.

Contrary to many modern books and films and content.
That spoil us with insight on a silver platter.

In the end it doesn’t matter how much of other people’s knowledge we consume.
Of course we would love for someone - or a greater power - to spell out to us what we are meant to feel or understand.
But real clarity and trust in ourselves and our intuition - is built by our actions.
Accumulated in our experiences.
Gathered through our bravery.
Asking us to chafe against the same feelings and questions again and again…and again.

That’s reality.

That way, cultivating our ability to trust ourselves is rarely an experiment of thought, but a commitment that asks us to BE in new ways. However small the steps.

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This episode is an invitation to slow down — not as a productivity hack, but as an act of trust in your own knowing.

I am joined by Amanda Parker - the Untamed Oracle, certified coach and reiki master healer - and together we follow the soft whispers and loud messages that we receive through life. Through nature, burnout, career reinvention, and the body’s own signals, we explore what it actually takes to hear yourself in a world designed to drown you out - and why the answer is rarely more information, but more willingness to trust what is already there.

We move through creative overwhelm and the relief (and friction) of committing to our visions and nudges, the slow and sometimes naive accumulation of bravery that leads people out of lives that no longer fit, and the difference between intuition and anxiety when both show up as feeling in the body.

And we close with a practice - hands on bark, to actually learn from trees. To ask questions and listen for what speaks back.

It’s a conversation for anyone who already knows, somewhere, what they need and desire, and wants to start following that calling instead of denying it.

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About Amanda:

Amanda Parker, The Untamed Oracle, is a certified coach, reiki master healer, and Inner Authority Guide who helps high-achieving, heart-led founders stop overthinking and start trusting what they already know. Through Oracle Readings, deep coaching journeys, and her signature Inner Authority Lab, she guides founders from overthinking and paralyzed to clear, grounded, and aligned - so they can build businesses that fit around their lives, not the other way around.

Get in touch:

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandamparker/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/amandaparker.co/
Podcast: www.dontsteponthebluebells.com
Website - www.amandaparker.co

The Untamed Oracle

For unfiltered spiritual wisdom beyond love and light. This isn't about how to "awaken" but about what happens after you do. Follow for deep insights about the messy middle of spiritual awakening and reconnecting to your intuition.

By Amanda | The Untamed Oracle

This episode in headlines:

• Nature as a teacher

• Be our own guide

• Slowing down to listen

• Committing to our ideas

• Interrupting our patterns of overwhelm

• Tiny steps forward

• Receiving over chasing

• Why we seek inner wisdom

• Leaving corporate behind

• Building the bravery to leap

• Outgrowing our choices - and places

• Rebound jobs and boundaries

• Learning to hear our intuition

• Building faith and trust in ourselves

• Visions without urgency

• Letting dreams evolve

• Perfection and creative surrender

• How to talk to trees

• Intuition or anxiety?

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

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Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

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Sometimes, I’ll skip ahead and read the end of the book first.
I know it’s a sin.

But I can’t help but feel like we spend so much of our life not knowing what will happen, that this little act of rebellion just helps me relax and enjoy the way to the closing line a little bit more.

Ironically - outside of the books. I’ve dedicated much of life and practice to “the creative process”. Being in it. Understanding it. Navigating it.
Acknowledging that desire to “skip to the good part” - to already be in the mastery, the knowing, the success.

But rather than flipping to the last page, playing with what it is that we get to do instead.

When we can’t jump ahead.
When “loving the way there” sounds like the most provocative piece of advice.

I’ve found that - just like in any story - our peaks, our moments of deep insight, our most beautiful creations, don’t appear out of the blue. We build towards them. Build ourselves up to receive them. Prepare ourselves to hold them.

That process - however incomprehensible - is not there to annoy us or delay things.
It is there to make sure we are the soil in which the things that we dream of can take root.

And that is why we need time to get to the good part. To be in process.

Because birthing something new isn’t just about bringing that thing to life.
It is also about our own becoming.
Helping ourselves be who we need to be, to not just conceive of our creations,
but nurture and evolve them - and hopefully deeply enjoy them.
Or even have the bravery to let them go.

On the days where the word process makes me resistant, I choose to see it as a dance or a conversation - that we get to have with ourselves, with life, with the ideas, with trusted people.

And I’ve found that the best thing we might give each other is not solutions. But perspective, awe and stolen moments of holding each other’s hand on our respective paths.

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This episode is an invitation to explore what it truly means to live creatively - not (only) as an artistic pursuit, but as a way of being in the world.

I share a moment of seeking with Innocent Mugenga, creative, thinker and multidisciplinary entrepreneur. Together we move through the landscapes of peace, surrender, and what it can really look like to take aligned action. We get curious about stepping out of hustle and into something more honest. Where working less can mean creating more, where procrastination might actually be incubation, and where ambition becomes less about pushing and more about becoming a vessel for what wants to move through you.

Through our personal reflections and lived experiences, we explore how the relationship we cultivate with our own inner landscape can give us access to both more peace and more creative power. And how we treat ourselves and approach our creative process - or our process of growth - can ripple to become impact and beauty in the world around us.

It’s a conversation for anyone drawn to the deeper currents of self-development and conscious living. For those who sense that the most beautiful patterns in life emerge not from force, but from presence, surrender, and trust in the process. And that the most intimate way they can be with themselves is through creation.

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About Innocent:

Multidisciplinary Entrepreneur, avid reader, boxer and health aficionado who moved from Sweden to Rwanda, currently developing real estate and health concepts for the growing country - and the conscious human.

Get in touch:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/magnifi.centi/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/innocentmugenga

This episode in headlines:

• Landing in the present: A new chapter of peace

• Values need practice — from principles to daily life

• Working less, creating more value

• Ambition, ego, and becoming a vessel for service

• Procrastination as incubation — reframing the waiting

• Creativity as an operating system

• Surrender and accountability — holding both at once

• Choosing from enrichment rather than lack

• The other side of optimism - grief as perspective

• The flip the coin exercise - imagining hopeful futures

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

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Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

I’m curious about the gritty path between.

The part of the trajectory that separates understanding and embodiment.
Where we stumble and flail and feel far from the self we once knew.

And the more I explore it - the more I see that it is not only thoughts and actions that come together in this space.
It is us.

