Nature-Connected Leadership 1.1 Discussion (Summer 18)

[Melody Rose]

Hi. I’m Melody, a 36 year old , self employed, divorced, single mom from BC, Canada. Sorry I missed the first meeting, I was camping, and I unfortunately can’t make it to the other meetings do to previous engagements (kick boxing class hahaha- it’s all about balance right ). I signed up for this course because I did the intro course last fall and it was amazing so I had to sign up for this one too. I’d love to do the full course in Colorado, but can’t right now because I have a six year old daughter, and it’s pretty far. I will get there one day though! I want to learn more because I offer Forest Bathing and Nature Connected Coaching, and more, in my new business FirReal Nature Connections, and I want deepen my connection with nature. My hope is that bringing people closer to nature will make people take better care of Mother Earth. Growing up I always wanted to save the trees and the planet and I think I’ve finally found a way I feel like I can do that, with Nature Connection. I have taken a bunch of other courses – wildlife and forestry conservation, crop protection and production, horticulture production and a life coaching course and have always been a tree hugger so EBI is such a great addition to my life. Nature has always been what I’ve turned to in life in happy and bad times so when I found EBI it’s like life finally made sense. Since the last EBI course I took I’ve been reading a few of the books that were mentioned, like the Tom Brown Jr. books and they’re great! Right now I’m reading the Nature and survival for children book and just spend 2 days while camping practicing how to walk properly. At one point while doing the “stalking walk”, wide angle vision and sensory awareness, while barefoot, I thought it was like walking in a dream.

The 8 indicators made me think of different times when I’ve felt like I had each of those things.

I’m so stoked about this course. It’s perfect timing because it’s summertime so it’s great time to be outside, and for my business getting going as well.

This is going to be awesome!

[janetbooth15]

My mind goes to the early years of my work as a hospice nurse, and how I experienced working with others at a soul level. I didn’t always have the words, but I got to know the territory fairly well at the bedside of people who were dying.
We communicated beyond our roles of ‘nurse’ and ‘dying person’…beyond our backgrounds and differences in gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, health status, and on. At first I thought it was our being together as human to human with each other…that’s already a different level than the usual ways we communicate with other people. And that’s beautiful and humbling in itself.
But there was something more — a recognition of something deeper, ageless, timeless, without identity. AND coming from a place of what I can only call peace, love, kindness, stillness. Inexpressable. I started to call that caring for another person on a soul level.

So it’s interesting to discern how best to talk about this with other health care professionals, for those of us who do teaching and training of people who are doing the work of healing and health…how do we talk about this and why does it matter?
How do we recognize this place, this source of soul within ourselves — and then know it well enough that we can be with others more consistently out of this place? How do I know I’ve moved away from that place…and what are my practices to shift back into it? And, again, why does that matter?
I know from experience that this is an authentic place, so it can’t be simply put on like a pair of new scrubs or a new technique. It’s probably more a practice of taking off behaviors and practices to reveal the simple, humble levels of soul-directed caring.

What’s your experience of working from this soul-directed place?

[Daniel Brisbon]

Janet, thank you so much for sharing your experience and insights on soul connection with other people and yourself. It sounds like you’ve been able to “peel back the layers” of who we are as human beings and getting away from the surface level definition of who we are and down into that soul level. That place of pure love-based emotion that rings true when we communicate and connect from that soul level.

I really like how you bring the perspective of awareness of being at a soul-level with your patients, but also being aware of it within yourself. Asking this question and listening to the answers is one of the great reasons why we have a Sit Spot. Being intentional to use our Sit Spot as a place of asking this question and listening to the answer within ourselves and what we hear nature telling us as well. Nature has a great way of reflecting these profound answers within ourselves. And in nature it is much easier to drop into this soul-connected way of being so that we can become aware of what it looks like and feels like.

I look forward to hearing more of your insights as we progress through this course. It sounds like you have had some amazing and profound experience that we can all learn from!

