Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep.114 Healing the Original Trauma: Disconnection with Julie Brams
101 Plays1 month ago
This episode is a deep dive into healing what I call the "original trauma" — our collective disconnection from nature and ourselves. I talk with mental health expert Julie Brams about ecopsychology, forest therapy, and the emerging field she prefers to call Earth-centered psychology. We explore why modern psychology often misses this core disconnection and how reconnecting with the more-than-human world can be profoundly healing.
If you’re ready to heal from disconnection and embrace your nature as nature, this conversation will light your path.
Topics Covered about Earth-Centered Psychology
➡️ The original trauma is our artificial separation from Earth, fueling much of human suffering.
➡️ Ecopsychology and Earth-centered psychology focus on repairing this disconnect through nature-based practices.
➡️ Forest therapy is about nature leading the healing, with guides facilitating connection, not control.
➡️ Rediscovering embodied sensing beyond words helps us reconnect deeply, even amid modern technology.
➡️ Julie’s book The Nature-Embedded Mind invites us to explore a new way of thinking that can heal ourselves and the planet.
Chapters
00:00 Opening – Meeting the original wound
08:04 Nature, Zen, and trauma therapy
16:04 Dismantling the dominance model in therapy
24:18 Listening with full-body perception
32:25 Embracing darkness and shadow work
40:29 Reconnection in a modern world
48:29 The trauma of systemic gaslighting
55:45 The Nature Embedded Mind (book)
01:01:47 Collective healing is possible
Resources Mentioned
🌱 Julie Brams' Work
🌱 The Nature Embedded Mind: How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves
US - UK
🌱 Plant Wisdom Book Club
🌱 Personalized mentorship with me and the Plants
Expanded Show Notes
☝🏽ReConnect with Plant Wisdom podcast Ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways plants help you lead a Naturally Conscious life.
Subscribe here and on your favorite podcast player.
👉🏽 Join the Naturally Conscious Community to nourish human-plant relationships
// Get to Know Me, Tigrilla //
// Let's Work Together //
// Shop from EcoConscious Partners //
More Partners
Opening and Closing music by @Cyberinga and Poinsettia.
// Let's Connect on Social // Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Youtube
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Eco-Psychology and Forest Therapy
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tigria Gardenia. This is such a good episode. Such a good episode. Such a good episode. Can you hear my enthusiasm? Julie Brams is going to your mind. Like if you've ever wondered about terms like eco-psychology and forest therapy and why neuropsychology and why any of this stuff has anything to do with the earth, with plants, with the natural world.
00:00:36
Speaker
then this is the episode for you. We got into such a great discussion that really helps kind of put a vocabulary around many of the things that we feel, both what we feel like we're missing when it comes to our inherent disconnection, as well as where we want to go as a collective and the fact that we really, as beings of nature, are never, ever alone.
00:01:03
Speaker
There is so much i could
Backgrounds of Tigria and Julie
00:01:05
Speaker
tell you about this, but really I'm just going to let the conversation speak to itself, speak for itself, better said. And so with that, I'm going to leave you to episode 114, Healing the Original Trauma Disconnection with Julie Bram's.
00:01:24
Speaker
Welcome to Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. I'm your host, Tigria Gardenia, Nature-Inspired Mentor, Certified Life Coach, and the Founder of the Naturally Conscious Community. For over a decade, I've been known as a World Ambassador for Plant Advocacy, working closely with plants to share their practical wisdom to help you consciously embody the elements of life that nourish your evolution.
00:01:46
Speaker
In this podcast, I delve into ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways of plants. Together, we'll explore how ecosystem thinking helps you overcome limiting beliefs, understand the true nature of relationships, and live an authentic, impactful life.
00:02:05
Speaker
Julie, I am so excited to have this conversation. i have been waiting. as a matter of fact, it's really funny because i um I've been kind of traveling in these days and i kept looking at my calendar going, what is my meeting with her? like When is this going to be this interview? Because I was so looking forward to all these different pieces that you're working on. But before we we get into all of the details, which I've got tons of questions already prepared, tell everybody, like who is Julie Bram's?
00:02:34
Speaker
Okay.
The Journey to Eco-Psychology
00:02:36
Speaker
Well, I think um primarily I'm a mental health professional. I've been a mental health professional for over 30 years.
00:02:46
Speaker
And, um you know, my career led me into social activism, you know, and when I was really, um you know, when I came into the field, I was you know, have a ah deep, deep love for our earth and a real fascination with human consciousness.
00:03:12
Speaker
And, um you know, so my career was really formed with those, those foundations of wanting to really understand
00:03:27
Speaker
know what causes human beings to suffer and what relieves that suffering. And how can we as human beings coexist on this planet, you know, live in earth ah respectfully, responsibly, joyfully, you know, I kind of never gave up on this idea that I don't think humans are supposed to be this destructive, you know,
00:03:52
Speaker
I really like forever was like, I just, I don't think that's right. I think something's wrong. And so i kind of had that passion in me um to try to figure that out.
00:04:08
Speaker
And, you know, somewhere along the way, it just kind of like this, duh, we have a really distorted core premise that humans are separate from nature, superior to nature are supposed to, you know, like sometimes it's like be the shepherds of or caretake, but mostly it's presented as dominate, you know, to take what we need and the planet is here for our wellbeing. It's very human centric.
00:04:44
Speaker
And we know that not all cultures believe this. That's very much a Western civilization kind of premise. And it's not only untrue, but it's, you know, it's delusional.
00:04:59
Speaker
You know, so as a mental health professional, I'm like, wait a second.
00:05:06
Speaker
How can we keep treating all of these things, anxiety, depression, addiction, all of the things that really, really hurt human beings without addressing this core faulty belief?
00:05:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
Forest Bathing and Earth-Centered Psychology
00:05:27
Speaker
So i know there is a kind of like a side field, I would say, called eco psychology. Many people know of it. It's been around for decades.
00:05:40
Speaker
But again, as a professional that's also been involved for decades, it never comes into the mainstream. Mm hmm. And that again was very shocking to me.
00:05:53
Speaker
How is this like this sub field when it's really pointing to ah foundational cognitive distortion? So, um, the other thing that occurred to me was,
00:06:12
Speaker
You can understand that, but how do you treat it? What would be the you know quote unquote medicine for that? And so I also started this campaign to find something that was reliable, standardized, repeatable, because although I'm in a soft science, it's a science and I don't personally feel comfortable making things up. And I don't mean that in a negative way, because obviously the people that came before me were mavericks and they were like, yes, they also noticed what I noticed.
00:06:54
Speaker
And they set out to create ways to heal people. Joanna Macy is one of the most foundational people in this field.
00:07:05
Speaker
um But I personally was like, I don't feel that. I don't have that maverickness in me. I have more like, show me what it is, and then I'll do what I can do. So it led me to ah practice that a man named Amos Clifford developed.
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, through and hit his company or his Yeah, I guess it's a company, the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy. i just I was just looking through the latest email that came through my inbox like three minutes before we started. Yeah.
00:07:42
Speaker
And when I found his work, what he had created based on his life experience, um he combined it with Shin-Yin-Yoku, which is a Japanese practice that... people are starting to know about, which translates in English to forest bathing, which is bathing in the atmosphere of the forest, you know, not water, but in the atmosphere.
00:08:09
Speaker
um and his work as a a therapist and Zen Buddhist and wilderness tracking. And, you know, he pulled all these things together and it's amazing where it is now. I was trained as cohort 16 and I think now, now they've left the numbers behind. Yeah. There are names now.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah. but You know, not, not the very beginning, but pretty, pretty new.
Biophilia and Non-Verbal Nature Connections
00:08:41
Speaker
And now like where they are, it's just incredible. Yep.
00:08:45
Speaker
Anyway, once I had this, how I thought, oh, okay, I can bring this back to my profession and say, it's not only that we have to figure out how to change this thought, but that there is already an established practice that of how to allow humans and nature to repair their relationship by being together.
00:09:09
Speaker
You know that it's again, it's D centering the human and centering Earth. So I kind of took it upon myself to rename what I'm doing to Earth-Centered Psychology because I felt like that's really a more understandable title because when I would say to people, eco-psychology, they would go, oh yeah, recycling.
00:09:39
Speaker
but No, that's fantastic not about recycling. And I was just like, whew, okay, this is not landing anywhere near earlier Target. ah So when I started to say,
00:09:52
Speaker
earth-centered psychology, people are like, at least they're like, oh, what is that? You know, it's like there is this innate longing, I think, that we have to be connected with the other than human beings in a way that I still believe is deeply ingrained in each of us that we we long for it.
00:10:18
Speaker
There's another man, um Clemens Arve, and he wrote book, Biophilia. Yeah, Biophilic Effect. I have it in Italian. It was gifted to me. I'm just looking up because that's where it is. Yeah.
00:10:31
Speaker
And he talks about that, this biophilia that we have as human beings, a hardwired love of the other than humans. We're just, and like again, I want to specify like Western culture has been cut from that hard wiring, although we can't be, but in, you know, mentally. Hence our problems.
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah. Hence our problems because we can't be, but we are. Right. a psychological problem. and Exactly. Right. And so we're cut from that and then shamed.
00:11:07
Speaker
And of course, there was that point in history, you know, Byzantine Empire, where there were anti pagan laws, you know, if you felt you were part of nature, or you felt that nature was sentient, you would be killed.
00:11:24
Speaker
ah So not just shamed, which we do now, like, oh, what are you a tree hugger? Like, there's a lot of shaming. towards anyone who dares to remember right their relationship.
00:11:40
Speaker
So anyway, that's a long answer
Nature-Integrated Therapy and Coaching
00:11:43
Speaker
of- No, it it's great. i'm glad that you I'm glad that you touched on all these elements because so I, as ah as ah instead of as a coach and mentor, I'm very careful with my clients um to sort of, I don't want to say differentiate because that's not the right word, but to compliment- for example, the the the psychological side. In other words, you know, I'm not a therapist in that way.
00:12:08
Speaker
And i'm very I'm very open with my clients. Many of my clients, for different reasons, work with, you know, psychologists or different kinds of therapists. And I love it because we often work together. We we work in in tandem.
00:12:22
Speaker
And, you know, each one of us with our own piece of the different puzzle. And I love it when I do have the opportunity, which unfortunately is rarer than I wish, to also that my client is working with a therapist, you know, a psychologist who has that kind of background, that nature-inspired background, because I think it really does inform it it makes the the kind of flow between us, the looking at the past and the future, the the cognitive side versus the behavioral, like all these different elements flow so much more because we all kind of have a systems approach at that point. So we're looking at this as, okay, you're in the middle of an ecosystem, you have some elements that are being worked on in this side of the ecosystem and others in this side of the ecosystem,
00:13:11
Speaker
but it's all still one system and we have to work together. And I think that that's that's such an important as aspect of this type of work. um And so I'm glad that you sort of brought a little bit also the history to it, because I do think that there is still a lack of understanding around the whole concept of eco-psychology. Even myself, I've been a part of several, im like I said, I'm not a therapist, but I've been inside of different groups that are eco-psychology.
00:13:37
Speaker
And even within them, there's this weird variation and like, Some it's just, oh, I do psychology and nature. And I'm like, ah that that doesn't sound right to me. Exactly.
00:13:49
Speaker
No offense to you, but that just doesn't sound, that's not enough. Like, thank you, but not no. so and And we have these conversations and it's really interesting about it.
00:14:01
Speaker
You touched on something that I'd love to kind of unpack if you're if you're willing to go there with me a little bit, which is um i was just ah I was actually interviewed for a different podcast today. And at the very end, she asked ah you know one of those types of questions like, what's that one message that you want to live leave? that The one thing that has become clear to you in working with plants. And I said, oh, that's super easy. Three words.
00:14:25
Speaker
I am nature. And, you know, and that's it. Like, that's the resounding message is there is no difference between myself and the swallows that are up in the air to the plants that are sitting in my house to Gary, the silver fern that's right outside my window.
00:14:40
Speaker
Like we are all beings of this earth and where we live in relationship
Overcoming Fear and Reconnecting Joyfully
00:14:45
Speaker
and harmony to it. I'd love for you to kind of help us understand.
00:14:53
Speaker
um i'm going to try to word the question correctly, which is. Where does the psychology of it, in the sense of where would you recommend, I guess maybe that's a good place to start, where would you recommend somebody to come into it from a psychology perspective? Is it is it more of ah a, where it is that you are finding that people are experiencing the most amount of hardship, such as anxiety, like you said, in all these pieces.
00:15:22
Speaker
And where does that kind of nature inspired or earth inspired in your case, the way that you word it, which i think is such a beautiful terminology, where does that fit into to the work?
00:15:33
Speaker
Where how do you bring it into the work?
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really important question. And it's, it's not exactly simple. You know, this is why I wrote the book, because let me try to answer the question. Because a lot of things are coming up for me.
00:15:56
Speaker
One of the things is uh, oh
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, i I wrote the book because i was speaking to a lot of therapists who wanted to be nature-informed,
00:16:16
Speaker
let's say. But they still held themselves as the therapist. They were still in a construct of domination where they use therapy to help them help the person.
00:16:34
Speaker
it So that's what you were talking about. i do therapy in nature. Yeah, that's not it at all. No, you can do that. But that's not the repair.
00:16:44
Speaker
That is just continuing with a little extra tool in your toolkit. Which I don't like, because, again, right, it's fundamentally opposed to respecting other than human beings as their own sovereign being, rather than a tool in your toolkit.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, so um
00:17:08
Speaker
I spend a lot of time really trying to, what I recommend to a therapist is that they become ah a guide and that they actually do go through ANFT's course.
00:17:23
Speaker
I know that sounds really um prescriptive and people are like, why are you saying them? And it's true. There are an awful lot of other nature therapy organizations that can train you to be a guide.
00:17:39
Speaker
Great. But I know Amos's work and I've been through the training and I know it's, I know the design, I know how it works. I know that it works. And one of the first things it does is it,
00:17:54
Speaker
Um, it, it, it allows the guide to unlearn that they're, they're not the center. They're not where the healing takes place. They are there to open the doors.
00:18:06
Speaker
Like Amos's tags line tagline is the guide opens the doors. The forest is the medicine. So you're connecting people to repair their relationship with all the other than human beings.
00:18:20
Speaker
You're not doing therapy on them. Right. And so this idea of what do you do when someone's anxious? It's like, yes, we do all the things we do when someone's anxious, but this is getting at what I believe.
00:18:36
Speaker
And not not just me, obviously, right? But I'm saying underneath it is this core, like corrupted belief that's at the root of the anxiety and the depression and whatever.
00:18:54
Speaker
So
Guided Nature Experiences for Healing
00:18:55
Speaker
it's not, you can't skip that step. Like you would must go outside of yourself as the therapist, lead your people to their relationship. Like we talked about the system, an ecosystem.
00:19:10
Speaker
And from my licensure as a ma ah marriage and family therapist, it's a family system. So it's like, you've got all these family members out there that you never speak to. You never look at, you walk past, maybe you pick because, oh I love it. I'm bringing it inside.
00:19:29
Speaker
You know, like it's so weird. Like if you treated other people like that, which some people do treat other people like that and it's outrageous.
00:19:40
Speaker
the, so the Therapist, let's say, if you are a mental health professional, you have to work hard to get out of your role.
00:19:52
Speaker
Most forest therapy guides are not therapists. They're guides. They're people who have trained to understand how to let the other than humans take the lead in rebuilding your relationship, your kinship with them.
00:20:12
Speaker
Even some guides can't get to that because we are so narcissistic as a species. We think that everything, you know, make or break is all on a human being. And it's like, are you kidding me?
00:20:28
Speaker
We haven't been here long enough to think we know all the answers. So please learn how to listen to a rock or stream or trees, you know, and again, it's like breaking through this, some of the conditioning that we have mental psychological conditioning to think, I can't do that, to think that's crazy, or to think, because it goes back to that core wound, you know, of, yeah, if you if you practice this, you're going to be executed.
00:21:08
Speaker
So anyway, not to get too dramatic, but... No, no, but i I think that's a great way of putting it. I oftentimes with my own clients talk about or, you know, I describe my work as using, using, not the right word.
00:21:22
Speaker
That's not where I wanted to start. Working with plants to step forward. out of the human mind and into the plant mind. In other words, going into plantness, because to a certain extent, you know, plants are our world. So it's safe. It's a safe way of, of like stepping outside of the, the confines of the rigid rules that we've been taught and stepping into the plant mind in order to then flip around and come back into the human mind, but from a different perspective.
00:21:53
Speaker
And I think the hardest, hardest, hardest part that I see that even worked, you know, even I experienced it pretty deeply was we are to a certain extent, you know, taught from when we're very little, use your words, right? Use your words.
00:22:08
Speaker
But so much of this is not about using your words. It's about getting out of the words because the words have been corrupted, ah for a while. So you kind of have to step out of the words to go back into the feelings that we no longer trust.
00:22:22
Speaker
right to, to experience that profound silence that, that you experience in which is of course not quiet. It's a different thing and that you experience in the natural world and with natural beings of whatever type, whether that's again, sitting outside and listening. I'm, I have a beautiful a display of acrobatics by swallows happening outside my window.
00:22:47
Speaker
and And swallows are relatively quiet compared to many other types of birds. But, you know, there's wind, there's all these different things. when When we finish here, I'm definitely going to be sitting on the patio just watching and experiencing and allowing that to speak to me in a way that is outside of the way the human mind works.
00:23:08
Speaker
That is the interaction with Gary, the silver fur and these swallows who meet every single year because every year I get to experience this. and feel that relationship, feel what that is, to then come back into my own human relationships and And give that space for that silence and for that feeling of things.
Technology, Nature, and Modern Relationships
00:23:35
Speaker
And then that so that when I do relearn my words, they no longer have those connotations that they used to have. And I think for a lot of people, that silence is extremely uncomfortable.
00:23:48
Speaker
It's, it's, And especially in a therapy space where we're we're conditioned against to sit on the couch, tell me what you're feeling, talk through all your emotions, which talk therapy has its merits, but...
00:24:05
Speaker
But there's more. And your body has a lot of knowledge of that residual knowledge that you just talked about, right? The fact that I am nature and I'm connected to nature and therefore my body knows a lot more than my human mind knows.
00:24:19
Speaker
And so so i do I completely understand what you're saying, which is, you know, we need to have more of these spaces where, Like you said, you can listen, quote unquote, with ah whole body, full senses, full perception. Listen to the rock.
00:24:37
Speaker
Listen to the stream and and feel what that is and be okay in the in the lack of words. Exactly.
00:24:49
Speaker
I think you just hit it perfectly. You know, it's embodied. You know, so where it's true, like our language matters, you know, I talk about that too, like changing some of the language to help us align better. Like instead of saying, you know, me in nature, it's me as nature with the rest of nature.
00:25:18
Speaker
begins to reshape our thinking. But you're absolutely right. It's not about thinking. It's about being embodied in our earth body.
00:25:30
Speaker
You know, our body is still connected to the earth, whether our mind is or not, our body is going to feel what's happening to us as earth, um which again is where I think the disruptions come because our bodies are suffering as our earth is suffering our bodies.
00:25:51
Speaker
Because like you said, we are earth suffers too. It can't be outside as much as we think their body's never going to be come outside of the rest of nature or outside of earth.
00:26:08
Speaker
um Sometimes when I'm talking, you know, if so Let's say it's indoors, um and I'll ask people, are we in nature?
00:26:21
Speaker
And most often,
Shifting Perceptions and Healing Trauma
00:26:23
Speaker
people will say no.
00:26:26
Speaker
ah I'm like, you're in your body. You are always in nature. You are nature. You can't ever to be outside of nature. As humans, right, like you said, we're taught to overthink or to value thinking over sensations.
00:26:45
Speaker
is This is part of where like Vipassana meditation kind of informs one's ability to be embodied. So I think that's also a great foundational skill to know the difference between thinking and sensing.
00:27:02
Speaker
You know, in NFT style forest therapy, one of the first invitations is tuning into your senses. you know, at least the five, like there are so many more, but right what does this place sound like?
00:27:18
Speaker
What does this place smell like? You know, is that pleasurable? Like reconnecting us. Um, because again, we've been through different, um,
00:27:33
Speaker
what do you call it? Like different, I'm just to say politics. You know, we've been shamed out of our bodies. Bodies are sinful, especially female bodies, you know?
00:27:48
Speaker
So all of that has to be unlearned as well, that we can
00:27:54
Speaker
love love being embodied again whatever our body's condition is in you know even if parts of it aren't working the way we would like or we're missing a part of it or whatever it is to to to experience life through sensation at least as a choice it's not about not thinking that's not possible that's not recommended you know but we want to know the difference between this is me thinking about something and this is me sensing that thing like you're saying listening to ah a stream or a water source
00:28:36
Speaker
is going to be ah sensory listening. Of course, you have hearing, you'll hear it, but it's full body listening, you know?
00:28:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up that whole, con the the understanding of the senses, because I think that that's another piece that, Science is slowly catching up on, as you were saying earlier, how, you know, of course there's some things that you want them to be grounded in some form of methodology and understanding. I have the the benefit of being a little bit more free in that, being that I live in one of the world's largest spiritual communities and, you know, I work on the confines of that, but I'm also a pretty grounded in science type of person.
00:29:18
Speaker
And actually right now, I just the other day was teaching a lesson for the Dhammenhur Alchemy School and the lesson was on recovering lost senses. And it was really taking the approach of, besides the fact that the five senses that we have, if we look at them again through the plant lens and we understand how plants experience, you know, the sense of ah the sense of sight or the sense of hearing or the sense of um taste is so much more expansive than what we humans currently live. I mean, we we really narrow the band down on so many aspects. And one of the things I've loved about every kind of forest therapy and forest bathing experience that I've ever had is that, and as well as what I teach when I take people out to communication with the plant world, because it's really, it's very, very similar. It's so...
00:30:06
Speaker
it's a slightly different variation of the same thing. Um, and it's this concept of in that, in that natural setting where again, my body starts to resonate with my true essence, right. With the fact that I am earthbound, I am part of this nature, natural environment. So it's almost like I can shut off some of those constraints inside of this forest environment.
00:30:28
Speaker
And then in each one of these invitations and the way that I'm, I'm, um, brought into contact allows me to, when I sit by the stream and I quote unquote hear, I'm not just hearing the same way as I would hear, i don't know, as I'm walking through a city where I'm actually shutting down a lot of aspects of my hearing because, you you know, the noise, because of this, because I don't want to eavesdrop on people's conversations because I'm lost in this. but It's the opposite. It's the, okay, let's assume that I had full range of my hearing,
00:31:00
Speaker
as a being of nature. And then from there, where does my body lead me to naturally quote unquote, listen to? So my hearing is completely amplified and my listening is specified.
00:31:14
Speaker
So rather than, and so it's a conscious choice, it's a conscious awareness and a conscious presence. That brings us back into this different level of contact. And and in this in this lesson that I teach about you know the lost senses, I start with this five.
00:31:30
Speaker
And I even have like a little meditation spirit series up on Insight Timer and also inside the naturally conscious community. And then go the step beyond, which is like, hey, there's another 15 senses that plants have that...
00:31:43
Speaker
you know, most likely we also have them. And so how about experiment, you know, experimenting a little bit with, you know, these other types of not just, for example, vision, which is pretty much the idea of photo reception and phototropism, but what about heliotropism, like just the connection to sunlight and all of what sunlight involves, like,
00:32:05
Speaker
we can just slightly start advancing our awareness and reach some super cool things. Like I did a whole episode for the podcast about scototropism, which is the, you know, the, the sense of darkness, the idea of I grow and I have a relationship with, with the dark, not absence of light. Like I'm not avoiding light.
00:32:27
Speaker
I am literally moving towards the darkness because there are some plants like monstera monstera that that really love darkness for a period of their lives and it's like oh use that for shadow work like it's a whole other option like it's a completely different idea when we start to recognize these parts of ourselves right and so like what you're describing is these that plan operating as your therapist, right?
00:32:59
Speaker
Right. So this is what is the difference between a guide, let's say, and a human therapist, the guide would like you are doing, connecting people with another than human being to let it inform you of how to navigate this place in the best sense, you know,
00:33:21
Speaker
And like you're saying, it's it's a fact. We co-evolved with plants. Of course we have those abilities. We have been trained away and we suffer.
00:33:34
Speaker
Right. And I also
Collective Healing and the Nature-Embedded Mind
00:33:36
Speaker
want to keep underscoring, I really believe they suffer without us. Mm-hmm. So it's not just like, because a lot of people at this point I hear, it's like, oh, you know, if the humans are gone, it'll be better.
00:33:51
Speaker
You know, it's like, that's, again, so narcissistic. Right. It's like, just take your place in the system. You know, right you grew here for a reason.
00:34:03
Speaker
You know, I don't think we have to get rid of human beings. yeah It's also ah it's kind of like ah ah a tell at how how scary and hard it is for a human being to imagine changing their way.
00:34:19
Speaker
of being changing their lifestyle. It's like, I'd rather kill us all off than let us remember how to reconnect. Really? Because it's a lot more fun to reconnect.
00:34:31
Speaker
I am so glad you said that because I've been trying to find the right words for exactly what you just expressed. And I really, I hadn't thought about it in those exact terms. And I love the way you just, you know, you just described that because I also see it as a sort of cowardly act to a certain extent um of, I think I see it in two different ways. I see it one is cowardly, cowardly. And I get that most of us don't have a frame of reference to be able to do it, but I, but it is kind of cowardly. It's like, Hey, it's too much work for us to reconnect. So screw it. We should just leave the planet and be done with it. And like, let nature take over. I'm like, you do realize that nature is just going to create another version of us because nature does that, right? They're going to, we've had the the same species that
00:35:17
Speaker
evolve in different locations in the planet for a reason. Like there are characteristics that we have as beings of nature that are necessary for the order of the world. Like, yes, we've gone out of control. We're a little rogue. We make a bunch of mistakes. We screw up. But we're also super young.
00:35:35
Speaker
We're like yeah babies in this ecosystem. We're like 200,000 years old as a species. So I mean, nature kind of cuts us a break, too, because if not, they would kick us all off already. They're like, you know, let's give you another chance to kind of evolve into who you should be.
00:35:49
Speaker
So one aspect of it is I do think it's really cowardly. And I do think it is. And this is why I do like working, especially with, like I said, a trained therapist, because I don't do.
00:36:01
Speaker
trauma work and and those types of specifications. like I just don't have that training and I respect the person who has learned how to navigate certain types of these things. So I know i know my limitations and have no problems with telling a client, all right, we've reached a place where either you choose to work with a therapist in addition, you know with that with me, but also...
00:36:21
Speaker
Or you just choose to work with a therapist for a while and then we'll come back when you're in a different place. But I do think that the because I do think that the biggest piece that's inhibiting us is a massive amount of fear.
00:36:32
Speaker
Like so much of this anger and arrogance that we see comes from this fear of the unknown. It's like we've forgotten so much about. what it feels like to be in this union and this connection to be able to be.
00:36:47
Speaker
We've forgotten that also, if you look at any plant, you can see two trees right next to one another and they are completely different. Like if you really look at it, even if they're this, even if kin are the same species, they are completely different.
00:37:01
Speaker
And so, there is this I am interrelated and yet independent. And we keep thinking, oh, if i reconnect, that means I lose all of whomever I am. And it's like, no, you just gain all this other stuff.
00:37:16
Speaker
So I'm so curious as to how do you, I don't know if the right word is, treat, deal with, help, support the innate fear that I think holds back so many people from truly allowing themselves to reconnect.
00:37:35
Speaker
The fear that they've screwed up with nature for so long and, oh my goodness, what am I going to do now? The fear that I don't know how to act. What can I eat? What can I buy? What am I allowed to wear? How do I do all these things? like How do you see that that a more eco-friendly earth-based approach to psychology could really help people with that deep, innate fear of connection, especially if there's any kind of trauma that's experienced in their life.
00:38:04
Speaker
Right, right. That's a really good question. And i I kind of want to go in two directions with it. So one answer is, you know, how do you deal with the fear of reconnecting is to really
00:38:23
Speaker
amplify or emphasize that this is fun. Reconnecting is playful. It's enjoyable. It's something you did as a child.
00:38:35
Speaker
It's the way we all start.
00:38:39
Speaker
So it's nothing that you haven't done before. It's something that you loved to do when you were a toddler or younger. You know, it's a natural way.
00:38:52
Speaker
And it's, again, it's fun. It's playful. There's a nothing um scary about it. You know, the the the other thing I think is doing this in a supported container, like what you're doing or like what, you know, NFT style does is it's it's a container where you are with other people and you're held, your guide is holding you.
00:39:20
Speaker
If traumatic material comes up, there's a way to deal with it. I feel very comfortable with that because I am trained as a mental health professional.
00:39:31
Speaker
So that hasn't been like an edge that I've had to learn. um But like you said, if something comes up and it's beyond your scope You have a mental health professional that's an ally.
00:39:50
Speaker
right um But that reconnecting, again, is pleasurable. It's pleasurable. you know So how do we get past the fear of pleasure?
00:40:02
Speaker
That's a big one too. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So the other answer to this, I want to say is this is part of the discovery.
00:40:13
Speaker
It's discoverable. So um this is the exciting part of what is it like to have, like my book is called the nature embedded mind, right?
00:40:23
Speaker
What is it like to live with a nature embedded mind? Right. We don't know. We have to discover it together. You know, this isn't about going backward in time. You know, it's not about going to live in caves or whatever the heck people think.
00:40:41
Speaker
You know, our ancestors, you know, are not going backward. We're staying where we are with technology, with, like you said, big cities where where our nervous systems are so overloaded that we're basically jangling around our lives just trying to figure out how to downregulate, you know, um to stay with what's here, the technology and everything that we've created, but reconnect.
00:41:09
Speaker
And then as we do that, together, we learn, we learn, what does it mean, you know, to be um embodied again at this moment in time and yeah, expanding our our wisdom to include the wisdom of the rest of our family, our earth family.
00:41:35
Speaker
And then what do we know how to do? And what do we learn about healing our traumas? You know, i it's still, it's like the, it's like the main piece that's missing is this reconnection. Like, I feel like we cannot talk about any of it until we have the courage to confront the distortions in our thinking.
00:42:02
Speaker
change them,
Balancing Community Learning with Individual Growth
00:42:03
Speaker
which takes practice, just like any relationship. If you want to have a better relationship with your sister, your mother, or your spouse, your whatever, you have to spend time with them, right?
00:42:14
Speaker
You have to connect with them. You have to listen, like you said that. And I think that's the biggest part is that humans learning to listen, listen,
00:42:29
Speaker
not jump to the conclusion of what do I think about it? Like, just listen. Yeah. Wow. that's That's a big one. Biomimicry talks about this a lot. We call it um we call it ah quiet your cleverness.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah. our Our feeling that we have to we're clever and therefore we always have a response. And so therefore we we respond right away. And it's the idea of sitting and really listening. I love and I think it's such an important point that you brought up that I think I forget also to emphasize enough.
00:42:59
Speaker
um because I live it and so I don't realize it, which is this is not about going backwards. I think that there is this mistaken idea that, you know as you said earlier, yeah the tree hugger is the person that leaves everything and moves out of the city and goes to live in the middle of nowhere with you know no running water and no no technology. And there is so much of that.
00:43:24
Speaker
And I think that the people mistake the difference between ah avoidance type of technological use or at which you could be anything, right? It doesn't even have to be technology, right? I could be completely disconnected from technology and still being in ah trauma-based avoidance type of dangerous perspective and a disconnection because I'm avoiding things versus a fully connected person where, you know,
00:43:53
Speaker
I spend, I mean, I've been working in the the the tech world. I started my career in the tech world, right? So I've been in the tech world since the very beginning, since since we used to call it the internet bubble because it was just growing since before things like YouTube and Facebook even existed. and I have been sitting in front of a computer for most of my day since then. And I still consider myself an extremely connected person because my relationships with the more than human world with other kin, as well as with humans, yeah are extremely enriched because to me, technology is not a disconnection method mechanism. But on the contrary, I spend so much of my day like talking to my family, talking to my clients, talking to other people. Like I use connection, everything that I've learned from the plant world,
00:44:49
Speaker
about what it means to create relationships of such a wide variety and technology enhances my ability to do that. So for me, reconnection has allowed me to create a a healthy relationship with technology where I don't doom scroll like people talk about. But when I'm scrolling, I feel very present every Facebook group or inside of the naturally conscious community, we've made super tight connections where people travel.
00:45:20
Speaker
I have right in this moment, two of my, you know, the people who met inside of the naturally conscious community, one of them who lives in the United States, went to Italy and then where, you know, she's come here and then she went to Germany where another person lives and who's part of the connect because we know each other so well from the connections we've created. We talk, we relate, we experience this whole natural world together that it's quote unquote natural for them to say, well, if I'm traveling, of course, I'm going to go stop by and say hello to you because
00:45:51
Speaker
you know And we're going to be able to do this also in person and walk your land, which I feel like I know already. I know her horses. i know how her land is laid out because we talk about so much the experiences.
00:46:04
Speaker
So I think that What you said about the idea that this isn't about going backwards, but this is about discovering what it means to be fully connected in 2025, in a technological world, in a world that has you know um the built environment as well as this nature connection built into the built environment, I think is such an important point.
00:46:30
Speaker
to emphasize for people who are, again, fearful of how, why would I use, like, I'm going to go to traditional therapy because I live in a city, so ecotherapy can't really help me.
00:46:42
Speaker
Or forest therapy can't help me because I don't live near a forest. And it's like, no, that's not what we're talking about. It's so much more. it'
Eco-Psychology's Role in Modern Healing
00:46:51
Speaker
changes the way you perceive the world so that you start to recognize again, the natural, the nature everywhere, whether we're talking about the moss that's growing through the crack or the dandelion that's in the corner, or even, you know, the pocket park or the street tree or any of these types of things, or the, the cat that's rocking around, like it's all nature.
00:47:14
Speaker
Right. Right. And I think also, um,
00:47:20
Speaker
like Okay, there were two thoughts and they're running away from me. But one of them was, um you know, just remembering that the original trauma is this separation.
00:47:37
Speaker
who That's the original trauma. So all the other traumas that we experience, I'm going to say, probably all of them. If we sat down and made a list of all the traumas, I'm going to say it goes back to this original trauma of being artificially severed from reality.