With each thing we bring to life - and to practice - we get to re-create intimacy with ourselves. Build familiarity, knowing and stability.

Get to know our bodies and our boundaries again, as if they were just born.

We may think it is a cerebral exercise.
Of lists and newly formed beliefs. And it may be so.
It matters how we speak to ourselves. It really does.

And it matters too - how we treat ourselves.
How we touch our limbs.
If we punish or evade ourselves into embodiment.
Or if we love ourselves into it.

But how do we find our own way with it?

I will never pretend to know it all.
But it makes me all the more grateful to the beautiful souls that join me in conversation.

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This episode is an invitation to explore what it truly means to be in a committed relationship — not with another person, but with yourself.

I am joined by Caroline Oskarsson - a brand creative and practitioner for holistic wellbeing - together we move through the landscapes of self-touch, body wisdom, and the courage it takes to stop bypassing your own physical experience. We explore what it looks like to turn toward the body rather than away from it — and why learning to touch yourself with care and curiosity may be one of the most quietly radical acts of healing available to us. And perhaps the most overlooked.

Through sharing personal reflection and lived experiences, we venture into how the relationship we cultivate with our own bodies — through massage, self-massage, breathwork, and play — can give us access to both more softness and more aliveness in the face of life’s harder seasons.

It’s an exploration for anyone drawn to the deeper currents of somatic healing and embodied self-development — and for those who are ready to move from self-love as a concept to self-acceptance as a lived, felt experience in the body.

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About Caroline:

Caroline Oscarsson is a manifesting generator in essence and creative witch who merges the worlds of holistic wellbeing and supportive sessions (that includes heart and body work) with supporting brands in building a stronger relationship to their audience by way of storytelling and creative expression.

Get in touch:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholistically/

Email directly: hello@wholistically.se

This episode in headlines:

• Rethinking Self-Love: From Idea to Relationship

• The Body as Bridge: Including Physical Sensation in Healing

• A Simple Self-Touch Practice to Start

• Dreaming After Divorce: Reclaiming Joy and Play

• Play as a Life Practice — Not a Reward

• Reclaiming the Inner Rascal

• Why Joy Needs Community

• Touch, Massage, and the Nervous System

• The Roots of Self-Massage: Ayurveda and Mayan Abdominal Therapy

• Face, Belly, and What the Body Is Telling You

• Breathwork, Release, and Choosing Kindness

• The Off-Brand Seasons — When You Don’t Feel Like Yourself

• Curiosity Over Judgment: An Invitation to Meet Yourself Differently

• From Self-Touch to Self-Acceptance: The Full Circle

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

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Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

We say, I will change this when…

…the context is perfect
…somebody else goes first
…the world is better

And it all stays the same.
Both us and the world we so deeply want to see shift.

But what happens when we dare turn our gaze inward?
Start with our own being, healing and wholeness.
And let the way we show up to ourselves and our relationships send ripples of change outward.

How does committing to our own evolution send ripples into the world?

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This episode is an invitation to explore what it truly means to lead — not from the outside in, but from the inside out.

Together with JJ Vega, leadership coach and facilitator, we move through the landscapes of inner healing, conscious leadership, and the quiet revolution of taking responsibility for your own experience. We explore what it looks like to stop trying to fix the world around you — and instead turn toward what is alive and true within you. And why that shift may be one of the most quietly radical things a leader, or a human, can do.

Through personal reflection and hard-won insight, we venture into how the relationship we cultivate with our own pain, doubt, and ego can give us access to both more depth and more integrity in how we show up — for ourselves, for the people we lead, and for the structures we are part of.

It’s an exploration for anyone drawn to the deeper currents of self-development and embodied healing — and for those who sense that real change in organizations and the structures we are part of begins not with better systems, but with humans who are able to lead themselves in new ways.

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About JJ:

JJ Vega is a leadership coach, facilitator, and founder of Art of Unfolding, an organizational development firm for mission-focused technology companies. With over 20 years in leadership roles in diverse fields from software startups to the military, JJ’s coaching practice focuses on leaders navigating significant life transitions: career pivots, relationship changes, identity shifts, and the quiet unraveling that often follows periods of high achievement.

His approach to coaching integrates developmental psychology, Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic awareness, and presence-based methodology from his training in the Aletheia Advanced Coaching Program. Rather than treating clients as problems to be solved, JJ operates from the premise that people are already whole—and that transformation happens through revealing what’s been blocked, not adding what’s missing.

Beyond his coaching practice, JJ is active in the self-organization and regenerative business communities, including cocreation.loft, a Berlin-based collective exploring new ways of working and belonging together. He’s particularly interested in how organizations can move beyond command-and-control structures toward emergent, trust-based collaboration—and the inner development leaders need to steward that transition.

Originally from Richmond, Virginia, JJ relocated to Berlin, Germany in pursuit of a different rhythm of life. When he’s not coaching, he’s likely exploring the city’s music and creative scenes, practicing yoga, or engaging in the kind of deep conversations that make life feel meaningful.

Get in touch:

Art of Unfolding Website: artofunfolding.org

Cocreation.loft Website: https://www.cocreationloft.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jj-vega/

This episode in headlines:

• Arriving and meeting ourselves

• Embracing joy and fun — beyond the pursuit of positivity

• Practicing inquiry — the art of listening inward

• Turning toward pain - what does it mean?

• Beyond optimization — choosing attunement

• Exploring mastery as commitment, not arrival

• How healing and work intertwine

• Inside-out leadership — taking responsibility for inner experience

• The challenges of being humans and leaders at work

• Ownership versus stewardship — reframing what we hold

• Ego, relevance, and why we need both

• Final thoughts and invitations

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

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Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

It’s akin to seeking shelter in a check-list or a format or arbitrary criteria. Anything to grant myself the safety and respite that the process seems to be denying me - indisputable clarity and arrival. The aha-moment where everything just falls into place.

This precision I manufacture, is a lie of course, but I don’t beat myself up about it. There is no shame, really. After all, I am human - an organism made to predict for the sake of my survival. And as if that is not enough, most of the systems we participate in - from school to work and beyond - measure us not on our ability to move through a process, but on how adept we are at conjuring up results with minimal waste of resources.

