February is traditionally the month of love, maybe because nature is waking up as Spring approaches and the birds and bees are getting more active. There are of course many types of love and connection besides romantic love, such as friendship, family and maybe work colleagues. We can also form emotional connections with animals and millions of us have pets, which offer a unique relationship based on unconditional love, affection and companionship. Healthy relationships make your life more happy and rewarding and for this to happen there has to be a connection or communication. In this blog, with inspiration from “Think Like A Tree” by Sarah Spencer I am going to focus on our connections to others as well as those to our community and what we can learn from our natural world to help us build resilience.
Brene Brown in her book “The Gifts of Imperfection” defines connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued, when they can give and receive without judgement and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship. We often feel most alive when we are connecting with people. Our body gives us hits of oxytocin and cortisol, our neurons fire and we have a glow of excitement and empathy. We may have never met the person before, then a spark happens.
According to Leonardo da Vinci “Everything is in some way connected to everything else”. So since everything is connected and you are going to make an impact regardless, isn’t it worth trying to make positive connections wherever you go ? Simply smiling and saying hello is a start to a connection. You won’t just affect one person, you’ll be spreading positivity throughout the network as the positive energy gets transmitted. When we meet someone new or bring different people together everyone benefits if we can find common ground, with interests or values we share rather than focusing on differences that separate us. Friendship starts when one person reaches out with compassion, an open mind and a willingness to understand.
Look around and you’ll see plants, animals and fungal networks existing everywhere, connecting with each other and interacting. These then join with other ecosystems and on and on until there is one giant, dynamic mass that is planet Earth. Furthermore, when living things connect, whoever they are, unpredictable things happen, and the whole becomes greater than its parts. That’s the great marvel of life and evolution. A few cells got together and this led to the abundance of species we see today. The resulting symbiotic relations abound in nature.
Recently I watched The Magic of Mushrooms on iplayer. It was absolutely fascinating. Hidden beneath the soil are mycelia or a network of mycorrhizal fungi, an ancient organism millions of years old. These fungi feed on dead leaves and break them down into nutrients and connect with trees, to share those nutrients with them. That connection allows established trees to give to others in need, and thus maintains the health of the whole forest. Via this network, trees can even keep otherwise dead stumps alive by giving them food when the leafless stump can no longer photosynthesize. There are hub or parent trees too – older trees that formed key hubs around the fungi networks that support other and younger trees in need. When these are removed by people unaware of their vital role the health of the whole forest suffers. The fungi are then paid in sugars from the tree’s roots. This sophisticated relationship is now being used to form biodegradable packaging instead of plastic which is nonbiodegradable and currently contaminating our land, rivers and oceans.
Learning from magical fungi we too can act as a “hub tree” and help others make connections. The more connections we all make, the more creativity and dynamic interactions can occur, helping the network and our ecosystem. When we sit at home in our isolated world, as we did during the pandemic, we break those bonds and many now struggle to make new ones. Social media can mean you are more connected to someone far away than people in the same room as you. Our modern life can draw us apart. In many households, family members sit with their separate gadgets and seldom come together. A regular family meal sat around a table on as many nights as possible can be an opportunity for children to learn how to communicate effectively, share skills such as cooking and destress from their busy days.
It certainly makes sense for survival to have networks and support others during difficult times. Having a welfare state does this too. If governments, corporations and other organisations acted more like woodland ecosystems with parent oak trees, redistributing nutrients in beneficial ways the wellbeing of the whole world would improve drastically. It’s also important to remember that forests don’t conform to national boundaries. Countries are a manmade construct, largely thanks to colonialism. Birds migrate to find suitable conditions as do masses of wild animals across Africa. Trees also move from less hospitable areas of the planet to more fertile ones as circumstances change, such as pioneer species did after the retreat of the last ice age. So we should not think it unreasonable for people to do the same when their surroundings become intolerable, such as during earthquakes, drought and famine, or when they experience war and persecution. Refugees may be forced to move by circumstances just as trees can be. They can then become contributors in their new location. Cooperation is certainly more productive rather than competing over resources.
My last blog talked about the benefits of being outside in nature for our physical and mental wellbeing. Simply being outdoors does not give the full picture.To reap the maximum benefits its vital to go beyond that and to actively make a connection with nature. Research from the University of Derby has revealed that there are various pathways to connect with nature. These are engaging our senses, using our emotions to connect with feelings of joy, wonder, calm etc., appreciating beautiful landscapes and small details and then being able to express those feelings meaningfully by exploring what nature means via metaphor, symbolism and language. This is a thinking and active process, extending our sense of who we are to include nature. We will be investigating these pathways on our next walk using simple mindfulness exercises.
If you are interested in connecting and learning from nature to build resilience why not join us on our monthly Walking For Wellness experiences. The next walk is on Sunday 26th February 10-12.