The Bigger Picture View Brings Healing & Mental Wellness
When I learned about The Overview Effect, I felt like I finally had a word for that feeling I have when I get lost in the drama of nature and start to feel just a bit smaller as a human being. It brings back a sense of humility, of being connected to something bigger than myself, and essentially my multidimensionality.
One of the things I’m interested in is the way hierarchies and systems of supremacies cut individuals off from the wider human body, so they’re not able to emphathize, or feel the pain of another. I once heard Jeannette Armstrong describe our Okanagan definitions of insanity, and one of them is ‘cut off from your whole earth part.’
- excerpt from, Turn This World Inside Out by, Nor Samara
Confession: one of my self soothing and decompression activities is to watch nature documentaries. Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Nature, you name it…I can get lost in it when my physical and mental being need a break from this daily life. Growing up as a latch-key kid in San Jose, the TV was where I turned to for my nature fix because it brought me the mystery and curiosity of the natural world. And it’s what that kept me close to a place that wasn’t “here”.
And after what seems like a lifetime of cultivating this love I have for nature, I recently found about this term that Astronauts know of as, “The Overview Effect”(watch the 15 min video with astronauts). When they’re there out in space, the view of Earth somehow changes the way you see your place on the planet. So when I learned about it, I felt like I finally had a word for that feeling I have when I get lost in the drama of nature and start to feel just a bit smaller as a human being. It brings back a sense of humility, of being connected to something bigger than myself, and essentially my multidimensionality. I realized this is what continues to nurture me and my mental health as my external environment seems to be imploding in on itself.
Now, if you’ve been to any of my talks, workshops, or trainings you know that this is the central message I give to manage the deep work many of us are doing in social justice and community organizing: our wholeness IS our wellness. And even if you’re not in social impact work, the lines between corporate and community-based are quickly fading.
So, if you’re curious about understanding the power of this nature-based approach to your work and everyday navigation through life, I offer my unique, nature-based way to engage with this material and begin your journey towards more self-awareness and intentional impact potential to your work.
You can start easily by reading more about my Radical Nature Framework and how this shapes the work of engaging with nature’s systems to heal our relationships with each other. Sharing this framework has been a profound exercise helping folks understand DEI, cultivate a social justice lens, explore spiritual guidance, and bring conscious land-based work forward. All this, guided by looking towards the natural world. Check out Our Approach and reflect on what comes up for you when you read about this framework.
Find that moment to tap into that Overview Effect by taking a walk in nature, visiting a local botanical garden, or zoning out on the next episode of a nature documentary! And share with me:
What views and experiences in nature bring you back to
a sense of wholeness and interconnectedness?
Nature & the Apocalypse - Tapping Into Your Untapped Resources
In apocalyptic times it’s easy to forget about the multiple dimensions of resources we all have to make it through challenging times.
So I thought I’d break down these dimensions unique to my message and what I created as a pillar of the Radical Nature Framework. It’s like a breath of fresh air to just acknowledge that we exist on multiple planes.
Nature & the Apocalypse
Your Untapped Resources
In apocalyptic times it’s easy to forget about the multiple dimensions of resources we all have to make it through challenging times.
So I thought I’d break down these dimensions unique to my message and what I created as a pillar of the Radical Nature Framework.
Click this image of Terry Crews & Jameela Jamil in conversation about toxic masculinity and an emphasis on 2 ways that people get inspired (1:34).
I remember talking to my business coach and he asked me, ”What is it that actually motivates people to get a real start on their true life’s work and invest in the real support needed to get there?”. And I responded and told him that we typically don’t take a leap until we get to our extremes. So, near-death experiences or arriving at what might seem like the lowest point in your life will get someone to take action. Those are usually the times when we generally see people create their businesses or “launch” their life’s work. Not everyone needs to get to extremes, but I see it as an example of a general human tendency.
Today, I’d say there’s also this apocalypse. And by apocalypse, I’m taking its root definition, below. Our ability to now see the truths of our world has caused us to face, head-on the many things we need to repair and heal to move forward.
Not what we expected as an apocalypse the way Hollywood depicted it? What we’re faced with is an existential crisis. And this existential crisis requires us to ask the deeper questions about WHO WE ARE and WHAT OUR PURPOSE IS while we’re here on this Earth.
I think this is why when I introduce my “Belonging & Identity” diagram to groups it seems to be the illustration that hits people viscerally in what work needs to happen to make it through to see what world we’ll arrive to after all of this chaos.
Source: etymonline.com
Why does it seem to hit home for most? I’m guessing that this is the missing piece in the narrative of leadership, organizational development, or entrepreneurship;
the fact that we are made up of more than just our human existence
We have multiple dimensions of being and our sense of belonging to things not ONLY this Earth. It’s like a breath of fresh air to just acknowledge that we exist on multiple planes. And this is what came to me when I took a deeper look into nature’s systems from multiple disciplines; science, spiritually, coaching, etc…
So let me break down each of the dimensions as they relate to our human sense of identity and belonging and leave you with some ways to start thinking about this for yourself.
The goal is that you can find the many untapped resources of your resilience and begin engaging with these dimensions as the world as we know it begins to dissolve….
Look at the multiple dimensions of your being, from the human self all the way into the expansion of your place in the Quantum or Universal Realm.
How do you relate to each dimension?
How does each dimension show up in your life?
Consider answering the questions posed with the breakdown of each of these dimensions below:
SELF - your body, DNA, physical abilities, capacity to intellectualize, living family, existence in your specific life time
REGION/LAND - the place on the planet where your ancestors come from, your lineage, all the specific plants and animals found in that region, your capacity to relate to particular plants and animals because they are part of your origin story
GLOBAL - the world’s resources, the things we all have as a global human species like emotions, basic needs, our capacity to see yourself in others (kapwa), our connection to land and water on this Earth
PLANETARY - your connection to the stars/planets/solar system, your birth chart, your capacity to see your spiritual position in relation to the Earth and other starts
QUANTUM/UNIVERSAL - our collective consciousness, the place where everything exists and belongs to, beyond the stars. It’s the universal energy of our existence, your capacity to reach your ancestors and become one and back and forth...