So I receive this reflex with grace and when I am ready, I help myself to come out of gripping for safety and back into dialogue with the friction that is being served to me.

Extending the aha-moment

Yes, we have been taught to covet the pinnacles of a process - showered with unyielding demands for productivity - but when we listen closely to the rhythm of life and creation there is another lesson. One that fits into the nature of life, much neater than artificial certainty - and is both more human and more demanding.

We love to talk about the breakthroughs and the big shifts. But in reality we accumulate our insight and our growth with grit and honesty. Micro moments - tiny flecks of insight - that turn into macro changes and bold statements and creations. Not flashes of clarity or momentary portals at all, but passages of understanding that grow and settle within over time.

Most of us will have sighed and asked ‘when will I get there?’. That question alone, makes the prospect of stepping out of the narrow search of lightbulbs, and accepting continuity and persistence as ingredients, quite daunting.

But there is also liberty in letting our understanding stretch across the entirety of a process - or even life. It widens the scope of our curiosity, not just in time, but in attributes.

When we stop looking exclusively for magical moments of elated clarity, we can start noticing and interacting with so much more. Yes, it can manifest as integrity and answers or enthusiastic inquiry, yet it can just as easily arrive as resistance, as chafing, as an ask to admit the difficult truths and face what we are avoiding.

It can also allow us to take the burden of coming up with greatness off our own backs - putting us into dialogue with the ideas and the feedback that already exists. Freeing ourselves from the need to be master - turning us into a humble steward.

And the question isn’t anymore if you are making space for strokes of genius, but if you are listening for the persistent nudges that are always there and letting them guide you.

A practice to practice

It can be tempting to make this dialogue about learning, but this is not a practice in sense-making and searching for lessons. The beautiful thing about taking a creative and cyclical approach to life and how we create, is that it does not perceive waste. Nor does it get entangled in efficiency.

Instead we are asked to be with and harness the process - and interact with the sentiments, conflicts and assets that arise and fluctuate within it. Knowing that it is the conversation with change and repeated action that brings us forward - not the absence of it.

Many of us will carry within this expectation to be even and constant. But this is not our nature. Forcing ourselves into rigidity and premature decisions, translates into tension and stagnation in our bodies and in our creations.

When we open ourselves to view each feeling, every friction and each small nudge as essential fuel, rather than distraction - we welcome the opportunity for insight to reveal itself to us, rather than us conceiving of it.

If we want to lead from our essence, rather than our fear - to let our ability to create beyond even our own imagination come to play - there is much to be said for our ability to be gentle and inquisitive rather than harsh and judgemental. And there is equal necessity for our capacity to approach the stickiness and complexities in ourselves and in our relationships, without contracting into defensiveness or hiding.

Starting to practice this doesn’t need to be advanced. You can find opportunities to converse in the dissonance already happening in your life. The places that ruffle your emotions. The emotions that trigger friction. The friction that invites you to ask more questions.

It can be as simple as a conversation you have been procrastinating - or avoiding. A person - or a place within yourself - where you feel a need for more information. Where you want to go from constriction to heart opening, from conflicted to (at least) neutral - from labelling to curious.

Can you allow yourself to lean into a conversation you have been putting off having? Without rush and with intention and self-compassion:

• What do you need before having the conversation? Consider what preparation or reassurance you get to give yourself to step into it open.

• What can you do to support yourself during the conversation? Frame how you might support yourself to stay curious and explorative, and not resort to judgement. Perhaps prepare go-to questions or statements you can use without needing to revert to habitual retorts in the moment - or consider tools or structures that you can resort to for support.

• What do you need after such a conversation? Define how you care for any emotions that may arise - anything on the spectrum from reactive and contracting to relieved and celebratory - how do you make room for them?

Perhaps now, we exhale and rest in knowing - good is not how precise you are, but in how you dare to meet the mess - over and over. Not just in one moment.

This creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:

- Alongside being a devoted student and practitioner, Michelle is a teacher, guide and mentor known for her grounding presence and steady counsel. Her work is centered around supporting people in navigating personal, spiritual and seasonal evolutions by guiding them back home to the innate wisdom of their body through breathwork, movement, meditation and body focussed inquiry & coaching.

- Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.

You can listen to the full episode here:

Soldiers also eat ice cream.

For the duration of a single lick
they shrug off the violence
and remember they are children.

Uniforms come in all colours.
Righteous morality. Unhinged hatred.
Caring protection. Fear of death.
Love of living.

And just like that. You too
- are a warrior and a child. Wondering
who will bring tenderness
to the red vortex of your heart.

I could say much about the moment that sprung this feeling into existence.
People watching through a bus window.
And mention all the experiences that accumulated into it, to build sentences.

I could say much about our hidden hearts and all the things we dare not face inside ourselves. But in the end, what I cherish about poetry - is, that this is all that needs to be said.

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There is a strange relationship between our mobility and connectivity, and the levels of our solitude.

We are more mobile. Have easier access to anything our heart desires.
Yet, we are also more lonely. Starved for community and connection.

We can of course criticise any number of things in our external environment - from political agendas to structural lacks. There is much to be distraught about.

But another part of the conversation is also what we cultivate within.
What we do to own our capability to stand by each other.
How we prepare and build ourselves up to be safely in connection.

In a world that seeks to optimise and isolate us as individuals - how do we BE together?

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This episode is an invitation to explore what it truly means to connect — with ourselves, with the people we love, and with something larger than our own lives.

I am joined by Carina Modéus, and together we move through the landscapes of presence, service, and the beauty and weight of being human together. We explore what it looks like to show up fully to life and relationships — and why the quality of our presence may be one of the most quietly radical things we can offer in a fragmented world. And perhaps the most necessary.

Through our own experiences and reflections, we venture into how the relationship we cultivate — with our senses, with other humans, with our faith(s) — can give us access to both more grace and more grit in the face of life’s challenges.

It’s an exploration for anyone drawn to the deeper currents of human connection — and for those who find their sense of purpose in being there for and with others, without neglecting themselves.

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About Carina:

Daughter of farmers in the deep forests of Småland, in the south of Sweden. She grew up in a big family - three siblings and 75 cousins. Moved to Lund. Met and fell in love with a tenor and theologist, married him and now had the grace of sharing 35 years together (and counting).

