Well, I certainly got a big surprise!
It was a walk in the woods over 7 years ago, after the doctor had signed me off work with stress, that was the starting point for me completely turning my life around. I was at such a low, feeling unhappy and worthless; not knowing what I wanted, only that I didn’t want to be like I was right then.
I felt I didn’t even really know WHO I was any more by then. Somehow, over the years of juggling career and kids I’d just got lost.
And the irony was, given that I worked in Forestry, that it was a tree that gave me the answers I needed.
The ‘secrets’ to a happy life were there under my nose all along!
I suddenly realised that I knew far more than I thought about growth and creating an environment to thrive in, I’d just been applying those principles to trees (and to other people) rather than to myself.
I won’t claim it was an overnight turnaround, from burn out to a thriving contented life.
And I won’t claim my life now is always perfect, or that I’m all ‘sorted’. I’m no guru. But I’ve learned some powerful wisdom by thinking of a tree as a metaphor for the person I want to be (and not in some ‘woo woo’ hippy way, that’s not quite my style).
Over the coming weeks, as this blog evolves, I hope to share some of what I’ve learned, but in the meantime next time you see a tree you admire, take a good hard look at it. What do you notice? See if you can guess what I learned….
