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Ep.76 Are You A Molded Version of Who Others Want You To Be?
65 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, we dive into how often we unknowingly mold ourselves to fit others' expectations—just like city trees shaped by human intervention. Did you know, people are 50% more likely to take advice from friends than from experts. But if our friends and family suffer from the same conditioning and limiting beliefs, is their advice really in our best interest?
Using trees as a metaphor, I explain how forest trees grow in harmony with their surroundings because they know themselves. Meanwhile, city trees are pruned and shaped by external forces, often growing in unhealthy ways. Similarly, when we seek advice from others, we risk being molded by their own conditioning.
Topics Covered about who others want you to be
➡️ How friends’ advice can reflect their limiting beliefs.
➡️ Lessons from forest trees about natural growth and self-expression.
➡️ Why city trees reflect unhealthy growth patterns caused by external pressures.
➡️ The subtle impact of conditioning on your life choices.
Resources Mentioned
🌱 What limiting belief is holding you back?
🌱 Befriend Your Limiting Beliefs webinar
🌱 Coaching and Mentorship with me and plants
🌟Connect with nature-conscious creatives, multipotentialites, and naturentrepreneursin the premier online ecosystem that nourishes plant reawakening and community support for accelerated evolution and co-creation with otherkin. >> JOIN OUR COMMUNITY <<
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Transcript
Tina's Weekend Adventures
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tina Gartenia. You know, I love saying that. I don't know why. There's just something, just makes me makes me smile. um It's the kind of the beginning of the week here and I'm really excited. It was a great weekend. I went to an amazing wedding. um Some friends of ours here in Dunwoodher got married. um And also on Sunday, I went to an all day medal concert. Yes, yes folks. Yes, I admit it. I,
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm a headbanger. I am a metalhead. I always have been. It's my my deep, deep love of music. i I love all kinds of music.
Musical Journey and Influences
00:00:46
Speaker
As you know, I have a degree in music and music engineering, so I have worked with many different artists ah from REM to Cheyenne and Julio Iglesias.
00:00:56
Speaker
I've done a bunch of different things. I used to produce events for large electronic music events. So I've had the gambit and and'm from rock concerts, working backstage and being in the audience all the way through to, like I said, Latin music, electronic music. And I have to admit it.
00:01:13
Speaker
Metal still gets me every single time. I don't even have to know who the band is. I have a friend of mine here in Dom & Her that absolutely loves metal music. So he always invites me um when there's a really good concert coming. And so, yeah, here I am. I went and I had an amazing time. So much fun. My feet were killing me by the end because it was an all day concert. So I was there on my feet for 12 hours to see a bunch of different bands, but it was well worth it. Well worth the whole experience. But here I am back again with you.
Questioning Trust in Advice
00:01:42
Speaker
It's a little bit of a rainy day here or at least ah overcast, but we have some good things to talk about because I read an interesting statistic the other day. I read a statistic that said people are 50% more likely to listen to a friend's advice than advice from experts.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yep. Basically, behavioral scientists have studied this and they find that humans have a preference. They prefer advice that comes from friends and family because, quote unquote, we instinctively trust them and believe they have our best interests at heart.
00:02:20
Speaker
And this really got me thinking because I get, I get the idea that our friends and our family have our best interests at heart. But I have to say that the more I work and my training and such, the more I realize that most of our time, our friends and family give us advice that is suffering from the same conditioning and limiting beliefs that they themselves are suffering from. So my question to you kind of is, should you really trust them?
00:02:49
Speaker
I think you could trust that they have your best entrance and high at heart, but I'm not so sure if you should actually trust them. And so, as I thought more and more about this, I kept thinking about the difference between, for example, wild trees and city trees in the perspective of how things how they grow and how
Are We Molded by Expectations?
00:03:08
Speaker
they apply. Bear with me, you know I always make these interesting and sometimes odd combinations of things, but I promise there is a logic. There's a method to my madness. So I went out to get a better perspective from wild trees and city trees. And in today's episode, I want to share with you what I found. So this is episode 76.