Mother of three grown up children. While also taking a winding way through professional life - always mirroring grace and grit: Biologist, physician, both oncologist and psychiatric, the last ten years working mainly in palliative care. Deeply committed to the exploration of existential perspectives and questions, and their impact on our well-being.

Get in touch:

Carina says: “In person actually. I am striving to be as analog as reasonably possible. Meeting physical human beings in physical rooms is more and more my preferred way of living. I have an account on LinkedIn, but I am not at all good at keeping it updated, so I do not dare to promise anyone to be answered there but it is the best channel I have”.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carinamodeus

This episode in headlines:

• Morning rituals - a foundation for presence

• What true presence means and how we cultivate it

• Analog and digital - the push and pull of human connection

• The Power of Human Connection

• The courage to reach out and face rejection

• Caring for others without losing yourself

• Intention and Small Steps as a guiding light

• Letting grace and grit guide you

• Finding Comfort in Imperfection

• Reflections on Life, Death, and Connectedness

• Final Thoughts and Invitations

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

I stopped talking about self-improvement.
Stopped chasing achievement.
Stopped trying to perform.

At first it felt empty and frightening.
Because what would I do instead.
And who would I be without it?
But then I started feeling, like maybe I could be whole?

And perhaps being playful and curious would bring me much more authenticity and excitement than force ever did.

Instead of trying to be better, I decided to invest in being more.
More present. More of myself.

It was a rewrite that took me on a whole new path of self-exploration.
Where I got to not just see my nature, but to actually start loving it.
Where I started to hear my stories and judgement, but stopped believing in them (most of the time).

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This episode is an invitation to play with our uniqueness - and the imprints that life has left on our brains. An honest conversation about how we can approach our self-discovery and growth with curiosity instead of judgement.

I am joined by Maria Sundell, physician and specialist in neurology. Together we venture into the brain - how it develops and shapes our perspectives and the ways in which we can reframe our experiences for better self-understanding, compassion and - if we want it - growth. And we talk about how a playful mind can enhance our ability to adapt and learn.

Through our own rabbit-holes and experiences we explore what it can look like to approach our evolution with kindness. Each offering our lenses to what it means to make sure we have the resources and support we need to actually be able to evolve.

It’s an exploration for anyone wanting to release the pressures of societal expectations and find their unique paths to self-discovery and fulfilment.

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About Maria:

Maria is a specialist in neurology, research physician, podcast host and professional speaker. She has a deep interest in the neuroscience behind personal and professional development and loves educating others on this topic.

Get in touch:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/maria-sundell-05b56a57
Website: https://brainobservations.com/

This episode in headlines:

• Connecting to the moment

• Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

• Understanding Brain Filters

• Self-help and privilege

• Peeling onions - welcoming our growth layer by layer

• Brain Differences: Nature vs. Nurture

• Childhood Choices and Adult Patterns

• The Role of Play in Adult Life

• Exploring Playfulness and Creativity

• The Power of Compassion and Kindness

• Embracing Change and Individuality

• Final Thoughts: Compassionate Playfulness

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

I started this podcast from one nagging observation.

We seem to be accumulating knowledge and consuming content and laying claim to all this growth. Yet our behaviours don’t change, our being and presence doesn’t alter. Nor do the things that we create.

As a collective - and often as individuals - we perpetuate what we protest.
Kling to the familiar discomfort.
String beautiful words together, but walk around with our dreams stuck in our chest.
Prefer to optimise with tech rather than connect to each other, nature or the divine.

Without meaningful integration and deep change - what is all this consumption actually worth?

And how do we really stop relating to ourselves like productive machines and become the creators and beautifully complex beings we were born to be?

These are conversations that live in the intersection between human and life itself. Between learning and doing. Between knowing and embodying. Between thinking and creating.

These are conversations about how we take things out of our head and into our body. Let our understanding morph into being. And give space to creativity as a way of living, rather than a skill to boast.

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This episode is an invitation to self-compassion. An intimate dialogue on what it means to meet ourselves with softness, what it looks like when we get (too) comfortable in our own suffering and how removing force can actually welcome greater expansion.

I am joined by Arianna Montanari, a Yoga Synergy teacher, Beekeeper and natural skin-care wizard and we talk about what it is to live connected to our own rhythm. And how one can lean into a practice of listening to ourselves instead of pushing, of cultivating presence rather than performance.

Together, we explore the tender intersections between physical practice and emotional well-being: how our bodies mirror our states of mind, how fatigue and restlessness can speak before words do, and how healing and growth often begins in the smallest gestures of care.

Surfacing moments from our own transitions — from travels, to the quiet ache of change, to disrespecting our boundaries, we explore how ease and joy can - too - be a form of resilience.

An honest conversation cultivating a kind and curious relationship to ourselves and braving the waves of life - one fluid movement at the time.

About Arianna:

Arianna Montanari is a Yoga Synergy teacher. The core of her craft is leading people back to themselves, helping them reconnect with their own voice and inner guidance through movement and getting to know their body.

After her own personal journey from pain and pushing through, to ease and intentionality, Arianna draws from her decades of experience, to help others weave choices that give energy into their life - and find the people, activities and practices that encourage lasting wellbeing .

She is also a beekeeper, creating natural body products with some of what the hive offers.

Get in touch:

Website: mielestrega.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mielestrega/

Leave a comment

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This episode in headlines:

• Reconnecting with the Body: From Pushing to Listening

• The Mind–Body Conversation: Signals and Subtleties

• Moving Through Emotional and Physical Transitions

• Balancing Work, Life, and Self-Care

• Boundaries, Self-Worth, and the Art of Saying No

• Yoga, Longevity, and Non-Violence Toward Self

• Lessons Lessons from Nature on Work and Rest

• Learning to listen to our bodies

• The Joy of Movement and Everyday Ease

• Rethinking Work and Life Balance

• Asking for Help as an Act of Strength

• Resilience Through Softness

• Embracing Self-Care and Boundaries

• Returning to Compassion, Curiosity, and Joy

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

I used to think birthdays were
to celebrate arrival. But there is breakage
in birth. A rupture of membranes.

