Walk with SMB: Grounded Hope
Episode Summary: What happens when we stay with fear long enough to notice what else might be there?
In this solo reflection, Susan considers what the natural world can teach us about change, resilience and the possibility of finding grounded hope—not by looking away from what frightens us, but by remembering that destruction and regeneration can both be true.
Show Notes
Seeing images of the wildfires in Canada, I noticed fear rising. So instead of pushing the feeling away, I sat with it and found myself thinking about what years of observing the natural world have taught me about change.
Nature is extraordinarily resilient.
A landscape can be devastated and still hold the possibility of life. Forests change. Ecosystems adapt. Life finds a way to continue, although perhaps not in the same form that existed before.
And because we are nature, I began to wonder: Is the resilience I see in the living world also something I can remember in myself?
In this solo reflection, I explore what I mean when I talk about listening to nature, the difference between being smart and being wise, and the kind of hope that can emerge when we stay present with uncertainty rather than trying to immediately fix or escape it.
Grounded hope isn't reassurance that everything will be okay. It's something steadier. It allows us to hold the paradox that destruction and regeneration can both be true. That grief and possibility can exist together. That we can be afraid of what is happening while still trusting in the resilience of life.
When the landscape of your life changes, where do you look for hope?
Maybe the Earth doesn't promise us that everything will be okay. Maybe she offers us something more honest: a reminder that life has been navigating change for a very, very long time—and that we are part of that life.
Key Themes
Grounded hope in times of uncertainty
Resilience as adaptation rather than returning to what was
Listening to nature through patterns, metaphors and lessons
Holding fear and hope, destruction and regeneration, at the same time
The relationship between resilience and responsibility
The difference between being smart and becoming wise
Remembering that we are part of the living world
Key Takeaways
Resilience doesn't always mean bouncing back. Sometimes it means adapting to a landscape that has permanently changed.
Sitting with an uncomfortable feeling can create space to notice what else is present alongside it.
Listening to nature can be a practice of noticing patterns and asking what the living world might help us remember.
Grounded hope does not require us to deny fear, grief or uncertainty.
Our own resilience may not be separate from the resilience we observe throughout the natural world.
Wisdom may come not only from acquiring knowledge, but from experience, patience, relationship and paying attention.
“Maybe grounded hope is what happens when we remember that destruction and regeneration can both be true.”
Resources Mentioned
Rooted conversation with Martin Sampson
A conversation about getting “everyone outside together,” our relationship with the natural world and what happens when more people have opportunities to spend time outside.
Connect with Susan
Susan Morgan Bailey is the founder and host of Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing, where she explores the connections between nature, wellbeing, leadership, belonging and what it means to be human.
Website: www.rootedsoulliving.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanmbailey/
Reflection Prompt
When the landscape of your life changes—when something feels uncertain, frightening or as though the world you know is disappearing—where do you look for hope?
Prefer to read? The full transcript is below.
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Grounded Hope
Susan:
Welcome to Rooted, a podcast that explores the connection between nature and wellbeing. I'm Susan Morgan Bailey.
I've spent years noticing patterns in nature, leadership, wellbeing, organizations, and my own life. These are the questions I'm exploring.
Today's exploration is just a conversation with me, and I am thinking about change and paradox, growth and resilience.
The Other Side of Nature
The other day, I woke up thinking about the Earth. Surprise, surprise.
Maybe it was because I'd been thinking about the wildfires in Canada, particularly the fires in Ontario, which are impacting our air quality here in the state of Michigan. Even though they're miles and miles away, we are reminded that we are on this planet together, thanks to weather patterns.
I've been seeing images of the landscape burning and questions and dialogue around the impact of it all. Recently, I also had a conversation with Martin Sampson, CEO of the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association, about getting everyone outside together—about our relationship with the natural world and what happens when we spend more time in it.
And then here was this other side of nature that impacts our ability to get outside.
It's a harsher side.
Fire. Destruction. Change on a scale that can be difficult to comprehend.
The images, for me, were a lot. I noticed myself feeling unsettled. Fear rising.
And as I sat with the imagery, out of a desire not to run from it but to let it be what it was, I started thinking about what I know about nature.
There are important questions about why these fires are happening, what's contributing to them, and the role humans may have played in creating the conditions for fires or other extreme events. I don't want to minimize any of that.
But I want to focus a little differently on this because, as I sat with the images and let them be what they are, I found myself thinking about a different angle.
And then I started thinking about my own life.
When the Landscape Changes
I've had times in my life when it felt as though everything was changing.
Maybe you've had them, too.
Times when the landscape you knew suddenly didn't look the same anymore. Something ends. Something is lost. Something you thought was certain becomes uncertain.
And when we're in those moments, we often want to know what's going to happen. We want someone to tell us we're going to be okay.
Sometimes, we want to stop the change.
As I thought about the fires, I realized I was feeling some of that fear.
But instead of pushing through it and trying to change what I was feeling, I just sat with it. I thought about what I know from observing nature over time.
And slowly, I began to feel something shift.
I felt a little calmer. The fear began to subside a bit.
Not because I decided the fires were okay.
Not because destruction doesn't matter.
Not because it's not tragic.
Not because everything always comes back exactly as it was—as if it will simply bounce back.
But because I remembered that nature, by nature, is extraordinarily resilient.
A landscape can be devastated and still hold the possibility of life. Forests change. Ecosystems adapt. Life finds a way to return, although perhaps not in the same form that existed before.
Wildfires are natural. Lightning plus a dry environment can equal fire. It is part of how nature works.
And so I started wondering: What if this is an opportunity for learning from nature?
Not that everything will be okay, but that change is part of being alive.
That resilience doesn't necessarily mean returning to what was.
