The Nature Embedded Mind

“We are nature” is a comforting phrase until you notice how often you live like you’re outside of it. 

I sit down with Julie Brams, author of The Nature Embedded Mind, to explore what actually helps that idea land in the body not as a belief, but as a lived experience that changes how we breathe, choose, and relate.

Julie brings her work as an earth-centred psychotherapist and a nature and forest therapy guide, unpacking why reconnection is an experiential healing. We talk about forest bathing and nature therapy as a repeatable practice: starting with the senses, letting the human “expert” step back, and allowing other-than-human beings to become our teachers. Along the way we explore a simple but profound reframe: what if the question “What can I give?” is a better starting point than “What can I get?”

We also get practical and evidence-based, touching on the science around stress, cortisol, nervous system regulation, and immune function, and why these benefits may be the body returning to reality rather than gaining a “boost”. From there we widen the lens to culture: separation, ranking, and the way “Am I enough?” grows out of a worldview that forgets we are linked not ranked. Julie shares why trust, intuition, and what she calls mental sovereignty matter, especially when shame tells us to stay small.

If you’ve been craving belonging, steadiness, and a more grounded relationship with the Earth, press play. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a breath of wildness, and leave us a review to help more listeners find the path back to enoughness.

You can connect with Julie on Instagram and LinkedIn, and  learn more  ExperienceElemental.com

Thank you for listening and taking the time to explore our podcast.

Earthaconter: Connection, Exploration and Expansion
www.earthaconter.org

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Lyn Man 0:00

Welcome to I Am Enough, the space where we explore journeys back to our forgotten birthright of enoughness, to draw natural wisdom along with awareness, acceptance, and compassion. To support each of us on that journey and embrace our wholeness. Despite what society tells us, each one of us is enough exactly as we are. My name is Lyn Man, and I'd like to welcome you to this space where we explore enoughness, people's journeys along the path to feeling I am enough, and look at what can support each of us on that journey. Hello and welcome to another episode of I Am Enough, the space where we embrace our wholeness. So today I have with me Julie Brams. Now, Julie comes with this question: what if the way we think can heal our planet and ourselves? So this is what she proposes in her book, The Nature Embedded Mind, how the way we think can heal our planet and ourselves. Identifying how to seeing ourselves as part of nature rather than separate from it can support healing of both. As an association of nature and forest therapy, forest therapy guide, and an earth-centered psychotherapist, Julie integrates earth-centered psychotherapy, neuropsychology, meditation, and nature immersion to help individuals and communities heal their relationships with Earth, the rest of nature, and themselves. Julie is also the co-founder of Elemental, a nature-informed retreat and education organization, the core of whose mission is to help people remember how to listen to Earth, drawing on curiosity and playfulness to relearn what our ancestors and indigenous contemporaries knew. You can connect with Julie on Instagram, LinkedIn, and learn more at experienceelemental.com. I will include the links in the notes. So welcome Julie.

From Knowing To Embodying Nature

Lyn Man 2:18

Thank you so much for joining me here today. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Great. So this is something I took out of a sentence I took from your book. The healing we need is more than telling a different story simply by rewording it. It's an experiential healing. Now, one of the reasons I've picked up on that particularly is because I've noticed on Instagram, for example, there's a lot of posts that say we are nature. And to me, there's very much a difference between intellectually knowing it, thinking about it, and actually embodying it. And so what I would love is to hear your own personal story, because you've talked in the book about your childhood and that awareness starting to form then. But I'd love to understand your personal story going from that case of thinking about it intellectually, exploring it, maybe recreating the story, but then really embodying what it feels like to actually be nature.