I used to believe in closed loops. Like
miraculous moments of readiness.
Saying ’I will get there’. But knowing
even clarity is temporary.

I used to hope for pinnacles, as
plateaued peaks of perpetual elation.
But I never stopped finding smiles
in my tears. Or crumbs of joy in my ache.

And when I go to the sea. I love to sit there
and listen to the water crashing.
Surging towards the shore. Being home
without ever landing.

So much I love it. That now, I know.
When I am born again. I will celebrate
instead that delicate pulse between pain
and grateful presence, that loves us into being.

The waves that keep us in motion.

I turned 40 this past week, but I’ve been labouring into this decade for a while now. Maybe it’s a midlife crisis. Maybe it’s just life and its nature of change and shifts, that deepens as you grow older.

For many years, I would come into my birthday crying. Despite a rich life in many ways, this was a milestone that seemed to nurse the lacks.

Shining a light on all the things I didn’t have and the places I hadn’t gone. Mourning what was supposed to be and all the things that were meant to happen - since the last birthday - but didn’t.

That may sound dramatic and superficial. And maybe it was. Still, it didn’t change the fact that facing the questions of how I was to celebrate my solar-return, made me feel shame. Like I somehow needed to out all the ways in which I hadn’t yet arrived, and expose my vulnerability and solitude. As if it wasn’t already painfully visible to me, I would now have to share that with other people too.

It didn’t matter that I knew better. Or that no-one truly cared what I did. I had forgotten something crucial.

It wasn’t how to erase sadness. It was the existence of joy and celebration within it.

It wasn’t how to anchor in gratitude and love. It was the fact that they keep grief enclosed inside them too.

I was trying to make the celebration of my life singular and monochrome and fit for the eyes of other people. And with it, I was loosing all the colours and nuance that I could actually feel proud and celebratory of.

For my birthday this year, I held hands with the man I love. Had long hugs and good cake with my children. Shared a meal with the family. Received wishes and chocolate from afar. Read birthday messages with a throbbing longing. And had a few fleeting moments of frustration - I won’t lie.

Thankfully though, the longer I live the less I seem to arrive, and the more I seem to find specs of arrival in every heartbeat. Instead of needing to highlight and accumulate ambitions and accolades, what I cherish is the movement. The pendulum that swings between emotions. My heart that holds the contrast of this fleeting and fragile human life. My body that stretches to hold the whole of me. That I am whole because of how I diverge from within - not despite it.

Maybe I’m late to the party, but finally - at 40 - that seems the only thing worth celebrating.

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I wanted to come back to podcasting for a full year before I finally sat down to do it.

It wasn’t procrastination. I just couldn’t reconcile with the idea that I was adding more to the consumption craze that we live in. Accumulating knowledge where embodiment was sorely missing.

Instead of rejecting the idea completely, I allowed myself to marinate in the question of what exactly it was that bothered me.

The commoditisation of people’s attention.
The strategies to hook you in with promises of a better life.
The snappy overly polished facts to add to your collection.
The lack of embodiment.

That is why, each episode doesn’t start with a hook, it starts with an out.
An opportunity to press stop and care for ourselves instead.
And an invitation to enter into listening with intention and receptivity.

That is why each episode is a conversation - complete with silences, doubts and joint exploration. Crafted to open your own reflection rather than pile on information.

Because we don’t need more bullet-points, we need to learn to participate in the practice of living.

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This episode is a quiet exploration of what it means to be in dialogue with ourselves — through creative practices, through breath and introspection. And what it means to honour our processes and our needs in a world that rarely pauses.

I am accompanied by Michelle Baker, breathwork teacher, mentor and guide to self-inquiry and somatic practices. We talk about the beauty of slowness, depth and long stories. And we explore the power of tactile creative practices - like sewing and pottery - and how they can become acts of healing and self-discovery.

Sharing generously from our own every day - from profound lessons to challenges - we inquire gently about what it means to be in co-creation with life. Curiously exploring what it means to take care of ourselves through different initiations and evolutions.

It’s a moment for anyone longing to breathe a little deeper, listen with curiosity and rediscover the art of inquiry - instead of answers - as a means of creating movement and connection.

About Michelle:

Alongside being a devoted student and practitioner, Michelle is a teacher, guide and mentor known for her grounding presence and steady counsel. She is the founder of Radiant Wellbeing, which is home to her ever evolving offerings that aspire to braid together the sacred, seasonal and somatic.

Her work is centered around supporting people in navigating personal, spiritual and seasonal evolutions by guiding them back home to the innate wisdom of their body through breathwork, movement, meditation and body focussed inquiry & coaching. She also mentors other visionary leaders and creatives in building and growing their heart-led, service based businesses.

Her love for poetry, perspective, nature and language is woven into the tapestry of all that she offers.

Michelle has been working with clients individually since 2013 and fostering community connection and growth through retreats, trainings and group gatherings (both online and in person) since 2014.

Get in touch:

Website: www.michellebaker.co

Insighttimer: insighttimer.com/michellebaker

Instagram: instagram.com/__michellebaker/

Or find her on Substack: https://substack.com/@michellebaker

Leave a comment

This episode in headlines:

• Reflections on a Weekend of Rest and Near-Death Experiences

• Stories, Podcasts, and the Power of Long-Form Content

• The Joy and Healing in Using Our Hands

• Lessons from Pottery: Letting Go and Beginning Again

• The Body as a Site of Healing

• Being Held: The Power of Connection

• Personal Practice, Boundaries, and Balance

• Intention in Teaching, Creating, and Sharing

• Conversation as Healing practice: Embracing Diversity and Difference

• Navigating Defensiveness and Polarization

• Welcoming Contrast, Welcoming Growth

• Talking to that which we avoid

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

And I am not referring to the closeted parts of our process - the quiet contemplation or the stare into the darkness - but rather the stagnation in our artistry. That impulse to never let our art breathe and interact and fall apart (or spring to life) before the eyes of somebody else…or maybe even our own eyes.

That part is kind of sticky territory. Because it doesn’t just ask us to expose our vulnerability outwardly, but to admit it - to ourselves. It demands us to take to the stage, not when we are done and confident, but with our insecurities and desires and bids for love tangled up in our hands for all to see.

