episode 69 Katelyn re nature
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Mel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Permission to be Human, the podcast. I'm your host Mel Findlater, mother, coach, and curator of Permission to be Human, the company and community. If you're a mom, know a mom, or want to be a mom, and you crave getting out in the world to make a difference, then you're in the right place. This is a space for moms like you to connect with yourself, your purpose, and your big audacious dreams.
Because when you feel your best, you can better you, your family, and the wider world. Let's do this.
I'm really excited to have Katelyn carry back with us today on the podcast she was with us back in episode 42 in the spring time. Where we chatted about her story and how to take care of yourself when you're out there making a difference in the world in whatever way it might be. Super powerful, powerful episodes.
So do check it out [00:01:00] today. I've invited Katelyn back because she loves nature almost as much as I do, maybe even more who knows. But she's really good at knowing what the research says. Around how we can engage with nature, how we can be with nature in a way that actually increases our wellbeing. So how amazing is that?
So I'm excited too. Introduce you to her again. And to have you listen to this amazing conversation that I definitely enjoyed. On the topic. I'll read you a little. Intro from Kaitlin. So she is helping people in stressful situations, which is let's face it. Sometimes all of us. To shift perspectives in a way that connects us more strongly to ourselves and to each other. She does this by combining complex science from cognitive and trauma fields. With humor. And with stories.
She teaches the science of compassion, hopefully helping all of us move to a brighter and more [00:02:00] helpful space.
Caitlin is a ma amazing. So do stick around and have a listen.
Mel: Okay. Welcome back, Katelyn. Thank you. Good to see you again. Yeah, you as well. I, I loved our conversation last time so much that we were like, we have to talk again. Uh, one of my, the things really close to my heart is nature and our relationship with it and what the research says it does for and with us.
And, um, I know that's something that is close to your heart as well. So I'm really excited to just have that conversation today and see where it leads us. What can nature do in our lives? How could we, embrace it and, see where we go with that. But before we do, um, anybody listening in, I said welcome back because has been on the episode before.
So she is on episode. 42, uh, which we titled Taking Care of You While Leaving the World a Better Place. There's a whole [00:03:00] nother amazing story. I mean, there's probably a million amazing stories, but that was one or two in that episode of who Katelyn is and where she, um, is in her life. So do check that out as well.
Um, but in general, Caitlin, maybe just give us a little introduction of who you are, and we'll go from there.
Kaitlyn: All right. I am mama to a 12 year old and a 14 year old at this point in time. I am a nurse clinical educator working within the hospice field and other acute care areas, and I am a clinical nurse educator, all of which kind of rolls into a ball that is, you I am someone who's walked quite a bit on a patient side of the line and quite a bit on a caregiver side of the line and I try and use both experiences to help light dark areas up for people who are stumbling through places that For whatever reason, I've managed to navigate through at this point.
Mel: Yeah, beautiful. I [00:04:00] remember so much of those stories. And like I say, do go and listen to them because it's almost hard not to just have that interview again right now because I know they're so good. Um, but so where did, where does nature come into that for you?
Kaitlyn: Nature was one of my favorite stumble ons when it came to scientific studies.
so many of the places where I've really developed my passions over the years have been things where I have an experience and I know there's a kernel of truth and hope and light and something magical and special that is, is an answer to navigating that challenging experience. Uh, and then I get ridiculously excited when I finally stumble across the science that explains why it works.
And working within a healthcare environment, I, I vividly remember that I started my nursing career in a pediatric intensive care unit. And there was one patient there that we had specifically that lived with [00:05:00] us. He was a nine year old kid who lived in the pediatric ICU for over a year and a half. And he was a foster kid who was just, he wasn't critically sick, but he was too medical to go to a psychiatric facility, and he was too psych to go to a medical facility.
And so the nurses would, would just weave these complex schedules together so that we could take this kid outside. And we could take him across the street. to the park for a little while and let him function as a normal kid instead of living in our ICU and only ever being in the building. And everybody knew how, how different his day was, how different his whole week would be if we could just get him outside for a little while.
Mel: Yeah.
Kaitlyn: Uh, and when the hospital started doing some, some new designs, one of the things that came up was, could we have a rooftop garden? You know, could we have a place where we could take our patients outside and just give them a system reset? And uh, and now I've stumbled across a [00:06:00] lot of the science pieces that back why that matters and why that really is such a great reset for us.
Mel: Yeah, that's such a beautiful example, you know, because I think everybody listening could say, of course, like a young boy should be going outside, right? Like it's an, it's just kind of an obvious thing in our mind. Um, so it's the perfect example because we might challenge that for ourselves. You know, like, Oh, does it really matter how much time I spend out there?
I walked to the car this morning or whatever it is, you know, it's not next to the window. It totally counts. Exactly. You know, it's, it's so clear that, that that is. Necessary, you know, he needs to go and play and be outside and see something that isn't the white or blue or whatever color walls are in that building, right?
Kaitlyn: And even as a mom now, too, I look at my own kids and one of my favorite little memes that crossed one of my social threads was, was this little kid looking in through the kitchen window. He's like, can I come in now? And his mom [00:07:00] looks out from the kitchen and says, no, you're grounded. You need to stay outside.
I'm like, I am totally doing that with my children. That's brilliant. Because what an incredible challenge that we face right now. I mean, part of my, part of my perspective comes from the medical care and there was a couple of, of scientific studies that I'll definitely talk about at some point in time today with you, uh, that were about patients in the hospital and what difference being exposed to nature made on their recovery.
But I think that the importance of nature can not be, be. Overstated when nowadays parents aren't what they were for our generation. For our generation, you know, our parents maybe had to help us out occasionally, figure out something to do with ourselves. Now it's not a matter of keeping our children occupied.
It's a matter of getting them to stop doing that. Something that was designed to be ever so much more entertaining and addictive than anything we can come up with. You know, how do we [00:08:00] compete to get our kids off the games and get our kids off the screens and actually get them enough outdoor time to regulate their emotions and to, and to benefit their bodies?
Huge challenge.
Mel: Yeah, it's, it is a huge, huge challenge because nature is, you know, being outside, like I'm thinking about my kids, right? One of, one of my kids is. Um, and the other enjoys it, but it takes a little more convincing. And it's because there's also these, like there are inherent fears associated with being outside, whether they used to always be there or whether they're just there because the way we've kind of culturally grown as a group.
Um, but you know, like there's wasps, there's bugs, there's spiders, There's, you know, you might trip on that rock, you might, you know, all these things and, um, those are actually the reasons we should send them outside too, because we need to [00:09:00] be, uh, enabling children especially, and ourselves to, to take that risk.
But it is this, um, it is this challenge now, because it's really comfortable to sit and play Mario Kart, my son's favorite thing at the moment. Or
Kaitlyn: it's too hot outside or it's too cold outside. And for a little while, my children, when we lived in a different state, I'm in New Hampshire now, we were in Oregon, which is literally the other side of the country minus two hours.
I could have gone ocean to ocean when we moved, but my kids were part of an outdoor school. And the learning environment was so much different. The engagement was so much different. And I just finished reading, um, Brain Rules. Really fascinating book. And one of the things it talks about is how our school systems, our learning environments, our office environments, are not designed to take advantage of the way that our brains work.
That cognitively, We function better when we're active. [00:10:00] We function better after we've reset by going outside. Um, that I think they said the problem solving ability went up like 40 percent, uh, baseline minimum, uh, just by getting moving. And I can't remember now who said it, but I, I liked the phrase. It was, uh, sitting is the new smoking.
And it's because We do it so unconsciously now, we've got the computers in front of us, we're, we're mentally engaged, and in our heads, yeah, we had an active, busy day, but how much were we doing with our bodies, and without that, that conjunction of those two things, uh, we're not as effective, and from a learning environment standpoint, where our kids are inside a building all day, and if things get too packed, recess can be one of the first things to go, or P.
E. can be one of the first things to go, and in actuality, Those are what keeps those kids able to continue learning. Uh, I. I [00:11:00] had one boss where every meeting we did, we started doing as a walking meeting.
Mel: So
Kaitlyn: my one on one with her, unless we need, unless we needed to be in front of a computer, it would be each of us with a clipboard and a pen, just so we could scratch a couple notes and we'd walk three times around the hospital.
You know, no matter the weather and we would have our meeting that way. And it was fantastic. Such a reset.
Mel: Walk and talks are totally, totally where it's at. There's something also about, you know, the standing beside someone instead of, um, face to face. I'm not sure like what, what the science is behind that, but it's much easier to have a conversation walking.
Uh, the movement, but also the side by side thing. Um. And there's a
Kaitlyn: gender piece in that too, where most often that's how men have conversations. It's more like sitting side by side, especially while being active. Women are a lot more likely to sit facing one another and kind of doing that emotional engagement, heavy nonverbal piece.
Men in [00:12:00] general, just as kind of a category of study, uh, tend to be a lot more comfortable and a lot more. effusive or communicative within that conversation in that side to side context.
Mel: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Oh, very cool. Okay. So, I mean, you've touched on the school concept, which definitely, you know, anybody who's listened probably to, there's quite a few episodes where I bring up the fact that I work at a, a nature preschool as well as, as doing all this work and, um, have really kind of leaned into the benefits of getting kids outside for sure, especially around, for me, it's, it's the nature part as well as the risk for them and allowing them that.
space because there's, there's so few spaces that kids are allowed appropriate risk now in life. You know, yeah, like take these pieces of wood and, you know, figure out what you're going to do with them. Oh, you're going to like build a four tire high tower. Sure. You're going to climb it. Okay. I'll stand there and just [00:13:00] like, you know, observe and make sure everything's looking safe from my perspective, but they don't even need to know I'm necessarily doing that.
We're helping them. Assess that together. Like, oh, is it wobbly? Do you think you can climb? Like, where can you climb? How is it safe? And just allowing them that space to take that risk, um, is the benefits of that. And forest school in general is just, like, my kids, so my kids also went, well, one went to here when he was in preschool, but when we lived in England, um, they went to part time to a full on forest school.
And my son was only one. And he was just out there crawling in the mud, probably eating it, like, you know, doing whatever he does. Building a
Kaitlyn: nice, healthy immune system. Exactly. It's not Cooper Airway shaped, it can, whatever, it'll work its way through the system.
Mel: Yeah, it was really beautiful, and it was really interesting that it was in a space that, Um, you know, it was a small wooded land, but it was on a, you know, a farm around it.
It wasn't like it was a [00:14:00] huge space. Like right now I am, I live on Vancouver, I have nature, trees, forest, water, everything you could possibly imagine. I'm very, very, you know, grateful for what I have now. And you don't have to have all that to like get all these benefits.
Kaitlyn: Right. It's, it's always shocked me how little is required.
Yeah. Yeah. On my worst, worst days working in the emergency room of an incredibly busy trauma hospital, uh, I would go outside just to reset on a 10, 15 minute break. And I would sit in the grass, which was like a 15 foot by 12 foot piece of grass next to the helipad.
Mel: Yeah.
Kaitlyn: So it was parking lot on one side, helicopter pad on the other.
It was not exactly an expanse of nature, but just sitting, sitting down in the grass, putting my hands in the dirt, you know, watching the little bugs or feeling the grass on my fingers. It was so It was [00:15:00] profound, the degree to which that reset my head of, Oh my gosh, okay, there's an entire another world out here and this is more real than what I'm doing in there at the moment.
That is not reality. This is reality. That's just its own little, little microcosm and I'm okay. And when I walk out of here at the end of the shift, I'm going to be okay again. And I needed that reminder. And then it could come from this tiny piece of grass, uh, next to. every bit of chaos and sound and was amazing to me.
Mel: And there's a couple things that come out of that for me. One is like, so let us as adults need this just as much. We're still humans. We don't grow out of our need for, for nature and outside and play. And actually what you're describing there is noticing. It's slowing down. It's noticing, it's stopping, it's paying attention to what's around you.
If you went out there, sat on the grass and just, you know, you know, kept ruminating about what [00:16:00] was going on inside, you probably wouldn't have got as much benefit, right? Wouldn't have been the same experience. There's this like practice of starting to notice the nature that we're in and surrounding us.
You know, I have plants on my shelves so that I can, you know, turn and just look at them for like just 30 seconds and be like, oh, that's really cool how that leaf does this or that, whatever. Right. Um, so there is a mindset thing and it is a practice to get yourself into that state as well. There's this beautiful piece of research, um, that I mentioned to you before.