Julie Brams 3:39

Mm-hmm. It's a really good question because I think this is, you know, one of the challenges in talking about this topic is that, you know, on some level, we do know we are nature. That's not a surprise. You know, I had someone say to me, What's so hard about understanding this? I said, nothing. There's nothing hard about understanding it. What happens is we don't operate in that system. So this is why I was looking for, you know, and in the book, I talk about how long it took me to find, for me as a psychologist, something that was standardized and repeatable, a method that actually reconnects people to the rest of nature, which in itself is a process, you know. So it's not like you do this one time and boom, you're reconnected. Because, you know, our culture, Western civilization anyway, is consistently sort of tearing us apart from the the way of being embedded in the planet. So, you know, where I really learned what I'm talking about right now is through this certification of becoming a nature and forest therapy guide. And that is through ANFT, which is brainchild of a man named Amos Clifford, who synthesized Shinyon Yoku, which is forest bathing from Japan, his own psychological, you know, psychotherapy practice, and like wilderness tracking. Anyway, what's most important as a guide is to understand that you are not the therapist, you are not the placeholder of the healing or the intelligence. Rather, it's nature itself. So the first thing a guide needs to do is start to unlearn this kind of human-dominating way that we live our lives and step aside and let people interact with other than humans to restore their relationship and remember how to be in relationship with other than humans. So, yeah, these embodied practices meaning that we are connecting first to our own body as nature, that we, and this is like sensory awareness, this isn't necessarily new, but bringing it all together so that you're first noticing through your senses what's happening in your environment. And preferably it's out of doors. But, you know, as we were saying earlier when we were talking, nature is all around us. We're never not in nature. So one might even imagine indoors, what am I, what other being am I connected to? That's maybe like a little invitation, but in the out of doors, noticing what does this place sound like? What does this place smell like? But also including yourself. So as we move through each sense, we're also noticing what do I sound like? You know, am I making, is there a sound coming from me, or is there a sound I want to add so that we remember or we're part of this web of life? We're part of this system. Because normally what humans do is we've been taught to separate ourselves out and then observe like it's it's out there and we're not really part of it. And that leads to a lot of trouble. It leads to a lot of kind of you know, personal systemic damage and then environmental damage if we are going to make that separation. But you can see through this a new paradigm shift where one understands that they are the planet. There is no difference between harm that comes to me and harm that comes to the environment. It's harm. And we can learn to move differently through our life that reduces that harm to ourselves and to the other beings that we co-create earth with.

Lyn Man 8:38

So

Forest Therapy For Real Reconnection

Lyn Man 8:39

with that, and it and again coming back to that that separation, and that and I love the fact that someone said to you, but how is that so difficult a concept to understand? Because it is almost like deep inside we know that. Because we've built layers and layers around ourselves and don't let ourselves feel in a lot of cases. And and just allowing ourselves to do that and to feel what's going on inside ourselves as well as what's going on around us is what I'm hearing you're saying. But it's almost coming back when we're seeing things, seeing ourselves as part of everything rather than separate. It brings with it a deeper feeling of connection in a way, and belonging. So for you personally, what was that experience like? Like how did you when you s were going through um your training and really going through that that program, how did you feel those those changes coming into you?

Julie Brams 10:19

Yeah, I think the first part of it was really being in a container that wouldn't, for example, answer my questions. The humans would not, you know, are calling them humans, but you know, the people that were teaching would had the understanding that if they answer a question for me, I'm not learning it from the other than humans. And it's, you know, we do have a default. So I told the story in the book of when I arrived at the campground where we were doing our training in the woods up in Northern California, there was a fragrance that I had never encountered before. And it was, oh my God, it was beautiful. And so I turned to, you know, my trainer and I said, What is that smell, you know? And he said, I don't know. How would you find out? So right there, he's stepping out of the role of authority and letting what turned out to be a California Bay Laurel tree become my teacher. So then having to, for example, and it sounds, you know, it's simple, but it's deep, you know, by following the fragrance, locating the tree, touching the leaves, you know, smelling, you know, I'm now in relationship with that other than human being. And now we can start to be family. You know, so this is again, I'm, and you mentioned, you know, this idea of going back to the way our all of our ancestors at one point in time, no matter how far back we have to go, and our indigenous contemporaries relate to other than human beings as family, as tin, not as objects to be used or extracted from. So this is part of the that healing. Once, you know, now I've entertained ideas like the tree was starting a conversation with me by emitting that fragrance. The tree got my attention. So thinking in those ways that are much more animist or relational, and then letting yourself, you know, you know, stepping outside of your own embarrassment or shame or discomfort to follow that potential, you know. If this is family, what can I learn about them and what can I give to them? Because our paradigm, and I can talk more about what I think, you know, why as a psychologist, I think this is crucial. But our paradigm that we operate under is that we that that the planet is here or nature is here for our use, for our extraction, for what we can get out of it. And so this way of thinking to reroot what I've been calling rerooting back into the rest of nature has to lead with what can I give? What am I giving? And we can already look at what am I naturally giving? Because we are, we're breathing with the trees, we're doing many things unconsciously, but to bring it into attention and you know, attention and intention, how how can I notice what this being might need? How do I learn to trust that if I ask that question and I get something that feels like an answer, whether that's an image or an impulse or maybe words, how can I begin to trust that that's actually a dialogue that we're really communicating? And then I can, you know, give that thing. You know, I say in the book too, we do it already. We our culture has allowed us to do this with a handful of species. We're allowed to bond with cats and dogs and, you know, maybe birds or, you know, our pets without too much ridicule. If we say, oh my gosh, we know what we're saying, the dog knows what I'm thinking, I know what the dog needs. We don't shame each other for that. But if we take that same skill set and we move it towards a cactus or a river, then people are like, whoa, that's crazy. And you know, what's really crazy is this artificial, no, you can do it with a cat, but you can't do it with a river. It doesn't really make sense. That's just, and and again, that's not what our ancestors ever believed. And that's not what our indigenous family members believe. So yeah.

Lyn Man 15:38

Yeah.

Learning Relationship Through The Bay Tree

Lyn Man 15:39

That's so true. And I think even, you know, when we we look at, you know, the the houses we're in or the cars we're driving, we're we're keeping ourselves separate. And it's again, it's an art artificial barrier that's keeping us as there. But I just love that story of actually just because I think, you know, in um in society as well, we've got there's a lot of hierarchy, there's a lot of expert culture, whereas what you're describing is actually letting go of that and actually learning to trust yourself and trust that what you're sensing in whatever form it emerges to you, and it's going to be different for everybody, is right, and it's okay, and just to trust that. And I love that because I think that that feel as you say that there's a people initially feel uncomfortable, or there's as you say, that that that feeling of shame if you're out. And I I remember years ago when I would go out and just sit with the tree, and it would be that if somebody else was coming along and you know, I'd just be sitting, breathing, or whatever, and just connecting in relation to that tree. But at times you'd feel very self-conscious because it's kind of people be like, what what are you doing kind of thing. Right. And I think there is very much that that in Western society we it's not it's not seen as as normal anymore. And and even just an awareness. So growing up, for example, my you know, my my dad was a a big walker, they would go out into the the Scottish Hills, mountains with his friends, but he was always very aware of what was going on around him, and he would stop and and look at things and really take it in. And he was about ten years older than his friends, and they always thought he was doing it to actually slow the walk down until they realized he was actually could walk just as far as they are in as quick a time. And then they started to actually become much more aware of their surroundings. And I think, you know, the where I'm going with this is that we actually, you know, see people out walking and they'll have earbuds in or they'll be listening to something or talking on a phone. And they've they lose that there is no awareness of where they are, e you know, in relation to anything other than the fact that they're walking and probably their brain is going. So so for me it's really beautiful just to, you know, for people to learn that practice as you've described it, to come back into yourself. But actually to to follow the as you used to say, that that scent of the the tree and and see where it's coming from, and to stand with that and and just be with it without even necessarily any uh expectation, but just to allow things things to emerge. Mm-hmm. And I just love from that to go to the you know, we're talking about healing, but the mental health aspect, the you know, there's there's so many benefits from from us being out in the the natural world. But you know, mental health is a big thing and you know, with forest bathing is you find it in the UK now, it's becoming much more popular. And it it is sold on sold in inverted commerce on its the mental health benefits, really. But there's there's so much more. But for me, I think it's starting when we're on that journey, we have to start as you said, it becomes a practice. It's not just you do this once and you know it you've you build up, it's like going around in a a spiral almost that you're you're constantly connecting and embodying in different ways. So so from your perspective in what you've seen uh in forest therapy, but also as uh a psychologist, uh what do you see as the real uh benefits? And I know that's again that's a human term, but but looking from that perspective, uh can we if maybe even actually looking at from both? So looking at it from this perspective first of the to the human, but then to the rest of of nature and to to us, you know so start almost from the place we're at and going out, but what are those healing benefits?