00:03:30
Speaker
And we're going to talk about, are you a molded version of who others want you to be? Welcome to Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. I'm your host, Tigri La Gardenia, nature-inspired mentor and leadership coach.
Connecting with Plants for Conscious Living
00:03:45
Speaker
In this podcast, I share ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways in which plants can help you lead a naturally conscious life.
00:03:57
Speaker
If you're new around here and you're wondering how or even why I connect city trees to advice, let me give you a little bit about me and how my mind works. I'm a nature inspired mentor, an ICF certified life coach, founder of the naturally conscious community, and a world ambassador for plant advocacy. So for more than a decade, I've been working closely with plants to share their practical wisdom with you to consciously embody the elements of life that nourish your evolution. My sole mission is to help you bridge the gap between who you are and who you want to be. And I elicit the help of the plant kin home to do it. Hence why I'm thinking about advice-giving experts and non-experts and trees. That's how the connection, basically as a life coach, a big part of what I do is to help you evolve.
00:04:48
Speaker
past your conditioning and your limiting beliefs. And I think most of us can agree on the general definition of limiting beliefs, right? They're those pesky little thoughts about yourself that hold you back from what it is that you want to accomplish and what it is that you want to achieve.
00:05:02
Speaker
And so I think when you ask a friend or, you know, some loved one for advice, it's kind of easy for them to to to kind of steer clear of their own limiting beliefs or to give you advice in spite of the fact that they might even be suffering from some kind of limiting belief that prevents them from carrying out that same advice. I think that that's possible, possible, just so you know, possible.
Impact of Conditioning on Advice
00:05:26
Speaker
But conditioning is a little bit more subtle. And over and over again, I see examples of people taking not so good suboptimal non-prime advice, if not actually advice that's just wrong, from friends and family when making critical life decisions. Because they don't take into consideration that they're well-meaning loved ones are really not capable of separating themselves from their own conditioning. As a matter of fact, most people are actually completely blind to their own conditioning or they think that their conditioning is a value um or more of a societal value, not usually a value than or something that they're supposed to live up to. And so that brings me really to thinking about how easy it is that we accidentally become the molded versions of who others want us to be
00:06:23
Speaker
without even giving ourselves a chance to really be who we truly are. And this is something that I work with a lot with my clients. It's probably the number one piece of if I was to think about an overarching perspective. Sure, I talk about limiting beliefs, and I talk about, you know, achieving things and who it is that you want to be from the perspective of what you want to accomplish. But more importantly, is really who you are. And How do you get to your authentic self in order for you to easily flow and make decisions when most of the things that we do, if not everything, are actually molded from what we call in Damanhur here, the rivers, our three major rivers, the river of our family lineage,
00:07:10
Speaker
So what is it that our family sort of imposed as even sometimes values, but also traditions, things that we think are important the way you do think from really simple perspectives like ah saying please and thank you under certain circumstances where in some cultures you say it in one way and some you don't the yeah another way.
00:07:32
Speaker
and Which leads to culture, which is another aspect of it your society, the effects of the place that you're in, right? All of our society have a sense set of norms, norms that we adhere to and we believe are the norms necessary for a good functioning society. But many of those norms actually are just conditioning and placed above us that we don't ever give ourselves the opportunity to select.
00:07:57
Speaker
So we have our our history, our familial lineage. We have our culture and our society. And the third one is our education. Education teaches us what we think is right from wrong, what we think is, you know, how the world operates, what we think are facts. But there is a thought process that truth doesn't actually exist in the world of form. And that while, yes, there is such a thing as fake news, there is also the perspective that everything is sort of a shade of some form of the truth.
00:08:27
Speaker
and therefore you have to discover and understand your own version of the truth. And this is where our barometer is not really set correctly. So to give us a different model, I want you to think about a forest for a second. So let's kind of take ourselves out of the human realm because oftentimes the human realm is the fountain of that conditioning or where our conditioning has taken hold.
