From Surviving to Thriving: How your Essential Nature is Key

As humans, we ARE nature. Yet we often feel so far removed from nature in our current loud and fast world that sometimes we forget that we are made of some of the same genetic stuff as most other living organisms. Just as plants and animals instinctively know how to survive and thrive (two very different goals), humans also have innate and shaped tendencies that inform the living conditions we most prefer for our optimal growth. Plants and animals don't judge their own worth or their ways of thriving based on OTHER plants or animals. They don't take selfies or share posts in an effort to get a positive response. They just do their best each day to live based on their Essential Nature - their genetic and environmental needs. Yet we, as humans, have been taught to question or even abandon some of our inborn and learned preferences, so we end up living in ways that are unfulfilled and unbalanced. By first accepting that we are unique and that what we need to thrive is different than our parents or our partner or our friends, we can start to discover the environment and nutrients that help us move past self-judgment to a mindset that truly helps us to find contentment.

Learn how the basic rules of plant survival can be applied to our place in the world, and how this powerful template can help us connect to our Essential Nature and finally make the choices, unapologetically and from a place of self-acceptance, that align with who we are. 

Transcript

00::39

Hey, everyone. Welcome to no shrinking violets. I'm your host, Mary Rothwell. And today we're going to talk about Essential Nature. If you heard my last episode, you know that I mentioned it a few times, and I think it's crucial to figuring out what we want and need in life.

00:00:57

So before I go into explaining it or how I stumbled onto this whole idea of Essential Nature, I'm going to start with two quotes to give you the foundation of what we're going to talk about and to give you a framework. The first quote is by Andy Goldsworthy, and he said, “We often forget that we are Nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we've lost our connection to ourselves.”

I will talk more about this loss of connection to nature because I think it's certainly true. And I think we can think about it in several different ways, kind of that idea of what nature is.

00:01:45

And the second quote is from Debbie Ford and she said, “Remember all the answers are inside of you. You only have to become quiet enough to hear them.”

00:01:57

The idea of having this answer… these answers … on how we want to live inside of us. I believe that is true, and I have seen many, many clients who lost sight of that. Or if they think they know, they doubt themselves so much. It's very hard for them to even follow through with some of the things that they think they want or need.

00:02:26

So Essential Nature:

Everything has an essential nature, a way of being that is just part of its genetic makeup.

So plants, animals, insects and humans all start with a genetic code that tells us what we want and need.

00:02:59

What will make us thrive? What is the thing that we want the most or the thing that will get us to a sense of fulfillment and balance?

00:03:08

I will talk mostly about plants because I'm a gardener. I know plants – learning about them and marveling at them. They're just tremendously amazing to me.

But plants don't need to figure out who they are. They don't find themselves, and neither really for that matter, do insects or animals.

They are born knowing. They certainly know how to survive, and they know how to thrive, and those are vastly different goals.

00:03:41

And that's why being able to tune in to our Essential Nature is so crucial for us as humans, because that's how we thrive. We can go from surviving – getting by, feeling OK – to actually moving into the realm of thriving and finding joy.

00:04:04

So I'm going to guess you all have heard of Nature versus Nurture. All beings are formed by their genetics and their environment.

Even a plant that has unquestionable genetics, there's nothing that damaged it, it started off with an intact seed or it was propagated. If it's put in an environment where it doesn't get enough water or it doesn't get enough light, it's simply going to do what it can to survive. So interestingly, plants that are in a dark room with just a candle for light will grow toward that candle.

00:04:53

We are made to survive, but as humans we don't want to just survive. I mean, I don't even just want my plants to survive. I want them to thrive. So I think we need to understand what Essential Nature means generally and what it means for us.

So we're all born with natural tendencies. Natural inclinations. Let's say it's part of our genetics, just like our eye color, our hair color, how tall we're going to get. Things like how tall we're going to get, however, can be influenced by an unhealthy environment.

But if we look at just what our tendencies are, for instance, we prefer certain foods or environments. If we read, we prefer certain books. Or certain movies. Even with books, I have friends that prefer to read on an e-reader. I prefer paper books. Music. We prefer to be around certain people. Some of us even like certain kinds of weather. We have favorite seasons.

00:06:02

I think that we are born with a tendency to gravitate towards certain things where we feel comfortable, even things that might bring us joy.

00:06:14

Some of us are introverts. Some of us are extroverts. I think of this as Essential Nature. Mostly it's how we are born. But we can't divorce the impact of environment from our whole idea of Essential Nature, especially our early environment.

00:06:35

But we're going to talk about how that influences what our Essential Nature is today – how we have evolved to the preferences that we have and the ways that we can live that will make us feel the most fulfilled. When I think about an environment of youth: when you're an infant, maybe you have a favorite stuffed animal. You didn't decide that based on who gave it to you, because when you're young enough, you don't even know who that was.

00:07:06

You didn't decide that you don't like baby food peas or baby food pears, because your best friend doesn't like them. You just had that tendency, that natural inclination to like certain things. To gravitate towards certain people, certain noises, certain music.

That was all part of what you were born with. However, in that young environment, when we're infants and up through toddlerhood and even into our early childhood, we are shaped by everything that happens to us. 

00:07:49

So the stuffed animal… let's say that your mom had a favorite one because it was easiest to put it in the washer and get it clean. She might put that in front of you more often, and that might become your favorite.

Or maybe there is something that is more of a negative influence. Let's say you grew up in an environment where there was a lot of yelling. So you're either going to grow up to be very comfortable with that – and I know people who had home environments that were very loud. They weren't necessarily conflicted. They were just loud.

Noisy environments make me uncomfortable, but they don't make everyone uncomfortable. But if you had an early environment that was loud but also angry or violent, you may have become someone who is very uncomfortable with loud noises.

00:08:52

So you can see how, when you were born, your genetics, you didn't have a preference, but you can learn to have preferred environments based on how we're associating the things that we grow up with.

When we think about Essential Nature, it's really about what place, environment or life situation that makes you the happiest now. Or let's take the word happy away. Because happy, I think, can mean a lot of different things. And I think if we focus on always being happy, that's not attainable. So let's think about feeling content or feeling fulfilled or just feeling that we're in the right place.

00:09:37

That's a combination of how we were born, just what we naturally want to do, whether we want to be an athlete or we want to play an instrument or we want to have certain foods or we don't like alcohol. Whatever preferences we have and how that was shaped by our environment. So if I put it in the context of plants:

00:10:07

Plants have different growing environments that they need to survive, but also to thrive. So the one big part of that is called a Zone.

A climate zone is where a plant will survive. So to give you an example, a dandelion has a large continuum of zones where it will survive. The lower the zone, the colder it is. I live in Pennsylvania. That is about Zone 6A.

Zones are determined by how cold it gets, because most plants, not all, but a lot of plants, can survive warmer temperatures, but frost. Freezing will kill a plant. So plants that we find in tropical zones, there's a reason there aren't palm trees growing in Pennsylvania. It gets too cold for them in the winter.

00:11:04

But a dandelion can survive from Zone 3, which is pretty darn cold, up through the tropical zones.

Now, does that mean it's always going to look as healthy and robust as it might in the middle of that zone continuum? No. But we all have a Zone where we're most comfortable. So I tend to think of a Zone for humans that might be geographic. You might really want to live somewhere warm.

00:11:34

Other people don't want to live in Florida because it's too humid. It's too warm. Some people want to live in Maine. They like that fresh coldness. So sometimes it's geographic.

Sometimes it's just what type of environment we create around us. I know for me when I would buy a house, I would always look for how many windows it has. Even in my car: I know it's not as safe, but I want a car that has a lot of light.

00:12:01

And that's another requirement for plants. Some plants need sun, and some plants need way more shade because in the sun they're going to burn up.

00:12:12

So if we think about the Zone where we're comfortable, maybe that's geographic. Or we're really uncomfortable in crowds. We're really uncomfortable in a situation where we are alone. Some people do not like to be alone. Some people like a lot of solitude, so what does your zone look like? Are you an extrovert? Are you an introvert? Naturally listening to what your body feels like in certain situations.

When you're not comfortable, try to tune into that. And then this idea of the sun/shade or even wet/dry conditions: plants need certain situations. So if we think about the sun as heat, and we think about shade as coolness.

If you're in a situation where there's a lot of pressure, I'm going to say that's a very hot, sunny situation. Some people are motivated by that and some people shut down.

00:13:26

If there's a lot of connection, that may be a positive connotation of warmth. If you're in, let's say, a work situation and you feel connected to your coworkers, that can be a positive. Some people really want that.

There are other people that want to go to work, do their job and leave, and if we look at it again in plant terms, maybe that's like a shady environment. You want it cool, you don't need that warm connection.

00:13:57

There are also different kinds of root systems. Some plants, like a dandelion, have what's called a taproot. It goes very deep so it can pull nutrients from deep in the earth.

So if you are a person that has a very strong connection to your environment, to your community, you can't ever imagine leaving.

You might have deep roots there. There are other types of root systems that are very shallow – right under the soil – but they spread out a lot, so they have the ability to pull in nutrients and moisture from a much wider area than the root of a dandelion.

00:14:40

So maybe you are that person. Maybe what sustains you is variety. You may have a lot of friendships, maybe a lot of friendships that aren't deep friendships, but you're OK with that. You have a lot of acquaintances.

You can get enjoyment from a lot of different kinds of “nutrients.”

00:15:00

And there are a lot of variables in between those types of root systems, too. So thinking about what sustains you, do you need to feel very connected to your workplace? Do you need to feel a very deep connection to your partner? Or do you want more space? Do you like to have a lot of your own interests? And then come together with your partner and share certain things? Does that make you feel closer to them, to actually have separation? Or you a person to whom the relationship is the most important focus for you, your priority in life?

00:15:42

Nutrients. What are the things that sustain you? And this is actually food, you know, there may be foods that you can't eat, things that you can't stand or things that upset your stomach or ways that your digestive system works. We can think about nutrients as our social scene. If you've gone to college, you're with hundreds of people your own age.

There's a lot of social stuff happening, and if that includes parties or drinking, going out, having a good time, dancing… as you move into the work world or you find and settle down with a partner or you want to have children, you may not want to do those things anymore.

So that was something you enjoyed for that time in your life, but that's not naturally how you're wired. You prefer to settle down, be connected. You're more sustained by solid relationships.

00:16:48

The other thing with nutrients is thinking about what you need to feel fulfilled. Do you need to read certain books? Do you need some down time? Do you need a job where you have a lot of autonomy? Do you want a job where you get a lot of guidance or a lot of feedback? Understanding we have a feeling inside – when we feel off balance or off center or just generally not OK, it could be that wherever we're trying to grow is a mismatch with the environment that we're actually in.

00:17:31

When we think about our Essential Nature – and I'm hoping you're starting to get an idea of what this means for you: What if you felt really connected at one point or you felt very balanced and good where you were. And as time went on, you started to feel disconnected, disenfranchised, maybe like you don't belong anywhere.

00:17:56

It could be that the environment around you changed.

And it doesn't feel good any more. Maybe you had a relationship that felt really great in the beginning.

And it doesn't feel right anymore. And it's not necessarily that there's a big issue that's a deal breaker, like violence or other issues that are really, really unhealthy. It just might be that that place you are with that person or that relationship doesn't match your Essential Nature anymore.

00:18:36

That can happen with a job. You can outgrow a job, or you can outgrow the climate of a job. That can change a lot. 

You don't feel that you are thriving there anymore. So if you are in situations where you start to feel that it's not a match for you anymore – there are just things about it that make you yearn for something different – that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you, and it doesn't mean you have to try harder. I think it means you have to look inside at what it feel like. And if you could create something that would make you feel grounded and fulfilled, what would that look like?

00:19:21

So let me tell you about a few ways we can lose our way. So we have this genetic blueprint we were born with. And we have these environmental inputs and those are like family of origin that we talked about. They can be traumatic events. There can be one huge event in your timeline that you realize totally changed the trajectory of your life. Changed how you react to situations. It could be a lot of little things. It could be losing a pet at an age when you were going through a lot of change. 

It could be having a sibling added to the family at a point where maybe you were being bullied at school. Like a lot of the things that can come into our lives, the impact of them is informed by what's happening around that event.

00:20:15

The other part of how our Essential Nature forms and what impacts it can be other relatives, the community or neighborhood where we live. Our school.