[Cory Steele]

This experience you had made me think so much of how we can become so disconnected in our world. I can recall so many experiences where I was having a conversation with someone, and I felt like we were in two different worlds. At the dentist when I am sitting getting my teeth cleaned and everyone around is talking about me as if I am an object. The same goes for at the doctor’s office. I have become an object that is being worked on.
I loved reading about your experience working as a hospice nurse and you connected with another individual on a deeper level. You were able to transcend all held belief patterns such as gender, race, and all other things we use to define people in our world. It is so beautiful and rewarding when we are able to connect on that deeper soul level where we see that we have so much more to connect with of things that bring us together.

[kuvshinova2]

When we make decisions we rely on different parts of us. There are voices in our head (in a good sense), that give us different advices. Those voices represent what we learned from family, school, peers and so on. They are very loud and persistent and they often have a ready to use models about what we should do. There is also very quiet voice of our soul, which is wise and kind and unique. I believe that we need to learn to listen to this voice, for that we need to stop, to slow down and quiet a chatter in our mind. Through my personal history I learned that best time to do it is while I’m in mountains or any other nature settings. I’m talking about weeks long backpacking trips, then person have to resonate and connect to nature. Simplicity of the tasks (you just need to stay safe, warm, fed) somehow helped me to clear all the clatter in my brain and endless beauty around put me in a state of awe and gratitude. Both conditions are very conducive to hearing the quiet voice of my soul. The very recent example. We did a brutal hike in mountains with my teenage daughter couple days ago. Next day we were just leisurely walking in the woods and my kid reflecting on yesterday said: you need to get really tired so only the most simplest and honest thoughts would enter your mind.
Living soul-directed life means creating step by step unique path of my life as I understand it from this inner direction. It’s usually quite difficult for people to take a path less travelled. At least, it’s not easy for me: too many social influences, too many false goals. Walking my path and believing in it is a soul directed and nature connected life .

[Daniel Brisbon]

Wow! It sounds like you have a really smart kid! And I completely agree with your insights, our soul doesn’t speak to us in words as much as it does in feeling. Our soul is quiet to speak, but can be profound in the visceral and emotional experience. And when soul is speaking it is not from a place of social constructs and influences, but rather from your own inner wisdom that is lying already within you. It’s about tuning into the right frequency inside of us and then turning up the volume on that with practice and time. It sounds like nature is really able to be a catalyst for you to drop in to your soul connection and that is amazing to hear!

Thanks for sharing this!

[Joshua Maze]

8 Indicators:
I have completed the indicator wheel before, and it was interesting to see how the shape has changed. Since I last completed it, my deliberate actions of trying to better myself and explore parts of myself that are scary have paid off. I am living a much more fulfilled life than before I began this inner journey. Using the wheel is a simple and informative way of seeing where I have made progress and what areas could use a little more attention.

Connect with Council:
The connecting with council exercise was really interesting. I found the more I allowed myself to open to the idea; more unexpected people would “join my circle”. When someone unexpected would arrive, I had to ask myself 1) why were they there? And 2) why where they unexpected in the first place. The conversation with myself and with my council was helpful. This is an exercise I will be excited to share with others.

Soul Directed Life:
To me, living a soul directed life means doing what makes you feel happy and with purpose at your deepest level. It requires an element of faith that I have only just recently begun to listen to. This faith is not necessarily one of belief in the Divine, but belief of yourself. Like Michael said, the soul wont lie to you or hurt you. It took me a long time to understand that. My soul has been directing me to EBI and nature connection for years, but I would always come up with a reason why this field wasn’t feasible, and go into a “real job” that doesn’t make me happy. This time, I quieted my mind and truly listened and allowed myself to follow where my soul is directing me, and it has led me here. I am having faith that this is the right path and attempting to let go of any hesitation and just allowing the soul to lead.

[Daniel Brisbon]

Hey Josh thanks for sharing all of this! It sounds like it’s already been an exciting and interesting experience sitting with your Vision Council and experiencing soul-connection. I definitely agree that being willing to take the plunge into living and working from a soul-directed way can be scary at first, but that’s good! Living a soul-directed life for most of us requires us to expand our zone of comfort and expand to where it must be in order for us to live every minute of every day from a place of soul. It takes time, it definitely doesn’t happen overnight.

And Vision Council is always a fun and interesting exploration. It can be interesting who shows up and what insights they bring within our Vision Council and the people, places, things in it can change over time. Our Vision Council is dynamic and always slightly changing and refining throughout our whole life. Keep up the good work!