Paradoxically, it seems that leaning into that human fragility - which we are so ferociously taught to avoid - and experiencing the nuance that we fear, can be the way to finally dislodge our stuckness. Both in creation and otherwise.

There was a moment during last year when I feared I had completely lost my ability to focus. Everything was trying to hook me in. Yet, I could never last more than two seconds before I moved on to the next thing.

On my screen were the same sentence structures with different topics. Voices that harnessed my fears and proceeded to hand me efficient solutions. Glorified consumption hauls blowing up harmful ideals. It all felt made to grab my attention and capitalize on me. Instead, all it did was deflate and disengage me.

It was only when I dove head first into romantic fantasy (on audio) that I realised there was absolutely nothing wrong with my attention span. After listening to more than one 6-book series - where each book was at least 20 hours - I found myself exhaling. Looking around through a new lens, I could see that what I was missing wasn’t ability, it was something to attract my interest and draw on my motivation - realness.

But I also got to asking why. Why did it seem increasingly difficult to stay with something? And I could go on a rant about the soullessness of AI creations, but what really interests me is why we think we need it at all?

I’m under no illusion to hold complete or even right answers. Even so, what I keep seeing is this.

When the world around us (or inside us for that matter) is messy - and it does feel exceptionally so right now - our instinct is often to simplify, reduce and predict. We sort the world into binary structures. Good and bad. Clear and unclear - attaching value to each. Instead of cultivating our capacity to hold complexity, expand our range and let nuance exist, we try to control and bend things to fit our view and limit our emotional fluctuations.

This may feel safe and contained. Sadly it also makes our output increasingly monotonous and cookie-cutter. Because in choosing this strategy we limit our exposure to the full span of our potential - both on a human relational level and a creative one.

Some irony, that instead of helping us evolve, come together and solve problems in new ways, the very act that shields us from the volatile and helps us preserve an illusion of stability, often keeps us cemented in the same dilemmas we are trying to escape. Because whether we are looking for more soul, realness or unity in the world - or to get out of our creative rut - narrowing our experience, in the end only distances us from the change we so dearly crave.

Momentum through friction

Moving past the macro and into the intimacy of having an idea and executing it - where does that leave us? Well… bringing our original ideas to life and into the limelight can be subject to much of the same dynamics. We tend to suffocate our creative process with our search for safety or our resistance to meet ourselves where we are.

I say this as a humble observation. We all visit this place.

Personally I fear making myself visible so often that it seems a set destination in my creative cycle. At one time it was because I was badly burnt by the all-consuming hustle. And doing anything at all felt like force. And force felt like death. Naturally I stayed as still and small as I could.

At another time, I avoided it because being invisible was really safe and agreeable. But at some point… it also became too stifling. And would I rather be safely unexpressed or risk rejection in feeling like all parts of me could breathe?

There are many thoughts and reflexes that stop us in our track that are both obstacles and nourishment to our creation.

The point is, we will all seek to reduce friction for different reasons and in a variety of ways. And sometimes we may even settle for the cookie-cutter things and be pleased with them.

Yet there is no escaping that the real, raw and authentic things we can build don’t emerge from suppression, they take shape through interaction.

We are set in motion, not by perfect circumstances or perfect clarity, but by approaching the emotions we try to evade. Letting the layers emerge and feed our process and allowing the inner fluctuations to become outer momentum.

Essentially, It’s a complex stickiness. But it’s part of the creative process.

Stuckness as an opportunity?

Creativity tends to be oversold as flowy and fun. In reality it’s a conversation that we have with ourselves. And all the nuances of life. A way of operating and meeting reality.

Sometimes it stops at the sensation and conversation in our inner terrain.
Sometimes it helps us process, digest and alchemise our experiences.
And sometimes (but not all times) that becomes something we might share with the world.

It is (often) boring, and gritty and mundane, firmly placing us in this moment in time. But if we are willing to interact with it - that strange, crude pulse that courses through us. It can propel us to use that raw material we’re offered - not to go deeper into hiding, but towards birthing what feels true. Both in our own essence, and in our service to the world around us. To actually give shape to our creations.

Director Chloé Zhao recently said: ”The most important thing of being an artist is learning to be vulnerable enough to allow ourselves to be seen, for who we are, not who we ought to be. And to give ourselves fully to the world, even the parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of, that we are afraid of, that are imperfect. So the people that we speak to - they can also learn to see themselves and fully accept themselves.”

I think that whether we call ourselves artists or not, matters little. We can approach our creativity as a craft, an art or a way of being (or all of them) - irrespectively, it is a stance that stands in stark contrast to the world.

We live in a society that idealises clarity and polish - and quite frankly one that has confused those very things with simplicity and singular paths. Of course it does - that upholds the idea of security and predictability.

What we often fail to see is that the things that touch us and move us and connect us are rarely singular. Things that feel clear are those that show that they can contain the range of our emotions rather than subdue them. They interact with nuance and fluctuations and encourage us to move courageously across the full span of our inner and outer worlds - being curious rather than defensive.

Accepting this, we may even feel called to love our stuckness and view it as a signal. Knowing that there is nothing wrong with us and what we are creating, but that there is a chance to acknowledge that we have become disjointed from ourselves and our process.

The reality is, whatever the world may look like. Wherever we happen to be in our cycle of creation. If we want to give ourselves to others vulnerably and honestly - and share our creations with the world - we must first dare to experience ourselves fully.

A practice to practice

The very art that lays the foundation for us to create our own art is that of sensing and making room for our own nuance (first).

The world gifts us many distractions and triggers. Reasons to just graze the surface of anything we touch. Masses of information, invitations and intricate objects, that call for our attention and invite us to consume, to flee or to fixate into abandon.

It may increase our speed…and even our reach, but it also costs us. We pay with our lacking ability to integrate and enact our knowledge. We pay with our inability to understand ourselves. With our fleeting impact. With our loss of connection and depth - and awareness of ourselves and of others.

Or even with our loss of discernment and ownership for our inner world. And with being stuck in undesired places.

There is so much more vibrancy to our feelings and sensations than we give ourselves space to experience.

Connecting this to our creativity and our craft is not formulaic, it is deeply personal. But there are ways to get to know ourselves again - or deepen our connection. To start expanding our ability to hold emotion and evolve our interoception. Little mundane - almost boring - steps that ask for nothing but your willingness to pay attention and be curious.