If you have a school where there's a lot of opportunity, or you are protected and allowed to be an individual, that can be a positive impact. Maybe you might not learn math as easily as other people, or you have a reading comprehension problem, or you realize you're gender fluid. In some environments you're going to be allowed to express those aspects, and in other environments, you may feel like you can't or you won't feel safe.

00:21:03

The friends that we have totally impact how we can express our Essential Nature, as well as what we read and consume through movies and books, even what we eat. Physical nourishment.

The rules around eating that your family had can impact you, too. There're so many things that impact our Essential Nature.

And one of the biggest things for our young people, and even for us older folx in the last 15 years, is social media.

00:21:35

Let’s think about plants again: a plant doesn't worry about what the other plants think. If it needs more sun, it's going to grow towards the sun and if it leans towards other plants to do that, it doesn't worry about what they think about that. Or if it has to lean away from the other plants to get to the light, it doesn't worry about that. If it prefers sun or it prefers shade, it doesn't look around to think, “Well, this is what I would like to do. I wonder if the other plants are going to think I'm weird.”

00:22:12

Humans have evolved over time. We have this thing called a neocortex. Basically, it's our cerebral cortex. It's the part of our brain that's responsible for higher cognitive functions. So our language, our thinking and complex information processing. Animals have this, too.

Dogs certainly have the ability to process complex information. I mean, certainly a dog's prefrontal cortex is not as big as a human’s.

But ours is very, very evolved and this is wonderful. Until it's not. Because many times that works against us. So if we, as kids, have this Essential Nature that we are manifesting…we're living it and we gravitate towards what we gravitate toward. Then we hit an age when society comes in.

And it can come in with a vengeance, especially if we don't naturally fit with what we're “supposed to” do, say, be. 

00:23:33

We start to compare when we are using social media.

First of all, we're consuming it very rapidly.

All of those messages coming in make it very difficult to feel what we need or what we want. We might start to feel restless. I know if I'm on social media for too long, I just don't feel good; it makes me feel off balance.

But again, I didn't grow up with it, so it can be harder for younger people to separate that. Social media is a very, very unique platform for information because it's not linear like a TV show or a book. It's also based on an algorithm, so it's going to continue to give us more of what we're consuming, and maybe it will throw in a random thing just to see what we do with it. But we also consume it very quickly.

00:24:23

What has happened with that input of online information and social media is, first of all, it revs up our tendency to compare ourselves to others.

Comparison is actually useful. Infants look to the adults around them to know how they're supposed to react. If there's a loud noise, something that startles them, they're typically going to look to an adult to see how the adult reacts. “Ohh, is that scary? Should I be scared?” Or is it OK?  

When there's an adult in their lives that might react to a situation one time by laughing, and the next time with anger, that can be the root of anxiety.

00:25:07

But we are wired to compare because again, everything nature does is to survive. We learn by comparing, partially so we know now to fit into our community. Part of our survival is necessarily being part of a community.

00:25:20

That's why we have oxytocin, which is the cuddle hormone. We have things that connect us naturally to others because it's a lot harder to survive as one person versus as a member of a community. So we are wired to compare.

00:25:39

Now, interestingly, if you've ever heard the saying, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” (that's Theodore Roosevelt) … it's not really the thief of joy because we're supposed to compare. It's when we judge it. 

It's when we judge ourselves based on what we're seeing from other people that we lose our joy. So to bring that back around to social media: we don't even know it, but that is the ultimate “comparison equals judgment” machine.

It's predicated on putting information out there that people respond to positively. And it's also now a forum where people can respond negatively with no consequence. So if we go back even 20 years, we learned that our actions hurt people because we would see that reaction. That's how we form empathy.

00:26:36

When we say something hurtful, most of us that have healthy limbic systems – emotional systems – are bothered by the reaction of others. We don't want to hurt someone. But when you're behind a screen, you can say whatever you want with immunity. And we even know that kids’ empathy is developing years later than in the past. I think it used to be around age 8. Now it's age 12. 

00:27:06

When we put our ability to connect with our Essential Nature in the context of the world today, it's very, very difficult even as adults, and especially as women, because as women, we were sort of set up to compare ourselves and to judge each other. 

That's really difficult. When we have a way of being – a way that we prefer to be – but we don't feel like that's OK – that’s hard. So let's say you really don't want to color your hair.

00:27:41

But there's certainly an unwritten script saying that, if you don't take care of yourself, you don't care about yourself. Or if you let your skin just naturally develop its wrinkles – you know, our laugh lines and our expressions – we are much more aware of that now because of social media. 

00:28:01

Because when we take a picture, whether we realize it or not, we're comparing that to other women. We're seeing women who use a filter. Which, hey, if you want to use a filter, that's fine. Sometimes I use filters.

00:28:17

Most women now do something to change their appearance, whether it's as simple as hair color or it's collagen injections, or it's Botox, whatever that might be. We've sort of lost a sense of what a 50 year old face typically looks like. What does a 60 year old face typically look like?

And part of that is because we've also learned to use things like sunscreen, but we relentlessly can compare ourselves. And if someone posts something showing that they had all this fun on a trip, and they went with this group and you're thinking, “Well, I don't want to travel with a group,” or “I don't really want to travel. I like staying home.” Or you see people go out for New Year's Eve (that's the last thing I want to do is go out for New Year's Eve). 

00:29:09

We can start to feel like we're not OK because we're looking at all of these things that we're seeing online, even friends that we’re very close to, and we're recognizing that we don't agree with some of the choices, behaviors or even simply opinions they have.

00:29:26

We've gotten very far from being able to not only hear our Essential Nature – what we typically want to be, do, and how we like to think about the world – we've gotten so far from that we can't really hear it any more. Or if we do, we question it. I think one of the things I would challenge you to do is, when you're in a situation where you recognize that something's making you uncomfortable, figure out what your body feels like. You're going to hold that in your body; it's going to be tightness in your chest or you're going to realize that your shoulders are hunched up.

One of the things about relaxing is letting your tongue drop away from the roof of your mouth. These are signs of tension. If you recognize them, first of all, take a deep breath, shoulders back and down, drop your tongue from the roof of your mouth, but reflect on what's happening.

00:30:26

Are you internally feeling like, “I need to be a certain way. But that's not who I am”? Really think about this. 

I'm going to put it in the framework of a plant. I want you to think about whether you have a certain zone you like. Do you want to be really chill, not connected? Do you like things to be very warm and close with your friends?

Do you have a certain root system? Do you want to go very deep, like a tap root, and have one or two very close friends stay in the community where you've lived for your whole life? Do you want to spread out? Do you not want to feel too close, to have too many friends until you feel you can't maintain those connections?

Where do you get your nutrients? What charges you up? Do you need more time with people? Do you need less time with people?

00:31:16

Do you need to actually get out in nature? And that takes me back to the first quote. We have become disconnected from nature. We have substituted other things for being outside. We’re on screens more. We have climate controlled homes. We have glass in our cars that’s tinted. You know, there're so many things that are now separating us from how nature feels.

00:31:43

And we need nature. We don't only need to recognize that we are nature and that any way of being, as long as it's not hurting someone else, is OK. Plants don't judge each other. Animals don't judge each other. They each have their own growing conditions where they will thrive.

Every plant species, every animal species, every insect! There are certain flowers where certain insects can more easily get to the pollen. We all have our place, and we all have an Essential Nature. That is OK just because it exists. So start to open your heart.

00:32:27

And look inside yourself and figure out what are the times, places, people, events, pursuits, what are the things that align with who I really am and who I really want to be? 

And that's when I think you're going to click in and connect to your Essential Nature.

00:32:46

We don't judge plants because they need certain things. If we have a plant that dies, we don't blame the plant. We know that we did something wrong. It needed something that we couldn't give it. So if we're not thriving, if you're just surviving, figure out what you need. Don't blame yourself. You need some things that you're not getting to reach that point of fulfillment and thriving. 

00:33:07

If you enjoyed what we talked about today, feel free to comment, ask questions, make suggestions. You can find me at maryrothwell.net and you can find me on social media at Mary Rothwell Integrative Wellness on Facebook and maryrothwell_lpc on Instagram. Until we talk again, go out into the world and be the amazing, vibrant Violet that you are.