[janetbooth15]

I am sorry to miss the call on Fri. 7/19, but will be in the middle of a wilderness retreat in Saguache, CO with the School of Lost Borders.
I enjoy reading what others have written — this kind of conversation is a gift.

[ray.lilli]

Janet I am thrilled to hear of your retreat with The School of Lost Borders as they are who I did my first Vision Quest with. Wishing you a safe and prosperous journey.

[Cory Steele]

Hello everyone, I wish I could have made the live streaming but I was feeling ill and couldn’t talk. I am from Idaho, but currently live in Denver and am looking forward to connecting with all of you in the months to come.

The notions of soul-directed and nature-connected living really started to take the front stage in my life the last year and a half. I have always been one who has been searching for a deeper connection in this world. In relationships, work, and my place in this world. Then I had this experience a year and a half ago, and I started to feel that connection more than I ever have.

I started to see the world in a new way, and the notion of being connected to nature everywhere I went really slapped me in the face. I started to mediate daily and things became even more clear. I would have a conversation with someone and it no longer felt like we were in two different universes. I was able to talk to people and all preconceived belief systems I had went out the door. It was two souls connecting during a conversation. It wasn’t ran by anything that I may have been holding on to such as gender, race, social status, or any other thing we use to describe someone.

It was only when I started that journey inward that I really started that journey, and the deeper inward I went the more I saw that in my external world as well. I was able to connect to the nature of myself as well as the nature of other people on that deeper level of being, and not just the surface level that we get caught up in during our busy every day lives.

[Daniel Brisbon]

Thanks for sharing all of this Cory! I think the path you are seeking and what we focus on here through Nature Connected Leadership will really support you on this journey. I also live in Denver and would be happy to meet in person to talk and explore more into what you learn through the program.

[ray.lilli]

Hello wise classmates! I am Karina. I’ve been on a 44 year wander. I’m an art therapist and addiction specialist, a mountain runner and climber, a mother, and am always yearning to grow more into who I am meant to be. I spend a lot of time in mountains both training and doing wanders, and am feeling called to not use psychopathology anymore in regards to the precious humans I get to help. Years ago I quested and since then I have been indoors less and less and outdoors engaging with nature in different mountain ranges, countries, and also often just in my own local backyard which is pretty amazing because it is the Pacific Northwest. I live in Western Washington State.
It’s so great to read all of your thoughts on soul-directed living and nature-connection. Thank you for your sharing. We each have such unique personal journeys but I can already read threads of universality amongst us in this discussion. We are more alike than we are different and I cherish that!
I learned about soul-directed living and nature-connected learning in a new way last week right after I watched the recorded class session. I wish I didn’t have to learn some things the hard way but sometimes that’s what it takes for me to listen. I had planned a big day in the mountains with a hard climbing objective, but at the last minute I cancelled due to not being rested enough. I have about 25 balls up in the air in my life now and sometimes sleep eludes me. So I went with Plan B that day and did something small and shorter yet it was still a 3,700 foot gain over 5 miles vertical to summit. I took it easy relishing the smells of the forest and the view of the sunrise as I made my way on the trail. I felt proud that I chose my Plan B, but I still couldn’t completely connect and relax into the environment because my head wasn’t about me and I wasn’t grounded. After I passed some avalanche chutes safely, I crossed a dead headless large hawk on that trail. My trail name is Karinabird. I carefully looked at the hawk and felt anxiety. Instead of taking time to breathe and carefully proceed I returned to running up to the summit and I fell very hard incurring a deep laceration on my elbow. Fortunately I had my medical kit and used it and then ran down 3700 feet to get to my car and get to a hospital (while driving my stick shift with my left arm). I was not nature-connected until the earth matter jammed into my flesh. I didn’t cry for pain, but because I was ashamed of not letting myself do Plan C that day which was to sleep in and recover from the hard training I’d been doing that week. The fall was a wake-up. There is no shame in slowing down. There is strength in self-care and slowness. In it we commune with ourselves and our council and our spirit.
Earlier in the morning, before I crossed the dead hawk, I invoked my vision council. I convened them for the first time when I was in a Jungian conference guided meditation 20 years ago in a forest meadow. On the day of the accident, I asked them to show up and I was moved to tears by who came. One of my mentors/supervisors who guided me when I was a novice psychotherapist showed up and oh my heart leapt! She believed in my goodness and purpose without even knowing what it was. I have missed her being so much! Now she is in my council and I can ask for help as I did 20 years ago when my helping career was starting. Despite the injury (deep elbow laceration) I came back off that mountain more connected than when I started the trail. Nothing like nature to get the point across. Some of us need a louder wake up call than others. I for one am grateful and was glad to have all my wilderness first aid gear on me.
Being soul-directed speaks to me of being attuned mindfully with one’s internal awareness while trusting that one is right where they need to be in the journey. Being soul-directed is to be grounded in self-knowledge as well as universal knowledge and having a sense of which way the universal compass is pointing oneself in this lifetime. I admit my struggle with soul-directed living. I am a trauma survivor. Trauma encodes fear and changes our cells but so does healing. My healing has been profound due to the time I’ve spent on it. As a therapist I am committed to my healing journey, but there’s more than surviving and I want to get into the thriving. True recovery from trauma is living in the present, taking risks again, being joyful despite the past pain/loss/lies, and getting into thrive time. I’m ready for soul-directed living, and I believe the portal for me will be through doing the best self-care I can so that I am well enough to continue facilitating healing in other’s journeys, and I’m hoping to do so in nature instead of within four walls with no windows like many of the clinical settings I’ve worked in. My particular calling is to work with youth who have no belief that they belong or are good. We are losing too many youth to suicide and on my last quest I was shown that they need me. I look forward to learning from you and dialoging throughout this great course.