Nature’s Effects On Body And Mind

Julie Brams 21:33

Yeah, I think it's a really important thing to to talk about because so for example, another way that nature therapy or forest bathing is promoted is through the physical benefits, right? So and this is all scientifically proven, so we don't have to worry too much that we're woo-woo because science. Science is exploding around this data. For example, you know, if you spend, I think it's like 20 minutes with an evergreen tree in particular, but a tree, but evergreen trees in particular, they emit physics. Probably you know this, probably your listeners know this. But what it does also is because we co-evolved with trees, the tree begins to read our immune system. And what happens is our, you know, natural killer cells raise back up. I'm gonna say raise back up to where they should be. You know, people will say, oh, it'll boost your immune system. But the fact is, is we live in a way that depletes us. We're living at sub-optimal levels in our body from being indoors and from being on screens. And, you know, so going to the mental health part, you know, obviously there is, again, documented evidence that people, you know, that there's lower, lowering of anxiety, lowering of cortisol levels, you know, so it's our stress levels are attended to when we're out in the rest of nature. But what I want to talk about really is this coming back to reality. You know, we are nature. And through no fault of our own, you know, there was an idea implanted and enforced in our mind around 500 BCE that mandated in in very harsh ways that we stop being in relationship with nature, that we now must believe that we are divided and that we are ranked, as you said, this hierarchy we are superior to, and that anyone who doesn't now follow this will be brutalized. We can look at the history and we can all talk about why that happened, but it happened, and now we're 150 generations or so having forgotten that that's not how we are optimal, and that's not reality. And so what I think is important to realize is that when we come back in our mind into a framework that acknowledges reality, that we are from Earth, we're part of Earth, our nervous system immediately drops because we're no longer pretending to be something else. You know, it takes an awful lot of energy to be in denial, takes a lot of energy to walk around in this gas-lit state that when we come back to reality, immediately our nervous system settles. So, you know, mental health is, you know, very big on understanding now neuroscience and nervous system. And, you know, I mean, I think everybody on Instagram is looking at polyvagal theory. Yeah.

Lyn Man 25:43

It's amazing, isn't it? How you can see this trend starting to come out.

Julie Brams 25:48

Yeah. And it's but and and I also feel like that's sort of like our own nature wanting to be allowed again. Yeah. Allowed and allowed. Um, yeah. But so when our nervous system settles, we behave very differently. You know, we're not scared, we're not as scared, we're not as angry, we're not as lonely. You know, all this stuff that, you know, when you're in an agitated state that now you think is your base level, then we start to do a lot of things to try to calm it that don't work, you know, addictions, controlling, like we try to control everything. Try to control ourselves, try to control each other, you know, just we know where it goes. Like the end game of this, we've we're living in it. It's not good, you know. But when our nervous system is settled and back in reality, and we're not having to pretend this thing, this is where I think it it is very personal, as you said, but it's also like culturally discoverable. What culturally will happen when enough people are allowed to be in reality again and not have to keep pretending that they're separate from and superior to the rest of this planet?

Returning To Reality Beyond Separation

Lyn Man 27:29

I love that the way that you've you've brought it back to reality because it's like you know, you could easily say, well, actually, reality is is whatever somebody makes it to be, but actually where you're coming from is actually it's going back to the reality of I guess the what's coming through. It's almost like the the intention of how we're supposed to be rather than actually the reality of how we're trying to fit in. And I and I think that is it, isn't it? It's like we you know, going back to what I said before about you know, we have all these layers around ourselves, but a lot of that comes back to trying to fit in and and trying to make ourselves in certain ways because society is saying blah blah blah. And but actually, if we take it back, you know, if I go from my own personal experience, when I was a child, we we moved to Scotland when I was ten. And so it was, you know, it's a difficult age to move as it is, but we moved to a nationalist area, and as a someone from England going into a national area, you know, you're you're made to feel different. And my sister and my accents changed as quick as they possibly could so that we could fit in. But there was still, you know, that you're still growing up with that that you're not you're having to adapt, you're having to make yourself fit in. Whereas when we went walking in the glens or out by the sea, as you say nervous system would drop. And I feel that even now I can tell, as soon as I step outside, nervous system drops and and just calms. But there it was like I felt that belonging. And I didn't realize it at the time. It's only later when I can look back in hindsight and realize actually, you know, that's where I felt I was allowed to be me. It was like nature. But for me, it's I always say it nature with there's a different, like Nature with a capital , N is all-encompassing, and nature with a small n is how I describe, you know, and it's interesting because it's also something you talk about is is words and how we use them, and we can come back to that because I think it for me that's fascinating. But but just going back, it was that actually I felt that's where I belonged because there was nothing asked of me. I could just be me. And in going back to what you're just saying, you know, that that reality and that letting ourselves be ourselves, and that's what our bodies actually want, is to actually so yes, we're all unique. And I think that's the you know, maybe at times that's a difficult thing for people. We are unique, but but every little aspect of nature is unique and it's whole. You know, we can see the details of it and we can see the wholeness of it, and it's feeling into that wholeness is what I'm hearing coming through, and that's the reality, rather than living in that detail of being separate.

Julie Brams 31:24

Yeah, I think that we're used to thinking and operating down line from the core paradigm, you know, so we don't really, these are the things, these implicit biases, or you know, we don't really look at what is the operating system, so to speak, saying we're just now trying to function in it, and our thoughts, our behaviors are, you know, having to be conducted under a framework, you know, that we don't examine, you know, the framework that you're describing, you know, is that divide, rank, and dominate and extract, you know. So even what you're talking about, that nationalism is divide, yeah, rank, I'm better than you, and therefore I can. And vying for that. Uh, I mean, we tell this story at this point, like as if that's just how it's always been. It isn't. That's not. It's not how all cultures operate, and it's not how nature operates. You don't have them vying for who's the, you know, is the bee more important or is the flower more important? Like they, it's a harmonious network, and that's us. We are that we are coming from that same harmonious, yeah, network of relationships. It's a system, yeah. So if we can look at that framework and then operate down from that, this is what I mean. Like, I don't know exactly how we would behave. It's again still discoverable. Like you said, it takes time, but but you one does know immediately, I feel better. Yeah. And we tend, again, because of this division thing, we tend to want to say, you know, things like, nature is really good for us. You know, I feel better in nature. And yes, but if we can just synthesize it, I can't quite find the right word for it. It's like it's like tissue rejoining. If we can rejoin this, it's I feel better because I'm in reality. I feel better because I'm not trying to think, you know, I'm this is one, you know, and it's like I was thinking about this leading up to our talk today, just the title, you know, I am enough. You know, this idea of am I enough? Yeah. It's coming from this false paradigm of ranking. You know, when you step out of that paradigm and back into reality, that question doesn't even arise. There's no such thing. We're just linked. We're not ranked. You know, like I credit Gloria Steinem as the first person I heard saying linked, not ranked. But again, it's a whole system of thinking that then as you're out with the rest of nature, I am nature, out with the rest of nature. How does my nature, I know I'm repeating, but how does my personal nature naturally move with the rest of nature? These are the things that we can uncover, which I think some of them are lost, lost abilities, you know, like atrophied abilities, things that we don't think we can do. But if you ask an indigenous person, they can, you know, or you watch a documentary on Aboriginal people reading the bubbles in the water or something, tribal people reading the earth, or a lot of people, you know, if they spend time with it, they can read what's happening. But your average person is walking around like, I can't I can't do that. Like, of course you can. You have a body. Yeah. I don't know. It's I get I get fiery around this stuff. Because I feel like we're, you know, like we're so far down the road. We've and it would be so fast to turn it around. I think this is why I get so passionate, because it's a pleasurable, quick way, and that I don't mean instantaneous, but way of turning this ship. Yeah.

Lyn Man 36:31

Yeah, and

Enoughness Means Linked Not Ranked

Lyn Man 36:33

and I think it is that you know, going back to you know what you're you're describing is is remembering that we're all part of the same we're it's an ecosystem, and that's how everything works. And you know, we we know when you put something as a monoculture, the ecosystem eventually collapses, that things an ecosystem will always balance itself out naturally. And but then coming back to what you were saying about the gifts, and I think that is so true that we have l forgotten so much, and our bodies are trying, you know, if we if we actually trusted them, then we could learn so much more. And I remember a friend telling me a story he'd read, I think it was, about uh a white, I can't remember if it's man or woman, out with some aboriginals and they they were taking they were on as a quest and they were taking turns and finding water out in the the outback and each day it was for somebody else to to then direct them to find the water. And so the aboriginals just would do it intuitively. And then it came to the turn of this this person and they were just like this felt this pressure of I I don't know how to do this, I can't do this, and spent quite a lot of the day in that state, and then realised they just had to let go and start to trust. And they got the the group to water in the end in in the Australian Outback, which you know it's it's not like here in England where you've got rivers flowing fairly regularly. And and I think that's the thing is that we as you say there are those gifts and those you know uh a former colleague uh who I worked with, she talks about it as senses that we so we don't just have, you know, it's the five senses, some people would say six, but we actually have a lot more than that. And again, it's things when we actually sometimes it's about stilling ourselves and just allowing our bodies our all of our bodies, so not just our physical body, but our emotional body, our our energetic body, but just really to sense into what is going on in the world around us. But it does require that st stillness of mind, and that's I think is is part of the challenge because we've that's something I guess we've lost is our mind is uh often constantly going and learning to still that so that we can come back to, as you say, that that reality of who we are, who what everything is, then you know, again it comes back and I know I keep saying this, but it comes back to trust.

Julie Brams 40:08

It really does. And I think I really appreciate the story that you told and emphasizing this trust, and I think this listening to what we tend to call intuition, so it develops our intuition, but I've also been naming it, you know, like this idea of mental sovereignty that we because you know our thoughts can be manipulated, our emotions can be manipulated, our intuition can't, and our senses, our sensations can't. So there's this way of reclaiming, like you're saying, I, you know, I can trust my senses, I can trust my intuition. And I've been thinking about it lately as, you know, that is it is our right to have this kind of sovereignty, and it's our responsibility to reclaim our sovereignty because we're at a critical point. And like you're saying, yeah, we will bump up against what I kind of refer to as these imaginary bars in this cultural construct that would say, I can't do it, or how am I going to find water, or you know, all the things like part of this rerouting is yeah, hearing how we keep ourselves caged and then slowly but surely letting go and stepping into wow, this feels really weird. This feels really strange. Am I crazy? Am I making this up? Those are some of the first signs that you're coming back to life in a way, coming back to reality because things you will notice things that you will doubt until you do it over and over and over again, and then you see it's very trustworthy. Or in the way that you know, the method that I'm trained in, we process these invitations together with a group of other people. So you're getting the advantage of hearing other people's experience, which encourages us because again, this shaming or embarrassing each other or ridiculing each other is how we keep this, keep each other out of reality. You know, where again, not to be gruesome, but in the original way, you know, it was very bloody and very gory how we got people to stop doing this. So, you know, but noticing how we shame ourselves or or, you know, I mean, I I hear it all the time in my practice. People would say, Oh, you're gonna think I'm crazy. I'm like, I am not gonna think you're crazy, you know, and then they tell some story about how they learned something from a boulder. I'm like, no, I I understand that that's real because I also have experienced it, even if I hadn't, you know, as you said, each person is gonna have unique relationships with other species, especially the ones you spend more time with. So the more you spend time with one species, the more you understand them, the more they understand you. And I just want to thread in this other piece, because this is part of the delusion, is that the rest of nature is somehow unintelligent or unaware of us. And that, again, Science is showing that's not true. The reality is that they're very aware of us. You know, they have receptors, they know when we're near, they know temperature, they can many of, you know, and I'm speaking like plants now, because we this is outside of what we let ourselves believe. But plants have color receptors, they can read color, they don't have eyes, but they have the same receptors. So, and again, you you and your listeners may know this stuff, but I think most people aren't thinking about it and and are shocked to imagine that, for example, when you're looking for water in the outback, the water is calling you. Hey, oh, you want to find me? Here I am. You know, like to actually think that they are allies, that they want us back, that they like it when we're in connection. You know, there's no reason to think that the rest of nature doesn't love us as much as we love them. You know, there's this great book called the biophilia effect and biophilia, meaning that it humans are hardwired to love the rest of nature. And there's no reason to think that the rest of nature doesn't also love us, love having us around, love to hear our laughter, love to hear our song, love to watch us move. Like, there's no reason to make it this again. There, there are these objects on a screen. I can't touch it. You know, it's like, no, go up and touch it, you know, get to know it. So I just wanted to add that in that the rest of nature will help us back because we're important. We're not more important, but we are important. And as you said, our way we could naturally be. How important

Intuition, Sovereignty And Nature’s Intelligence

Julie Brams 46:09

might that be? You know, these are the kinds of questions that we can explore and discover together in this way.

Lyn Man 46:18

And it's an interesting way to think about it, isn't it? That we can actually use our relationship or lack of to actually start to explore, well, actually, how could we do things differently? How could we, you know, for me, and and I think it it is amazing when we actually start to, you know, when you do look at how people have been inspired by things in nature to create things in a different way. But but just even just getting the the everyday person to think about, you know, okay, well actually what could that look like? What would it look like? You know, if I walk out because I know people will walk out in the natural environment and they're actually quite fearful because it's like, oh, you know, well what happens if and and it it then it's that whole as you say, it's that keeping ourselves in the cage because we're not seeing it as there yesterday when I was walking I saw a well I heard first a European robin just uh in the trees. So I just stopped and saw it. And it was just sitting observing. And I think that's part of the thing is we forget how to to just observe and not make the stories because we're m we are making the stories, but when we can just observe and just be then there is a way of feeling more connected. And as you say, you know, you you start to or I start to then think, okay, w when it flies away, it's like I'll I'll say something, or but it's just as you feeling even that, or even just in your head, feeling that connection because when when it's sitting there, you're you're feeling that that connection with them. Um so yeah, it's it is a totally different way of of looking at everything as a whole.

Julie Brams 48:47

Yeah. It's just reminding me also of a story. I did write it in the book, but I was doing, you know, I was walking, taking myself just, you know, for the hours that it is to just explore this one area that I go to. And I I went to an inlet. It's a it's a it's a lake, but there are like little inlets along the way. And so I w walked off the trail and into this one inlet. Why? I don't know, but that's the one I chose. And you can see, you know, the birds are flying, and there's a little island in the lake. So a lot of birds are heading to that and sitting on that. And so I was sitting there looking at it, and then I looked to my right, and there was, I believe it was a heron sitting next, you know, maybe I don't know how big is that, a foot? I don't know. I don't know.

Lyn Man 49:49

Yeah. That's really, yeah. Yeah.

Julie Brams 49:52

And so I looked at it, you know, and I, you know, was quiet, you know, but I was like, oh hey, you know, and it looked at me, you know, so we like made eye contact, and then we both went back to looking at the water together in this way, like observing. Like that you said about the observation. This bird is observing, I'm observing, we're together, we know we're together, we're hanging out. You know, that kind of experience in the wild is is very I I can't even explain, like, you know, again, going back to the science, like, how is that good for your mental health? I'm like, oh my gosh, I that's just like off the scale.

Lyn Man 50:39

Yeah, exactly. They they say, wasn't it, the the actually I think uh love isn't the highest thing we feel, it's all and that to be sitting there, like with her and it to be and I'm gonna put it as it to be accepting you sitting there, not us accepting it, but it's actually it's accepting you sitting there. Yes, and so it's obviously feeling you are no threat. Yeah. It's that is just like yeah, I can't imagine what that would be. Well, it would just feel incredible.

Julie Brams 51:20

Yeah, and then to also, as you're saying, like I've been also kind of entertaining these ideas of what is the like medicinal vibration, let's say, from a human being when they're emitting awe or they're emitting love or admitting that feeling that one would get of absolute solidarity, or I'm not sure what even the word is, but to kind of look at that as a is that what we're here for? What if what we're here for as human beings is to emit awe? And what would that do for our environment, so to speak, but for the planet, if we're walking every day with our hearts radiating awe. Yeah. You know, that's the kind of stuff that I think we can begin to maybe see as a human potential. You know, what is high higher consciousness for us is not gonna be more information jammed into our head. It's gonna be, you know, heart.

Lyn Man 52:35

Absolutely. Right? That's higher consciousness. Yeah. But it but it's interesting in that because there's it it is that if you're if you are at sitting at that higher, higher frequency, feeling that all feeling that love, joy, whatever piece, whatever high frequency, you actually start to entrain those around you. And so you're keeping that up. So if you're you know, think of it as you're in you're in the supermarket in the store, that you're walking round, and I actually love walking around and I'll try and catch people and smile at people, but it is that thing, it's that lifting people up. And I think you're going back to what you were saying is you know, about changing culture and changing society. But the more people can become in that state, the more they can influence others from that that place as well. Yeah. And then it opens up it opens our brains to possibilities then. Yes.

Julie Brams 53:49

And it's again, it's from the ground up, it's from grassroots, it's from people. It's not gonna be who am I gonna vote for or what what's the government gonna do, and how do I fight? And you know, it's like, let's just do it, and then it it shifts. And what you were saying about how, yeah, if we're in that frequency, we bring others into that frequency, and also remembering that the frequencies that are being emitted bring us into it, right? So again, is this nice weaving of I'm going to go in this way out into the rest of nature, let nature in you know, put me back into coherence, into reality, and then spread that to whomever needs it, whether it's another person or it's I don't know, like a a little droopy flower or whoever needs it. Yeah, you know.

Lyn Man 54:53

Yeah,

Awe As Medicine And Cultural Shift

Lyn Man 54:54

so it is, it's it's very true. I I could talk to you all after all evening here, but but I have one final question before we finish, which is if you could change one societal belief that would benefit humanity as a whole, what would it be?

Julie Brams 55:17

Yeah, I think it is this that this belief that we are divided from the rest of nature. Yeah. And really embrace, you know, I am Earth, I am nature, I belong. Yeah.

Lyn Man 55:33

Absolutely. Yeah, and it it's interesting because I have that I've had a number of conversations with people who and guests who've said the same thing. It's that we're not we're not separate, we are all part of a whole. And and I didn't want to make an assumption that you were gonna say the same, but given that that's you know, that's effectively you know, where the introduction started.

Julie Brams 56:00

Um I think that it's not it's not a surprise that many people are saying this. I I do believe the earth is calling us home, and all of us are part of her, and of course we're remembering. Like I I credit Earth for reminding us. So, yes, we are coming back to reality.

Lyn Man 56:28

Yeah, I love that. It's a beautiful way to end that you know, Earth is is calling us home, and she's the one that's that's guiding us and reminding us to come back to reality. And to what it just what is.

Julie Brams 56:50

Yeah.

Lyn Man 56:52

Well, thank you so much for joining me today and having this conversation. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you. And we didn't touch on a number of things that I thought we'd get to because there's so much, so many different ways we could have gone. So thank you, Julie. Yeah, thank you.

Julie Brams 57:09

Thank you so much for letting me share.

Lyn Man 57:11

You're welcome. Thank you for listening to this episode of I Am Enough. We hope you enjoyed it and are inspired to see yourself as enough and create possibilities. If you would like to discover more, please visit earthaconter.org.