Really. It only takes some small and powerful steps to start practicing presence and feel our feelings:

• Notice a sensation. When next you are feeling willing to connect. You can be still or in movement, at home or elsewhere - so long as you are feeling open to explore what is happening right now.

  • What are you feeling?

• Whatever you are feeling - notice one more sensation. Don’t hyperfixate. Don’t start meaning-making and interpreting. Notice what is there. Be curious about it.

  • What is the physical quality of your sensation?

  • Where are you feeling it?

  • How is it moving through you?

  • What else can you notice?
    

• What else can you notice? Don’t rush to judge. Allow yourself to be gentle in your curiosity. Allow yourself to let go of whatever was your first answer.

  • What is happening in there?

  • What would it be like to just let it pass through?

Go a layer deeper. Do it again. And one more time.

This creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:

- Oren is an organizational psychologist and somatic executive coach who teaches his signature methodology to leaders seeking to integrate cutting-edge neuroscience with depth and humanity, helping them step into healthy, sustained performance, and an alive expression of leadership at work and in life.

Shani Persson - Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.

You can listen to the full episode here:

Listen on Spotify

Or find it on your favourite platform

It’s easy to stop at the idea. Call ourselves creative, but only ever swim in the elation of “this great thing I came up with”.

Collect excitement, but never quite take ourselves over the threshold into making, or publishing, or sharing.

That part is kind of sticky territory.

Personally I feared it for a while…because I was badly burnt by the all-consuming hustle. And doing anything at all felt like force.
And force felt like death.

I also avoided it because being invisible was really safe.
But at some point…too stifling.
And would I rather be safely unexpressed or risk rejection in feeling like all parts of me could breathe?

There are many thoughts and reflexes that stop us in our track.
That are both obstacles and nourishment to our creation.

It’s a complex stickiness.
But it’s part of the creative process.

Creativity tends to be oversold as flowy and fun.
In reality it’s a conversation that we have with ourselves.
And all the nuances of life.
A way of operating and meeting reality.

Sometimes it stops at the sensation and conversation in our inner terrain.
Sometimes it helps us process, digest and alchemise our experiences.
And sometimes (but not all times) that becomes something we might share with the world.

It is (often) boring, and gritty and mundane.
Firmly placing us in this moment in time.

But if we are willing to interact with it - that strange, crude pulse that courses through us. It can propel us to using that raw material we’re offered, not to go deeper into hiding, but towards birthing what feels true. Both in our own essence, and in our service to the world around us.

To actually give shape to our creations.

Share

This is a gentle dive into what it really means to be here, fully. An exploration of how we can stay present amid the noise and the strong pull of plans, objectives and efficiency — learning to return, again and again, to this very moment.

In this episode, I am joined by Oren Shai - Organizational Psychologist, Somatic Leadership Coach and Co-founder of Feeling School. We talk in depth about somatic awareness and the art of feeling sensations without needing to fix or control them. And we touch in the delicate balance between creating space and holding on. The quiet and loud ways in which our nervous system and learned patterns can shape our current reality - and how our inner landscape responds to the environment and relationships that we are part of.

By weaving together the science of our body with our personal stories of trials and realisations we surface a multifaceted view of what it means to practice and grow or interoception and connection to self. It’s an invitation to slow down, to listen inwardly, and to rediscover the nuances of being alive.

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About Oren:

Oren’s experience combines a decade in corporate learning and change with well over a thousand one-on-one hours of leadership development within budding 10-person startups all the way to 10,000-person giants, as well as collaboration with top universities researching applied team performance.

As the co-founder of Feeling School, Oren teaches his signature methodology to leaders seeking to integrate cutting-edge neuroscience with depth and humanity, helping them step into healthy, sustained performance, and an alive expression of leadership at work and in life.

Get in touch:

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/oshai

Or find him on Substack

Working with Feeling

Bridging neuroscience, somatics, and leadership to challenge outdated norms, breathe life back into your day-to-day, and help you make an impact in the world without losing your humanity.

By Oren Shai

This episode in headlines:

• Introduction and Current Lessons

• Daily Practices for Presence

• Balancing Anticipating the future and being here now.

• The role of control

• Small Shifts for Big Changes

• The Importance of Repair and Integration

• Embodying Emotional Awareness

• The Journey of Neuroplasticity

• Building a Connection to Our Bodies

• We need others to grow

• What does it mean to practice somatically?

• Busting ideas about personal growth

• Ownership and Accountability

• Integrating Somatic Practices

• Gentle Curiosity and Sensation Awareness

Thank you for listening to Learning from Trees!

You can support more curious conversations by sharing your own experiences in the comments, sharing an episode to your feed or to somebody who needs it, or subscribing here or on a platform you like.

Subscribe now

Listen & Subscribe on Apple

Listen & Subscribe on Spotify

Credits:
Music by: Maya Wahlberg

Whatever we do, it’s too late and too slow. There’s always something better to be. Someone else that was superior. But busyness is a badge of honour. And we’d rather wear it, than our disorientation and loss of meaning.

And so, we keep going. Carry out tasks and feel guilty about the time we’re not spending with the people we care about. Being with the people we care about, while thinking about the jobs that aren’t getting done. And around it goes. Each day a little further away from our flavour and closer to our edge.

In the relentless pursuit for performance and perfection, we excel at being fractured and dispersed - to be everywhere but in ourselves and in the present. But do we know what it feels like to be whole? To act and create and relate in a way that engages the fullness of our being?

Like most of us, I grew up steeped in the religion of productivity. Putting on a pedestal the reliable output, giving reverence to working hard, worshipping the constant. I watched mothers self-abandon and fathers dissociate. Plowed through days and rushed through the highs, all in deep disconnect from my body.

It was uncompromising, and I guess…so was I.

So when burnout finally happened - in my early 20ies - I worked through it, like all the rest. I had become a master of overriding my signals. Shrugged my shoulders at my unruly body and labelled myself weak - a problem to fix. Continued pushing.

I poured myself into the fulfilment of others, advocating the space for wellbeing and including the ‘whole human’ in the work-place. All the while, leaving my own suffering unkempt, my hustle and determination fierce…and my creativity, stifled to a tiny ember.