[Daniel Brisbon]

Karina, thank you so much for sharing your experiences, insights and struggles with soul and nature connection! I enjoyed most that you took your experience doing Plan B and made it into a learning opportunity for the work we will be doing together. We may not always make the right decisions in life, but that does not mean we cannot learn from them. It’s all apart of the learning and growing experience!

And you’re right about trauma. Practicing being in the present moment when we re-experience those past memories is where we can truly heal. I look forward to hearing more of your experiences and wisdom throughout the rest of this course!

[Michael Sheriedan]

Hi Karina I am currently an intern at a spiritual awakening and healing rehab center and would love to know more about your experience with addiction treatment and how you incorporate nature into that process. Sorry about the arm sending healing energy your way! 🙂

[ray.lilli]

Thanks Michael!I have used nature in outpatient and intensive outpatient treatment with youth and young adults. I am also an art therapist and find that art and nature collaborate similarly with the recovery process. Once I became a mental health specialist I found that I needed specific addiction professional training to truly help as many many mental health clients are affected by addiction personally or in their family constellation. I look forward to taking my practice out into nature more and more and more as the work is so big to try to do on my own. I trust the process and love how nature externalizes and mirrors where the client is at and what their imminent needs are. Trauma is the gateway drug, and nature is the antidote.

[Melody Rose]

For me Soul Directed and Nature Connected means following what I feel deep inside , or what i “know” that I am meant to do, or here to do in this lifetime. Soul-Directed is my small part of the whole or the greater good. Nature-connected is feeling part of the whole, all that there is, and “the world of the spirit that moves through all things” (by Tom Browne Jr. and I love it!).
Nature-Connected is where I go to be Soul-Directed.
It seems like there’s a foggy line between the two, or maybe there isn’t a line at all?

I like what Janet said “a recognition of something deeper, ageless, timeless, without identity,” etc.

I think the only time I really feel soul connected is when I am in nature. It’s like a quiet calm comes over me and i feel peaceful.

Living soul directed for me is listening to what comes to me in those moments and bringing it into my everyday life, and I believe that doing so will help create it so that I can experience that in everyday life, not just in nature. It’s a circle, which interestingly, the other day when I offered a forest bathing and yoga walk, with a friend instruction the yoga portions, I kept noticing circles in the forest- a circle of trees, and a branch that circled around.

It was almost a year ago that I heard/felt my soul clearly on an amazing few days of old growth tree adventures, and I’ve been following it ever since. The experiences, the people, the nature, it’s like those few days made me realize it’s ok to be me.

