Can Thriving Be the Healthy Normal?
Nature teaches us that deviating from the norm and staying in flow is key to thriving. And it need not be a battle of survival. The natural world thrives when it adapts to change by becoming stronger and more resilient. While the hungry bear may have climbed the plum tree in our yard and snapped a branch with its weight, a new branch is waiting to emerge and flourish with new fruit.
A healthy tree will always find a way to birth new fruit despite the hardships it faces. Each of us has been gifted and wired with this same potential, and our heart is simply waiting for us to tap into our true abilities and flow with our natural rhythms.
Living in the midst of nature entirely changed my life and provided an opportunity for me to learn from her pure fierceness and beauty. I learned to connect with the heartbeat of the earth and listen to the deep whispers of my heart. I was reminded that we are not separate from nature and that there’s a natural flow to everything.
Thriving Means We Stop Worrying About What’s Next
Sometimes our destination is not clear, and it’s hard to face the unknown because we’ve been led to believe that we should always have clear goals in order to achieve success in life. Why else do so many of us greet every New Year with resolutions?
Why do we allow ourselves to end one year with new goals and believe it’s normal? Why not simply listen to the whispers of our hearts and flow? Do we really need to layer more and more expectations on ourselves? When do we pause and take a deep breath and release?
Our relationship with transformation is foundational, especially when we encounter unexpected changes like ending partnerships, work arrangements, being in midst of conflicts or losing a loved one. The unexpected changes stop us in our tracks and help us reevaluate and question everything from what we could have done differently or how we can fathom healing from the travesties. But somehow, life goes on and we navigate our way. Our world may have stopped but everything outside ourselves is still alive and shifting.
If we learned anything from the last few years is that change is simply natural and things can change in a flash. We can add honey and make lemonade (thriving) or suck on sour lemons (suffering).
Much shifts when we live in awareness and know in our hearts that despite what is thrown at us:
- We have choices and opportunities in every situation we face
- While things might happen to us, our internal compass helps us navigate
- We choose whether we want to be a character in someone’s story, or create our own path
- We decide how we react and not take on someone else’s fear or pain, or not
- We have a huge capacity to laugh, play and let go
- There is no destination in life—just life itself
This New Year is inviting us to change, and these invitations to transform will come constantly. We will have ample opportunities to examine our beliefs, behaviors, emotions, relationships, conflicts, and dance with possibilities.