The dissonance was deafening. As was the bone deep exhaustion.

But there is only so much contrast one can hold before pain and ache and mental decay becomes reality. And on one particular day, there was no hustling my way out any more. That gap stared me square in the face and demanded with certainty that I ‘step off whatever treadmill I was on’.

Full of doubt - I surrendered.

My body sighed. My brain muted. ‘At last, the rest I have been asking for’ they said.

And finally, I had nowhere left to go, but back into my body.

A taste of separation

In many ways, this world teaches us to settle for scraps of ourselves. Each body, a machine, distinct from its unique soul blueprint - an object of inconvenience that we may optimize and whip into shape. Every achievement, an intellectual exercise separate from the body that carries it.

We strive for success at the cost of self-neglect and opt for comfortable survival over colourful living. We agree to squeeze into the narrowness of ideals and express only single facets of our identity.

Yet, this is not what we were built for. These are cultural (or other) expectations and cues that we internalise. Or an absence of tools and understanding that we tolerate. Things which often put a wedge between us and ourselves, and lead us to give more space to external demands and socially acceptable paths, than we do to our own voice and life-force.

In practice, it means that instead of treating ourselves like the complex and beautiful eco-system that we are, we relate to ourselves as fragments and compartments with little to no interconnectedness - leaving us in isolation from life and its innate rhythm.

As bad as it sounds, it is a natural choice. Even a smart one. Because it helps us create safety in what might otherwise feel volatile or insecure and gives us control of our experience. Yet as essential as safety is, when it replaces savouring our inner and outer life, with all the nuance that it offers, we are losing - individually and collectively. Health, relationships, empathy, creativity all wither in the face of this deep segregation. And whether we like to acknowledge it or not, there is a way of being safe without giving in to the monotony that our guaranteed productivity requires.

If we dare choose connection over distance, listening over predicting, movement over rejection, we can start to battle that humming of emptiness and depletion. In committing to our senses, our attunement and the relationship between all of our elements, we can finally begin renouncing the idea of our emotional spectrum, our unique abilities and creative power being a currency or a burden - and reclaim them as the life-giving essence that they are. A door to our wholeness.

Welcoming seasons

There are of course many paths to venture down, but one that seems to continuously emerge is nature. Intentionally approaching the estrangement from cyclicality and the lack of conversation we have with our physical body.

In this world of efficiency that always puts our brain at the helm, it is convenient to ignore the fact that we naturally move and create in waves. Each cycle of breath, a microcosm of activation and downregulation. Each season in nature giving new perspective - an expansion, a release, a blossoming, a death - an opportunity to experience a different part of our being.

Integrating the body into our processes - welcoming it as an essential part of our quality of living and ability to create - urges a shift. It asks us to change how we hold ourselves, how we organise life, how we move towards our dreams.

Because if we want to be truly regenerative - sustain our evolution, our wellbeing and our creativity - we cannot live in one season alone. Speaking to the fullness of our power and potential means we can’t coerce our body and bend it to our will as we are accustomed. Nor force it to smoothen its edges for our convenience. We must let go of the idea that the pinnacle of development looks like absence of hardship or eternal energy - and welcome the richness of our human palette.

Giving room to that, means placing our senses and emotions at the centre and letting thoughts and intellectualisation follow. An inversion of what we are used to. Our innate intelligence over rationalisation. Body before mind.

It seems a difficult truth to digest - that we are us in many states. In distress or anger. In enthusiasm or joy. In the greatest bursts of insight or the depth of confusion. In the high of success and in the pits of failure. These are all representations of our nuance, part of our human experience - which intertwine and interact to (finally) make up our entirety.

And when we can be present and attuned to this full spectrum that we contain - and we invite movement, fluctuation, flexibility - maybe that…is when we can finally experience what it is to be whole?

A practice to practice

Coming into this can feel confronting and daunting. Like we need to collect masses of knowledge and facts before we start this new interaction.

However, there are simple ways to start - to open curiosity instead of check-lists. Rather than rigidly picking a method and sticking to it, invert the question. Beginning doesn’t need formulas like “If I do this I will feel good” or “When I follow this process I will be more creative”, it just needs a little bit of space for conversation.

Getting carried away is easy. The idea of productivity and our desire to create and innovate is often surrounded by narratives of optimisation and big, immediate, transformation. Lured by intellectually driven formulas that override much of our senses and instincts, we idealise thought and “light-bulb moments”, over iteration, experimentation and gradual discovery. And neglect the beauty of letting the body - and our attunement to it - guide our path.

When we recognise that we are cyclical and everchanging beings, we might also accept that inner harmony that lasts or creativity that evolves and returns, is a question that has many answers throughout the seasons of our life. And because not everything is accessible to us all the time, we get to simply keep asking and listening in the way that feels (and works best for us).

To start exploring, the most accessible thing you can do might be:

• Create a moment to meet yourself with curiosity. Can be no more than a few breaths or a couple of minutes. Pay attention to any emotions, resistance or stories that arise in response to this moment.

  • How might you set your ego aside?

  • What would it look like to welcome any answers with neutrality and without judgment?

  • What questions and doubts are arising that you could be curious about?

• Ask yourself questions about your current state. Notice any flow or stagnation. Bring your awareness to any pain, comfort or relief that exists in your body.

  • How am I feeling?

  • What is possible at this moment? What isn’t?

  • What do I need?
    

• Circle one small action to meet your current state. Instead of making a big plan or a rational one, find your minimum viable response. Either to preserve what feels good already or to move you towards a desired state of flow and wellbeing. Say no to a meeting, say yes to a walk (or the other way around?). Go to sleep earlier. Call a friend. Nourish your body.

And keep going… keep asking, as often as you can. More often than feels comfortable at first. Keep making choices that centre what your inner guidance directs you towards. Allow for different answers and solutions to emerge.

This creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:

Joana Castro - Joana is a modern creative polymath who loves blending disciplines in unexpected ways—science, art, health, food, design. Her life’s work is a canvas made of all of them. Currently allowing her to offer Food Therapy with a base in Traditional Chinese Medicine, while also giving space to music and songwriting in her own practices.

Shani Persson - Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.

You can listen to the full episode here: