Trees
I see trees as a gift. I have always loved looking at them, especially tall gum trees against a bright blue sky. At one time in my life when I was starting a new job and was feeling unsure about whether it was the one for me, I noticed a beautiful tree framed in a window on the first floor of the building. I felt that with that tree to nourish my senses, I would be able to handle any change and adapt to make the new job my own. I stayed with that organisation for nearly twelve years.
Sadly, in my darkest times, I virtually forgot the existence of trees and hardly ever looked at them.
When I reached rock bottom and I tried to claw my way back out of the black hole into which I felt I had fallen, trees were my link to the mindfulness which ultimately saved me. I was so tense and mindless about my surroundings, so trapped in my million-miles-an-hour negative thoughts that I was incapable of closing my eyes to meditate and slow my thoughts down. One day I walked out onto our veranda and my eyes were drawn to the drooping leaves of a gum tree swaying in the breeze. That tree caught my erratic attention and held it – at least for a few seconds. The more I made myself pay attention to the gum trees outside my window at home the more I welcomed the sight of them and the more they ‘held’ me in a peaceful present. I often think that I owe my mental wellbeing and my Becoming Resilient method to trees.
They are for me the archetypal symbol of Resilience – blowing in the wind, lashed by storms, burned by fire – but staying firmly ‘rooted’ in their place, and achieving new and even greater growth because of the difficulties that they have survived. The trees that cling to cliffs, rise up through the water, grow strong among strangling climbing plants all remind me of us humans – those whose lives have been shaken, battered and challenged by loss or illness or trauma or violence or many other unforeseen circumstances. Some trees bear the evidence of a long, tough life – knobbled ‘elbows’ on branches, scratched and toughened bark – the stories of hardship those trees could tell! Then suddenly a little shoot of soft green leaves, like a sign of hope, often from a seemingly dead trunk.
I celebrate the Resilience of those of us still standing as I celebrate those triumphant trees whenever I am blessed to be in their presence.