Sometimes resilience means adapting to what is. Becoming something new. Finding a way to continue.
And because we are nature, I wonder if the resilience I see in the living world is also something I can remember in myself.
Maybe that's why thinking about nature and the forest calmed me.
I have been through fires of my own. Not literal ones, but moments when parts of my life seemed to be burning down. Moments when I couldn't see what would grow in their place.
And yet, I got through each of those moments.
Changed.
Not untouched.
Not returned exactly to where I was before or who I was before.
But I'm still here. I'm still growing. I'm different and stronger.
I can tell whatever story I decide I want to tell about it.
What I Mean by Listening to Nature
I talk a lot about listening to nature, and I've been thinking about what I actually mean by that.
I don't mean that if we walk into the woods and get quiet enough, the trees are going to give us simple answers to all of our problems.
That could be possible.
But for me, listening is often about noticing.
Looking for the pattern.
The metaphor.
The lesson.
I heard a great reframe the other day. We often say, "Everything happens for a reason." The reframe didn't completely change the idea. It was just a slight shift:
I can find the reason in the things that happen.
Because there's a lot of stuff that happens that sucks and is really bad.
So, spending time in a situation and asking:
What's happening here?
What does the broader living world know about this that I might have forgotten?
What might I notice if I stop trying to immediately solve or control what is happening and simply pay attention?
That kind of listening, as I've practiced it more and more over time, grounds me.
I naturally want to take a deep breath.
It calms me.
It gives me hope.
And it seems a little counterintuitive. I'm sitting in the uncomfortable feeling long enough to feel it and listen for what else is there besides fear.
And it gives me hope.
Not a hope that says, "Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine."
It's something more grounded than that.
A hope that says:
I don't know what's going to happen next.
This could be difficult.
Things may change. They will probably, most certainly, change.
And life inherently has an extraordinary capacity to adapt, regenerate, and continue.
Resilience and Responsibility
But there's another part of this that I don't want to ignore.
Nature's resilience is not permission for us to do whatever we want to her.
The fact that forests can regenerate doesn't absolve us of responsibility for the conditions we are creating and contributing to. I'm not going to get into the logistics of that today.
We are in relationship with this Earth.
The fact that Earth has survived extraordinary change over millennia doesn't mean our choices don't matter.
Maybe listening also means being willing to hear the things we'd rather not hear.
To notice imbalance.
To pay attention to changing patterns.
To ask what conditions we are creating on Earth—or even in our own lives.
To recognize that we cannot separate our wellbeing from the wellbeing of the living systems we are part of: this planet, our workplaces, our family units.
We can build walls and cities and technologies and mindsets that make us feel separate from nature, but we are not.
We breathe because of our relationships with other living things. We exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the Earth every day. We depend on water. We depend on soil and plants. We are alive because of systems far more complex than most of us will ever fully understand.
We are not standing outside the Earth watching what's happening to her.
We are here.
Living in nature.
In relationship with the Earth.
Inside nature.
We are part of it.
Our wellbeing is interdependent.
Smart and Wise
And this brings me back to another thought I had that morning.
We humans can be extraordinarily smart.
When something happens, we look for answers. We research. We study. We build models. We create technologies.
And we need those things.
Modern-day human living—the technological world, the artificial world, the built world—is essential to our wellbeing at this point. Science can often help us understand what's happening. Expertise, information, and taking action are all important parts of being alive and being human.
But as I was reflecting the other day, I began to wonder if being smart and being wise are exactly the same thing.
Because I think sometimes we use them interchangeably.
The Earth has been here a really long time.
Life has experienced extraordinary disruption and change. Extinctions. Fires. Ice. Flood. Plates moving. Reorganization of land.
And along the way, regeneration. Evolution. Adaptation of life.
I wonder what that long history might have to teach us.
Maybe wisdom isn't only about knowing more.
Maybe wisdom also comes from paying attention long enough to recognize patterns.
Through experience.
Through patience.
Through relationship.
Paying attention and knowing when to act—and perhaps when to stop and observe.
I don't want to become less smart.
I want to become wise enough to know where else to listen.
Grounded Hope
I think that's what happened for me when I spent time paying attention to the wildfires.
I felt fear.
And then I remembered.
I remembered what I know about nature.
I remembered what I know about my own life.
And as I reflected, something larger than the fear became available.
Something greater.
More powerful.
Faith.
Trust.
Hope.
Grounded hope.
The kind that gives steadiness.
Not the kind that asks us to look away from what's happening, but the kind that helps us look directly at it without being consumed by fear.
Maybe grounded hope is what happens when we remember that destruction and regeneration can both be true.
It's paradox.
Again, this theme keeps coming up for me this year.
Paradox.
Holding two seeming opposites and letting them be true at the same time.
Grief and possibility can exist together in the same space.
We can acknowledge the harm that humans and others can have on each other while also remembering our capacity to change.
We can be afraid of what is happening and still trust in the resilience of life.
And perhaps our own resilience is not separate from the resilience we see everywhere in nature.
Because we are nature.
A Question to Consider
And so, as I come to the end of this reflection, I offer a question to consider.
When the landscape of your life changes—when something feels uncertain, frightening, or as though the world you know is disappearing—where do you look for hope?
And what might happen if, instead of looking to nature for reassurance that everything will stay the same, or looking outside ourselves for guidance to "fix" things, we looked to the living world for a reminder of what it means to change?
How natural it is to adapt.
To regenerate.
To keep becoming.
Because I don't know that being a human on Earth promises us that everything will be okay.
But maybe Earth offers us something more honest.
A reminder that life has been navigating change for a very, very long time.
And that we are part of that life.
Maybe we are more resilient than we remember.
