Personal Development: Messages From Nature

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Personal Development: Life Coach Jean o’Connor brings us messages from Nature, collected across the seasons.

Spring – The path of least resistance: As temperatures timidly tiptoe upwards, the cold recedes and the ice begins to melt, I’m struck by the fact that Nature will always follow the path of least resistance. Water flowing around rocks, trees growing over and around and in between.

However, somehow that tenet doesn’t seem to have been adopted by society, with that draw to resistance eventually developing into fighting for this and fighting against that, war rooms and differences assumed. That all too familiar us versus them that we see attached to even the most noble causes.

But maybe the more we let go, the more things will flow, maybe it’s not us versus them, but just me and you, and you, and you. All different, yes – but why the need to sand down each other’s differences to enter into an individualized concept of right and wrong, good or bad?

Perhaps if we can begin to feel comfortable with the differences between each of us, rather than judging one and applauding the other, perhaps if we can resist a little less and flow a little more, perhaps then we could begin to open up the roads to greater understanding. And those are the roads that will ultimately lead to a clearing occupied by less opposition and greater harmony, on any scale – lover to lover, neighbour to neighbour, colleague to colleague, country to country, mindset to mindset. I’d like to see where that path could lead.

Summer – The thud of lemons: As liquid gold continues to melt over our endless weeks of summer, I’m struck by the lemon trees in my garden – their fruit is so full and heavy that they are yearning to be picked, and yet at some point drop down to earth with a thud of their own accord. A specific day and a specific time for every single one of them, and yet impossible to predict when this will be.

It’s as if nature had a secret time code for each and every lemon – the secrecy part of its
intrinsic beauty. Similar to childbirth when one cannot know the specific time it will all begin (and yet begin it will), there is no forcing it, no more than we can force the sun to rise or a flower to bloom.

That yearning to ‘know’, to ‘get right now’, to ‘have today’ is so often with us. I am reminded of the first lines of a poem by David Whyte: “Let the apple ripen on the branch, beyond your need to take it down.” That deep let go is a wonderful albeit at times excruciating exercise in and of itself. As nature knows when the time is right, your body does as well. The secret perhaps then is to be very, very quiet… and listen for the thud of your own inner lemons.