Wild vs City Trees: A Growth Analogy
00:08:52
Speaker
So it's really difficult for us to understand who we are,
00:08:56
Speaker
which is why we struggle with confidence issues and where we struggle with making decisions or we struggle with what we think are making bad choices and our limiting beliefs start to pop up is usually because I would say 90% of what we are and what we do is actually based on conditioning. We've never given ourselves permission to explore who it is that we really want to be.
00:09:21
Speaker
and and Just to give you an example of what I'm talking about, I usually use this example. Some people laugh at me. I've used it before, but I'm going to say it again because I think it's a great example. Let's talk about going to the bathroom.
00:09:35
Speaker
Now, most likely you were taught how to go to the bathroom by your parents, right? Some parents, some loved ones, some adult taught you. This is how you either sit or stand or whatever, whatever it is. And for most of your life, you followed that model.
00:09:55
Speaker
The question is though, is that really the model for your body? In other words, if you were to give yourself for a second permission to explore going to the bathroom in any way possible, like you were just gonna try lots of different ways. You're going to, I don't know, sit with your feet on the toilet. You're going to dig a hole outside of your house. You're going to ah move your body a little to the left, a little to the right.
00:10:22
Speaker
stand, sit, doesn't matter what you know gender you are, any of these types of and things. Would you actually choose the same way that you're going to the bathroom now? Now, maybe the answer is yes, but at least then it would be your choice. And you would know that that choice is adapted to your body. Maybe your back would stop hurting. Maybe you'd stop peeing outside of the actual toilets. Maybe you're, you know, you would find yourself more comfortable in situations where you go to foreign countries with toilets that are completely different. because you know how the anatomy of your body works. In other words, something as simple as going to the bathroom is mostly a conditioned response. And until we give ourselves space to step outside of that, to test, to play, we will never understand. Do you like going to the bathroom by yourself? In other words, with the door closed, or is that just a cultural norm from where you're from? Do you care? Do you want to be chatting with somebody else? All of these types of questions that lead to a greater comfort
00:11:21
Speaker
in the boudoir, like in the bathroom, when you go in there, you are comfortable that this is you, this is how you do it, and this is how you want to do it. Does that make sense? And I say this because I use that example, because oftentimes when we do talk about conditioning, of course we talk about things that are you know more important, it might sound. But in reality, it's all the same mechanism. It's the mechanism of, have I given my purse myself permission to be who I authentically am?
00:11:50
Speaker
And then from there, move forward. Do I know my body's response enough, both physically as well as emotionally and psychological? Because of the more I do this, the more I break away from my conditioning, the easier it is for me to make decisions based on what is best for me. So let's go back to the model first. And let's go back to the model first.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah, that works. That works as a sentence. I want to go back to this idea of a forest so that we can kind of get an idea of what it is that, in this case, we're talking specifically about trees. What can trees really teach us about this conditioning, this molding upon ourselves? now In a forest, trees tend to grow more upwards and outwards, right? They basically move in the direction, they grow in a direction that would kind of infringe upon the tree next to it, but at the same time, not too much, because trees really like to maintain a healthy social life. They prefer not to grow over someone else. This is why when you look at a forest, as much as all the trees are very close together,
00:13:00
Speaker
there is a separation. There's a space that's being taken. Some trees have chosen to go really skinny and high up. Others have taken more breath. Some move a branch over a little bit over here, some a little over there in order to ensure that they don't cover up the light for one another, because generally trees know that they want a healthy space between each other, because if everybody is thriving, then everybody's getting sunlight. Everybody's making their own nutrients. Everybody's sharing the nutrients, right? So that space is extremely important. In addition to this, branches, for example, near the bottom, will naturally shed themselves. They'll naturally break off early because, you know, the light is minimal and they want to make space for new trees that want to grow underneath them. So there's kind of this natural, okay, all I'll take away a little bit of my bulk in order to give space for the next generation. I will, you know, grow in this area, but I won't encroach too much in order to, so I'll negate myself some space in order to ensure that in another one, there's this give and take. There's also animals in the ecosystem that help prune the trees.
