Respond / React?

I love the redwood forest. When I enter the forest and start taking in the cool crisp air, I feel a sense of calm and steadiness throughout my body. I have found it to be very beneficial to meet the stresses of life from a place of steadiness and calm. However, it’s not always easy to access this sense of calm – especially in moments of stress.

It is much easier to focus on our unhelpful thoughts, conflicts, and the seemingly increasing chaos in the wider world, and to react to them with unhelpful anger, frustration or fear. A calm state of mind, heart, and body enables us to respond in a more positive way. When I remember to resource myself by visualizing being in the redwood forest, I can rest in this space until a response becomes clear. And if a response isn’t apparent, it’s perfectly OK to do nothing – sometimes that’s the wise course.

“Between the stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl