We spend so much energy trying to change our circumstances.
Our jobs.
Our relationships.
Our health.
Our homes.
We have difficult conversations.
We navigate uncertainty.
We work hard to improve the experience of our lives.
Again and again, the ancient oaks show me something different.
Our first freedom is rarely to change our circumstances.
It is to change our relationship with them.
When our relationship changes, our experience changes.
The mind moves away from worry and opens to peace.
The heart begins to move beyond fear and opens to love.
The spirit softens its contraction and opens more fully to life.
The body opens to the possibility of wellbeing.
Hidden possibilities start to appear.
Nothing outside may have changed.
Yet somehow, everything has.
Perhaps this is where freedom begins.
Because we changed the relationship first.