00:14:10
Speaker
beavers and porcupines and all kinds of other um critters in the ecosystem that come in and, you know, take a little bit of leaf here, some ants, some insects, they take a little bit of bark there, they do this. And this relationship makes that the the tree has the tree's own space, right? Key's own space.
00:14:33
Speaker
while at the same time recognizing that the secret of a healthy environment is knowing where to push my limits and where instead to pull back from myself. And Key does this, right? A tree can do this because a tree knows themself. A tree understands the needs. How much space do I need? How much ah light do I need? What do I want
Challenges of Human Conditioning
00:14:56
Speaker
to get?
00:14:56
Speaker
And I can reach for that while at the same time knowing that if I take too much away from my neighbor, then I myself am going to feel the effects of my overall non-healthy environment. And this is really where we are very different from a forest. In other words, trees in a forest are beautiful, not because they follow some specific pattern. They're not in harmony with the environment because they have a very specific shape and a mold.
00:15:23
Speaker
that they have to fit into, but because they grow in relationship with everything around them. They understand the give and the take. He can know what do I need and what instead is it nice to have that I'm willing to negotiate with my partner and my my fellow you know plants and other kinds of beings in this forest in order to ensure overall health.
00:15:50
Speaker
There's not a constriction. It's not like I'm being held back. It's more an expansion. I'm giving the maximum and taking the maximum I need while at the same time giving and and and being able to do that for my neighbors and my neighbors are doing the same. Their movements are based on the combination of needs and the needs of all the others around them. It's a flow. It's a give and take.
00:16:13
Speaker
Trees in the city, on the other hand, have a far less interactive life. They grow and they grow on all sides with oftentimes few other trees telling them to slow down. So they have this rapid growth that actually causes them a normal ah number of different issues that that hinders and makes it hard for the tree to really reach optimum health.
00:16:36
Speaker
They sometimes get ingrown branches. They might have a kind of crossing or a rubbing of branches, or maybe there's something that's like cutting off spaces or that the space is not being used well. There's oftentimes a poor air circulation that increases the risk of other diseases happening. Simply put, nature in general is not given the space for them to learn their own movements, to drop branches that don't serve naturally. to hold back growth that creates and and to create a harmony from that. Instead, it's kind of this weird free-for-all with at the same time, the fear that something external to them is going to come and interfere with that relationship. In other words, the relationships that help them understand what it means to be a good tree aren't necessarily there. It's that bad advice.
00:17:32
Speaker
that you, you know, it's that bad advice that you just couldn't take. And so, actually, it's a good advice, but in this case, it's bad advice. It's bad advice that you shouldn't take, but you probably do take, and that's what's happening. There are also two other factors that are unique to city trees that result in uncontrolled or oftentimes unhealthy growth. One of them is the urban heat island effect, right? The fact that the warmer the area due to the presence of asphalt and concrete and lack of shade and greenery, the more it increase increases this heat, it increases unchecked growth. Because again, the plant doesn't understand how to regulate because this is not part of their natural environment. So especially in the early years, which would be the maturation years, which for a tree could be up to 20 years, the tree doesn't really understand all these normal relationships that get created when the tree is in the forest. The other factor for accelerated growth is the additional presence of CO2 and actually light, CO2 and light, because in a city there's more concentrations of CO2 and that means more photosynthesis, which again is not in line with how everything else is growing. It's not a natural CO2, which is not the same as I'm talking about like just general increase of CO2 in what's happening and climate change and things like that. I'm talking about even more a concentration that happens from being in that type of environment and also having light that is on all the time, oftentimes in ah rays or in spectrums that affect
00:19:05
Speaker
the growth of the plant so more photosynthesis occurs more the tree grows because the tree thinks oh well this must mean because again my natural incarnation is i grow when there's more co2 i grow when there's more light i grow when there's more heat all of these different aspects that are not being in check with an overall natural environment. And so add to that all these different places, all these different things, this doesn't really let plants sleep. this This really is a recipe for unchecked growth with no relationship bounds. So what happens? In a city, the conditions, since they're not really meant for all the beings, especially for the plants,
00:19:50
Speaker
Instead, in a city, the needs are tuned into human needs. Therefore, the trees become beholden to human intervention. Now remember, humans are conditioned beings. We are beings that right now suffer from this deep conditioning, which means our desire most of the time, not everybody, not everybody, we have some plant reawakened people out there, but for many people, because humans create environments that are good for humans, different from a forest that attempts to create an environment that is good for all the native species that are in there,
00:20:27
Speaker
were talk We end up having things like pruning and trimming in a controlled environment, but that are based on the desires of the human doing the pruning and the training. Not necessarily the choices that are good for the trees and the other beings of that environment. In other words, we're taking care of a tree is a complex already task in and of itself because that tree doesn't have all the relationships. And then you add a human who does not have a tree perspective.
00:20:58
Speaker
and does not really step into the overall needs of encouraging the tree to understand what tree-ness means in the city, instead takes that away by pruning and and and cutting the tree as if I know better than what the tree needs. So rather than being there to support the tree and saying, okay, let me add impediments that might ah help the tree better understand how to create a healthy environment in this urban effect, the human imposes their will over the tree by hacking and cutting. And even with the most honorable of intentions, the most amazing arborists are still, though, creating an environment
00:21:49
Speaker
that is good for the humans, not necessarily what is good for the tree. In other words, they're not placing themselves as part of the forest environment or of the environment in which the tree lives and acting accordingly. They are acting as a force that imposes their will over the tree to create what they want, which is a non-native environment for that tree. Hopefully that makes sense.
00:22:16
Speaker
So just as the trees in a forest grow in harmony with their environment, humans are actually meant to grow with a balance between those needs, their own personal needs, and those of the community around them.
Balancing Personal and Community Needs
00:22:34
Speaker
But doesn't always happen.
00:22:36
Speaker
Because again, we as human beings impose arbitrary limitations, culture, society, ah lineages, and family history, as well as education, that we try to make them good for all. The problem is, we're not really location-dependent, oftentimes, at least not specific enough.
00:23:00
Speaker
And we have, in the process of sharing what might even be good societal norms, we have done it at the expense of your own personal understanding of your body, of your intuition, of your psychology, so you no longer have the ability to take in that norm or rule and understand how to best apply it to yourself.
00:23:29
Speaker
You're being told not just whatever that rule or norm is, you're also being told the application, which is what happens when you ask for advice from friends. The forest allows for healthy growth because it gives space for adaption of generally understood rules. In other words, we know that you need to shed so make space. So some plants might shed branches even high up.
00:23:58
Speaker
even though they, you know, because they feel like there needs to be space. um There might be the need for more of this type of nourishment in the system. So a plant might reduce their growth in order to not take because there needs to be more of this flowing through the system.
00:24:16
Speaker
There's lots of different ways, the size, the breadth, all of these different aspects that a tree might use in order to take the norms, the established kind of rules that are for good living together and adapt them across their own body, finding what their body needs. But in an ecosystem like a city ecosystem that has already been infused with human rules, we humans don't give space and time for that, neither for ourselves, neither for the plants. We think we know better, which is exactly what happens when you ask oh non-professional a friend for advice.