00:47:59
Speaker
You know, the reality is our bodies, our nature are in nature are connected to work against that is hard.
00:48:12
Speaker
It's uncomfortable. That's what's scary. And then all traumas follow because out of that trauma of my body knows it's connected, but my mind is saying, no, you're not.
00:48:26
Speaker
No, you're not. No, you're not. No, you're not. No, you're not. It's like the fucking, Oh, sorry, but. Oh, you can say it all you want. i curse all the time. Please. The ultimate gaslighting. It is.
00:48:37
Speaker
And so all traumas follow from that because we're off center. Yeah. You know, so again, not to, a not minimizing all the traumas that we've all been through and need to heal from, but it's really repairing this.
00:48:55
Speaker
That is the foundation. Everything else is like treating the symptom. It's putting a bandaid. Your trauma is, you know, your, your identifiable trauma is a reflection of this hidden trauma that,
00:49:10
Speaker
You know, oh, this is what I wanted to say, too. This is the kind of mindset, because you said, um like, it's a perceptual shift. You know, it's ah it's the the kind of a thing. It's not that easy to see.
00:49:26
Speaker
But once you see it, you can no longer unsee it. And once you can't unsee it, your whole life changes. Right. And it's more pleasant. It's more comfortable.
00:49:38
Speaker
It's less traumatic. It's less frightening. It's all the things that we're like looking outside. what's What's this thing that's causing all of this? It's like, this is what's causing all of this.
00:49:50
Speaker
Right. You know, and i also want to say, because, you know, when I sent my book to beta readers and things, you know, colleagues, clinicians, they were not happy with me.
00:50:03
Speaker
you know They were like, who are you to say this? And you're saying that the field of psychology is all wrong? And I'm like, yes. Yeah. Not all psychologies, but Western psychology, like for one, there's other things.
00:50:20
Speaker
schools of psychology that are right Western. Let's remember that, you know, but um yeah. i And so I kind of want to say as a loving challenge to my peers, prove me wrong.
00:50:35
Speaker
Right. Let's heal this one. And let's see, am I wrong? I would love to be proven wrong, but I bet you I'm right. And I bet you everybody on some level who isn't defended, like I have to defend this idea, knows it's right.
00:50:57
Speaker
You know, you get an intuitive hit. You get an intuition. People, that's again, where like this aha goes off, especially once you've ever gone on an invitation to connect and you're just like, oh, you know, and it happens every time.
00:51:17
Speaker
And I try my very best not to you know, um like lead them into thinking something. like, it might be nothing. I don't know. It's all okay. You might hear nothing. You might hear something. It doesn't matter. And that's actually true.
00:51:31
Speaker
Like we want to meet everyone where they are in their relationship. Even if the relationship is so broken, that's fine. We need to know that. um But just one experience of this.
00:51:49
Speaker
starts to remind us of again, what we knew when we were one, two, three years old, many of us keep it, but a lot of us are trained away.
00:52:02
Speaker
from this connection, you know, and the ones that have the connection hide it. Well, can't talk about that. I can't tell anyone. can't tell anyone that I hear what the tree says to me.
00:52:14
Speaker
So that's another thing when you get a group of people together and you start to hear, oh, everybody does that? More encouragement to be loud and to say, duh of course, of course I can feel what the rock is saying to me.
00:52:29
Speaker
I'm so glad that you mentioned this last piece because it's another one of those points that I think is so important is just the same as we are nature and nature is never alone, right? You, you, you don't have a spot where you see, you know, even if you try to say something like this is the lone beaver or blah, blah, blah.
00:52:49
Speaker
It's, it's not true because the beaver is with the trees, with the ocean, with the water, with the this, with the, wa you know, like, like we, we just have this way of thinking about stuff that is different And because of that, we we do go
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:53:03
Speaker
through, i find so many people at the very beginning, i in inside the naturally conscious community, we say that we're weird and we're woo. And we say it because we're like, I want to be proud because some, especially depending on where you grew up, what your generation was,
00:53:19
Speaker
who your parents were, you know, type of thing. The idea of being weird and woo was, was bad. was like, stop talking about those things. You don't hear those things. Like, no, there are no kind of like that plant didn't whisper to you and stuff. And so when you do it in a group, and this is what I do love about the fact that, you know, the,
00:53:37
Speaker
the combination of group activities, whether it's forest bathing and then one-on-one therapy, or like in my case, the naturally conscious community, as well as one-on-one, you know, mentorship and coaching.
00:53:51
Speaker
I think that that combination for me has always, especially because I live in the community. So I have to believe this. If not, I wouldn't, I wouldn't live here. But it's like, I think that that's the winning combination because it is the, the group gives you a feeling of, oh my goodness, I'm really not alone. And it's so many different mirrors. So I always say, like you said earlier, you're not learning from me.
00:54:13
Speaker
you're You're learning from everybody. And everybody means every human as well as every you know other human type, more than human being. And then the other piece is the one-on-one gives you the opportunity to really like dive deep into, hey, I was hearing this and this was coming up for me and I realized that this is something and blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it gives you that safe space to explore really deeply things that are, you know, primarily connected to your personal experiences.
00:54:43
Speaker
And then the group to mirror off and to recognize yourself as as a ah piece of everybody else. And I think I really see that combination as winning. And I like the fact that for your work, again, it's not the eco-psychology and the tradition in the way that I've heard it from some others, which is, I take you in nature, blah, blah, And it's still always a one-on-one relationship, but it's instead the group relationship, human and other kin, as well as the one-on-one to give you that dual support, and
00:55:17
Speaker
that I think is so important as necessary. I, I, there's of course a million and one other questions that I could have, but as we start to wrap things up, I'd really love for you to talk a little bit more about like the title of your book, you know, where kind of give people a little bit of a synopsis of your book and, and also, you know, where do they find it? Because I do think that this is a a very different way of approaching the psychology side of it and really looking at um especially kind of brain science in a whole different way and the way the cognitive sciences in a way that yeah honestly, we're just emerging. We're just getting really into it right now.