Like Joshua, I feel like my soul has been directing me to nature connection for a long time.

To Daniel, yes, expanding my comfort zone has definitely been a big must!

Karina- I had to read what you wrote about true recovery a few times so it could sink in. I am good with some points, and want to be better with some. It was a good reminder, thank you.

I loved reading this thread. Thank you all for sharing

[Daniel Brisbon]

Melody, so cool to hear that you sense and experience the strong connection between soul and nature connection and how they feed off of each other. From what I hear, and this is from my own personal experience as well, is that nature is like a catalyst or an amplifier toward a more attuned soul connection. You feel it strongest in the great outdoors.

And the fact that you notice circles can be an indicator or message when you are attuned to soul. Maybe there is great depth and meaning for you there.

I also appreciate you sharing the value of other peoples posts on here as I hope to hear from everyone’s voice! This is a great place to learn and understand from each other!

[Michael Sheriedan]

Seeking an answer
Finding it hard to put words into my relationship with soul direction I ended up in the medicine wheel for clarity here where I’m staying. I was drawn to the raven stone, a stone that teaches how to draw energy from the sun and earth as well as how to interpret messages from the heart. In this I was given my answer to what is means to live a soul directed life. For me living a soul directed life means living from the heart rather then living from the mind. Living from the heart has given me the ability to participate in each day with love, compassion and in truth. To be soul directed means to follow my intuition and my knowings of connection. Recently I have been pulling in my council often when I seeks answers such as this and have been deepening my understanding of the messages as the rarely appear crystal clear. It’d be great to heard some other stories of interpretations on how others find their answers or guidance:)

[Daniel Brisbon]

Michael, I completely agree that soul direction is living from the heart. I believe the reason for that is because from our heart is where we truly feel and express emotion and soul direction is a way of being, not a way of doing. And our way of being in this world is powered by our emotional state on a micro and macro level. How we show up in this world, and the lens through which we view it, can be soul-directed and it starts when we align and attune our heart and our emotions within ourselves.

And that is where I believe clarity comes from. It comes from the daily practice of attunement within ourselves. And that is why nature is so important. Because in nature we can more easily get to that place within ourselves. I like how you were able to use the raven stone as symbolism for this question and that you gained a lot of value into your own experience from it. Thanks so much for sharing!

[Angela Jones]

Wow it is amazing to see how we all can relate to being soul directed! I love everyones post and how it relates to each of us.

One of the things that relates so close to my heart and soul is in what Karina said, “The fall was a wake-up. There is no shame in slowing down. There is strength in self-care and slowness. In it we commune with ourselves and our council and our spirit.”
For me this fall was the owner of the company I am currently at acting out and putting his fist through my office wall over something that happened out of my control. It has been a couple of months now yet it has helped me to realize the daily struggle I have to tell myself to continue restructuring his company so I can focus on my coaching more and how far away I had pushed my soul and the connection I have always had with Nature. Stepping back and doing the 8 indicators several times a day sometimes has helped me to identify when and where I have the deeper connection to my soul and nature. It is amazing to see this and I save the screenshots of where my lines fall around the circle to have to reflect on when I need a good reminder.

Janet I can so relate to your work and how deeply working with those having health issues reveal the soul and connection we can have with individuals. I have worked with several over the years dealing with Cancer and spent a year physically living in a hospital with the last person I worked with who had AML. To work with someone on that level and see them transform from the illness while helping to keep them in the moment and focused on the outcome for me transcended the meaning of Soul Direction to an entire new level. Having to be extremely present in the moment and showing up fully to listen and help guide from moment to moment when someone is on such a rollercoaster of life and emotion helped me to see how fragile each individual is and how working through the smallest of goals is so very rewarding.

As for Nature Connection has been with me since childhood, and when I look back some of the greatest people who have entered my life have done so through our connections with nature and the level our Souls are when that connection of Nature guides us. I have taken all of this as of late and found where I thought I would be a failure or disappointment in saying no and calling it a day so that I can take time to go out in the evenings to my sit spot and listen/reflect on what Nature has to offer has awakened my Soul again! And I must say it feels so good to truly hear that laughter of my soul agian!