00:24:59
Speaker
even sometimes some professionals, let's be honest, okay? What you're looking for is not somebody who tells you, do it like this. Right? Because we don't necessarily thrive or grow in an environment in which we can't interact and involve, and more importantly, adjust based on mutual understandings and personal needs. When we don't have that space, we mold ourselves. We fit ourselves in to a rigid constraint around us. And much of this time, this creates an unhealthy environment because
00:25:36
Speaker
I either one, don't know myself enough to be able to adapt and move and adjust based on changes. So this is when I become rigid. This is when I struggle. This is when I take certain parts of my personality like my vulnerable child and I hide them away. This is where I create limiting beliefs.
00:25:56
Speaker
because we get filled with traumas and fears and expectations, which condition our experiences into what we think others need. So we try to become what others need rather than understanding my needs, understanding your needs, and knowing myself enough to be able to adapt to that. So this is really much like trees in cities that grow shaped by human intervention and external factors. For this reason, city trees tend to die very young, where a tree, the same the same species of tree in their natural environment can grow much longer in years. In a city environment, that lifespan is typically much shorter, sometimes half or a quarter,
00:26:47
Speaker
and And they are much more susceptible to different kinds of illness because their space is constrained and they're being molded by an external perspective placed upon them rather than an interaction and a relationship that has a give and take to nourish.
External Pressures and Authentic Growth
00:27:06
Speaker
They also often suffer from, for example, poor air circulation and disease because this growth is being driven by an unnatural environment and the tree in the formative years has not been allowed to experiment with self-preservation, with self-adoption, by being constantly pruned and trimmed, they are being molded by an external source, which might seem like the tree is doing well because maybe it's pretty by our definitions, but oftentimes those trees do not.
00:27:42
Speaker
um Produce seeds in other words, they are not able to continue their lineage and oftentimes they die young so this mirrors how people are often conditioned by societal expectations or the well-meaning advice of family and friends. In other words, your family and friends tells you, you should do this. They don't hold the space. They try to help you grow in a way that might not so serve your true self, but instead serves the way that they see that you should be.
00:28:19
Speaker
So like city trees, we ourselves become pruned and molded based on external pressures, losing sight of our own natural path and authentic identity. So this is the problem with asking friends or family for advice or even professionals that just try to always tell you, do this.
00:28:40
Speaker
They unintentionally reflect to their own conditioning or a set of strong societal norms that don't have any space for you to adapt them to yourself. They may give you well-meaning responses. They really do. I do believe that, um similar to what we were talking about before,
00:29:01
Speaker
that trust and that desire that they have for you is absolutely there. But instead of mirroring back experiences or giving you opportunities to learn the moral of the fable, they give you instead direct advice. And this direct advice has a negative consequence. Before I tell you that, I want to take a very quick break and introduce one of our eco-conscious business partners.
00:29:30
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:30:38
Speaker
Okay, so we were talking about how our friends and family really do have our best interest in their desires to give us advice. But not being professionals who have learned how to separate themselves out of the situation. And this, look, there are some people that use this the title of of professionals who also haven't done this work. So this is really, just even getting to the person to help you is already a test in trying to understand yourself. Because what happens is many times what these people will do is tell you their experiences.
00:31:16
Speaker
rather than rather than, so they'll give you your experiences, their beliefs, and more often than not, their own fears or their conditioned responses, and they'll say, this is what you should do. Where instead, when you work with somebody, what you want to receive is ideas,
00:31:38
Speaker
expansion of your own thoughts, so challenging questions, you want to receive what it is that helps you think more about your true self. Because when you get their experiences, their beliefs, their fears, this limits your ability to see beyond the constraints that any of us have grown up with. They've grown up with and you yourself. For example, for myself as a certified coach and as a spiritual teacher for so many years,
00:32:08
Speaker
I've had to work super hard to move past my own conditioning. I've had to do the pee experiment of, do I want to pee with the door open or with the door closed? Trust me, I had friends of mine in like my younger years who challenged me on that because I came from a place where the door was always firmly closed and I was taught that it was wrong and impolite to to have the door, any kind of door open at all. And then I went to live with other people who were like, what are you talking about? Who cares? I'm just going to come and brush my teeth while you pee, or friends that would follow you into the bathroom. And in my world, that was impolite, disrespectful, and downright wrong. And it sounds so banal, but those same kinds of thinkings get applied on multiple levels.