00:55:56
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah. So um the title of the book, the full title is Nature Embedded Mind, How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves.
00:56:09
Speaker
And um the cover, I have to put a shout out to the artist that designed the cover with me, Alejandro Torres. they We spent so much time together just really getting this image of this human connected with, in the in the cover, very particular plants, insects. They're from particular like geographical locations that I felt important to include in this, um you know, this visual.
00:56:44
Speaker
um The book is available anywhere, really. So you can Amazon if you're okay with Amazon. A lot of people are not. Bookshop.org, folks. Bookshop.org. Bookshop.org.
00:56:58
Speaker
and I'll put a link. Yeah, and indie books. And, you know, um you could go to my website. I can, you know, if you want a signed copy, I'm happy to to mail that out. Um, it's the book, I designed it so that it's ah hopefully a really fun read.
00:57:16
Speaker
You know, it's got anecdote, it's got my sense of humor, it's, you know, it's got science in it, it's got a reflection of my journey to becoming a guide, like from my journal, while I'm there. So it's very like, so there might be cursing, folks, there might be cursing.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah. I think the only curse word I left in was shite, which isn't. so
00:57:45
Speaker
but um yeah So let's see what else. um yeah, it's just an introduction to this concept.
00:57:56
Speaker
And then, and hopefully, again, it's like a very warm, soft, engaging introduction. um There are prompts if you, you know, like I have said in the book, it's best to take the book out of doors.
00:58:09
Speaker
So find your other than human allies or your spot and bring anything that comes up to them. So there's got, it's got some prompts like that.
00:58:20
Speaker
um But it's really, it's really an introduction to the practice. So like anything, reading the book isn't going to create this shift. The shift is created in the experiences.
00:58:34
Speaker
And so it is advised, you know, you can find someone like you, you know, that knows how to take people in and connect, reconnect in those sensory ways.
00:58:46
Speaker
Or i have a company that I co-founded with Julia DeConeva. The two of us have... It's called Elemental. If you Google search it, it's experience. Oh, we'll put it all in the show notes.
00:58:59
Speaker
ah Got it up right in front of me. Excellent. Yeah. And that is a place where we do retreats and we do we're going to have a book study group. So I'm really excited about that so that we can.
00:59:12
Speaker
take each chapter and in real time say what is this you know this is again where it becomes a collective you know really breaking this artificial hierarchy i don't have the answers any more than anybody we're we're looking at this together, what does it stir in you?
00:59:31
Speaker
What does your wisdom tell you about this? You know, and then of course, what are the other than humans wisdom say about this? Um, so the practice is really where someone will be able to make the shift.
00:59:45
Speaker
Um, Again, a serious plug for ANFT. t There are guides all over the world. So if you want to experience that particular style, if not from me, they're everywhere and you can, you know, log on and they have a list of all of their certified guides.
01:00:04
Speaker
um I think that's about the book, unless there was anything I... No, I think that that's great. I think that's wonderful. And we'll definitely, I'll make sure that I put everything into the show notes. So we'll have a link to your your website. We'll have a link to the book. We'll have a link to all the different past books. I do love that you're going to do a kind of book club type perspective. We have the Plant Wisdom Book Club and it has fundamentally shifted how we read each one of the books because,
01:00:33
Speaker
you know, just the conversations each one of us pick up on aspects that are different. And so sharing them, there's such a richness. So I love the idea that you're going to go kind of chapter by chapter, because it also encourages people to to do the practices, to experiment with it, to play. And again, that safe environment that says, hey, it doesn't really matter what answers you get.
01:00:52
Speaker
or what you experience, the important thing is just having the experience. So but Julie, this has been fantastic. I mean, I'm so glad that we had this conversation. And I feel like there's so many pieces in here.
01:01:05
Speaker
Like I said, I'll make sure everything is in the show notes. um I am just excited that there are people like who are in these fields like you that are going out and being so vocal. I know that Myself as somebody who reads a lot of papers in the neuroscience, especially in some others, it's it's there's still a hard road. Like there is there's more coming out about on wonder and the the beautiful aspects of it. And I think that there is a little bit of a shift.
01:01:32
Speaker
But in the cognitive sciences, um I just went to a. conference a few months back in Padova that was actually in the University of Padova, but in the School of Psychology.
01:01:44
Speaker
And it's all around plant facts and plant and the plant mind. And so there is more coming out. But, you know, we need every single little ounce of and a voice out there to help keep people understanding that this this trauma that we all kind of collectively experience, we also can collectively heal.
01:02:06
Speaker
And so thank you so much for the work that you're doing. And everybody who's listening, if you are looking for more resources, please reach out to Julie, check out her book, check out all the information. And of course, you know, the ANFT, which a hu foundation, foundation, it's not really foundation. Like you said, organization is a great one for forest therapy, as well as come into the naturally conscious community and have these experiences. The most important thing is to remember you're never alone and you don't have to do this alone. Like let's all help each other heal this collective trauma.
01:02:41
Speaker
So that's, That's it for me. And that's it for us. So thank you so much. Remember always to resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. Bye.
01:02:52
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into this episode of reconnect with plant wisdom. To continue these conversations, join us in the naturally conscious community. your premier online ecosystem for plant reawakening and accelerated evolution and co-creation with other kin.
01:03:07
Speaker
Here, you'll find expansive discussions, interactive courses, live events, and supportive group programs like the Plant Wisdom Book Club and the Sprouts Writing and Creativity Group. Connect with like-minded individuals collaborating with plants to integrate these insights into life. Intro and outro music by Steve Shuley and Poinsettia from the singing Life of Plants.
01:03:27
Speaker
That's it for me, Tigria Gardenia, and my plant collaborators. Until next time, remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. I'm out. Bye.