00:32:54
Speaker
My grandmother once said to me, I struggle with believing that being gay is okay, and I already admire her for even being able to say that, because my mother taught me it was wrong. So for me to think that it's right, I have to believe that my mother was actually wrong. that's ah that for For a culture, for her culture, that's hard. You believed your parents as long as your parents were talking within reason.
00:33:19
Speaker
right your parents were teaching you right from wrong so you have to step into so many different level of conditioning not just as the conditioning itself like the specific thing you were conditioned on but also the fact that almost all that conditioning means I don't learn myself, my own barometer, my own you know inner compass of what is right or wrong. So evolving past this conditioning is not building up a new level of what's right or wrong. It's more of what is the framework upon which anything that comes into my sphere, I can go and check in with myself and discover what's right or wrong for myself.
00:33:59
Speaker
And that's something that I, for example, have really trained myself so much for. And so what I've trained for is for me to be able to do it for myself, but more than anything, to help you find your own mechanism. Not my mechanism. not how I determine what's right or wrong, but how would you determine right or wrong? So any situation that comes, it's not a matter of me telling you, do this. It's more of, let's explore this so that you can come up with your criteria, how it is that you evaluate what direction to take so that you can confidently make choices.
00:34:36
Speaker
because you don't want to do what I do. I don't want you to do what I do. I want you to do what is authentic to you. I don't want you to feel trimmed and pruned or being held back based on what society has put you in, the artificial environment in which you're in.
00:34:54
Speaker
i want you to feel like you're always living in a forest where you are part of the forest and therefore your choices affect the environment and the the environments the the different beings there affects you and there's a give and a take i mean These are these types of topics that for me are so important because for years I've been evolving past my own conditioning and it's taken me so much to refine my understanding of how we all carry these subtle limitations. And even in all these years, there are cases where my conditioning is still there. It's high hiding, hiding right in plain sight, right in front of me. And this is the reason why I won't give you advice.
Coaching for Authenticity
00:35:41
Speaker
I can't give you advice because that risks me projecting onto you. I can give you ideas. I can ask you powerful questions to help you think about the situation different. I can explore scenarios that you might bring to the table and we can look at what the effects are of that.
00:36:03
Speaker
My role is to help you identify your own conditioning and to help you discover your own authentic decision making. And this is where the plants can be so helpful to work with us as partners. Because as a life coach, I'm here to help you see you to see you live a full life, who you truly are and when you can take action from that place.
00:36:30
Speaker
And I want you to feel like all of your life is an ecosystem. Every circle, every situation you're in is an ecosystem in which you have all these relationships and you are constantly creating the environment in which you can thrive.
00:36:49
Speaker
Just like these trees in a healthy interactive forest learn how to understand their limitations. They learn to ask for what they need from others so they call into the mycelial networks or into pollinators. They adapt and they change and even decisions that they might have done in one way at one point, they will turn around and years later do in a completely different way. And I want you to feel that because when you recognize your own wisdom and you can act from it, you live in alignment with your true self, no longer shaped by anybody else's expectations.
Living Authentically Beyond Expectations
00:37:29
Speaker
You are now in a city environment
00:37:32
Speaker
But nobody is pruning you because you are creating your own relationships with the concrete, with the asphalt, with the ant in the city, with the person that passes by and touches you you know as they go. Every single piece of this shapes who you are, but you're no longer reacting from their expectations. You're instead creating from what creates the right relationship. And this approach connects that natural wisdom from the trees and brings it into your own personal development to emphasize self-awareness. So who am I? And who do I want to be? You know, where is that aware ego inside of me, that part of me that is in awareness and in consciousness and can act? And then how does that part of me act
00:38:24
Speaker
inauthenticity. How do I move forward authentically? So really what I'm asking you to do is to reflect on what is your growth environment and whether you're shaping your life according to your natural desires or are you being molded by the influences of others, even well-meaning influences of parents, of teachers, of friends and families and loved ones that are placing their advice, their beliefs, their thought processes um upon you and are not giving you space to take those in and apply them to your own natural filters to then make choices from that.
00:39:09
Speaker
So just like trees, we can ask ourselves, are we growing freely? Or are we being trimmed into a version that suits others more than it really suits ourselves? In other words, is the decision I am making coming from a true free will decision without any conditioning?
00:39:34
Speaker
even if it is following societal norms, but I've explored all the different avenues, the relationships, everything around me, and I choose based on my needs and my desires and my desire also to be a healthy member of my environment, or am I reacting based on a conditioning or programming that has been placed upon me even with well-meaning thoughts, even because it was somebody who loved me but who placed that upon me. It's about consciously shedding what doesn't serve you and making space
00:40:13
Speaker
to evolve authentically with intention and alignment and your true self to emerge from there. In other words, your authentic self. By seeing this parallel and kind of by asking yourself, what would a tree in the forest do?
00:40:29
Speaker
What how would a tree grow in this environment? What direction would it take? This is kind of a good place to start to see this parallel between trees in your own personal growth So that you can really gain insight and understand and claim really claim your own path free from living beliefs and conditioning imposed by others and honestly so advice
Advice as Growth Ideas
00:40:54
Speaker
It's nice. It's nice to have some times, but I would kind of take it more as ideas rather than a should do. This is the way that generally kind of somebody else might look at it, but use that as an opportunity for you to look at it in your own way. Find your own path. We need when you need advice or support, get it from someone that can that can help you reach it free from the baggage that's usually associated with friends and family and other kinds of conditioning.
00:41:24
Speaker
Look for somebody when it comes, especially for making changes in your life, for really stepping into your authenticity. Get support because support is important. It helps us see outside of our own limitations. But you want somebody that's holding up a mirror so that you can more clearly see yourself rather than someone that's getting a list of what it is that you are to do in this.
00:41:48
Speaker
So I hope this helps give you a different perspective and I do hope that you will call in the trees if you are finding yourself in a situation where your own barometer, you haven't understood where it is, your authentic self feels like it's being held back and molded by somebody else. I hope you will reach out first and foremost, to the trees. But if you want to talk more about mentorship or coaching, please feel free to book a call with me. There's a link in the show notes where you and I can talk and we can see whether or not this is just a case of helping orient you, you know, where some, you know, to to really connect deeper into that true nature inside of you, or whether this is something about needing some help to find your own personal mirror, to be able to see who you truly are, to expand your concepts of self and to shed some of that
Invitation to Community and Mentorship
00:42:40
Speaker
conditioning. So there's a link in the show notes for you to book a call with me on my website. You'll find more information and even a quiz to identify what mentorship port program is right for you. And as always, if you want to talk more about these subjects, come into the Naturally Conscious Community. That's your premier online ecosystem for nourishing plant reawakening and community support.
00:43:02
Speaker
for accelerated evolution and co-creation with other kin. Really, we know from a natural perspective from all the studies that we evolve faster, stronger, and healthier when we evolve together. So come in, post your experiences, ask your questions. Across NCC, you'll find expansive discussions.
00:43:23
Speaker
interactive courses, live events, and an active community flourishing with plant-inspired support. And we'd love to have you. So come on and find me if you want to talk about mentorship and coaching, and come into the Naturally Conscious community and find a group of people that are exploring all of these concepts together with The Plant King Home. That's it for me for this episode. Remember, resist the urge to hold back your evolving green brilliance. That's it. Tigeria gardenia. I'm out. Bye.
00:43:55
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom, intro and outro music by Steve Schulie and Poinsettia from The Singing Life of Plants. So join me, Tigri La Gardenia, and my plant collaborators next time on Reconnect with Plant Wisdom.