I don't know if you've heard of it. It's this lady in Alberta. Um, so Passmore, H. A. and Holder, M. D. is what they put on the, the research. Um, and it's all about noticing nature and how you, it doesn't matter how long you're outside. So they were testing, you know, is it a, is it a time thing or is it a noticing thing?
And it's a noticing thing. So if you have five minutes to go outside, sit on the grass next to a helipad and look at the grass and feel the grass and notice the grass and notice how it [00:17:00] makes you feel, then that, in and of itself, is. enough of an intervention to allow your body to reset and increase your well being.
It's like a profound,
Kaitlyn: um, mindfulness hack.
Mel: Yeah.
Kaitlyn: It's just, yeah, suddenly changing the channel and, and separating yourself from the, the cognitive anxiety, emotional kind of complex stuff into, yeah, just being where you're at and feeling and noticing and appreciating what's around you. Yeah. Agreed. And tiny little bits.
Um, one of the, One of the studies, one of the science pieces that I ran across was specifically about, uh, emotions, uh, studied in science that were everything from contentment, to happiness, to gratitude, to grace, to hope, and there was a whole bunch of different emotions, um, and in there also was awe, and Awe came through as this [00:18:00] powerhouse emotion that had a higher effect on our immune system than any other emotion that had been studied.
And 75 percent of awe was found to be, for people, accessed through nature. And it was a matter of you could, you could literally see changes in gut biome. You could see changes in, uh, immune system function just through this simple accessing of this one emotion found so very frequently in nature. And I just stumbled across through the greater good science center, another, uh, article that came through that also said, ah, is also tied to this sense of belonging.
For us. And that sense of belonging, which Harvard study came back and said, you know, from a happiness standpoint, sense of belonging and connectedness is the number one driver of our happiness as human beings. [00:19:00]
Mel: It's just
Kaitlyn: this ongoing 20 plus year study that they've done longest running human study on happiness ever done.
And they came back with belonging and connectedness. And so not only is all this reset for our immune system and our body's health, but and nature in combination can trigger altruism, can trigger kindness. So they asked people to find something that they, that they gained that emotion from. And then they ran a few different tests of, you know, how much money would this person then donate afterwards to this particular cause?
How helpful would they be to someone they saw, you know, in trouble on the sidewalk? And it improved our kindness. And our connectedness with other human beings by first feeling that sense of connection through nature.
Mel: Yeah. It's so cool. That's beautiful. Mm hmm. It is. That is so cool, right? And, and so simple in some ways.
Right. Well, [00:20:00]
Kaitlyn: and it's, it's resulted in one of the things that I tell people is like, Oh my gosh, if you are profoundly depressed and totally in a funk and just, you absolutely need a reset. Uh, my, my cheat for folks to say, take your phone, put it on camera and go outside and take three pictures. of something that you find beautiful or inspiring.
If that's all you have the energy to do, just do that because the powerhouse reset that can come from accessing nature, accessing that sense of awe, and subtly giving yourself that sense of reconnection again is amazingly powerful. You know, there's your happy pill.
Mel: And how great is that? Because, you know, we're recording this in the middle of July, right?
When parents that have kids at home still are, you know, sometimes they're at home or they're at home a lot more than they necessarily are during the school year. So, This, we might be like, oh, I don't have time to get out in nature. [00:21:00] This is the thing that you can do with your kids. This is the easiest thing that you can do with your kids, and you'll benefit yourself and them at the same time, right?
Go out, take pictures. Like, as soon as you sat down, I'm like, yeah, photo scavenger hunt. Let's grab, all grab our cameras. That's how, and like, turn the notifications off on your phone, put it on like, airplane mode or whatever. So, like, all you're looking at is, is photos. is the camera. Remove the temptation as much as possible.
Exactly. If you have a separate camera, bonus. Um, but just go out and even if it's only like a 10 to 15 minute thing, right? Like go and take three pictures. I think that's a beautiful activity to do and then compare them. You know, you could be like, okay, take three pictures of three different living things or three bugs or three different types of plants or three, uh, take a picture of the rainbow, like find something of every color.
Like there's so many different ways you can switch your brain to find interest in it and to gamify it, which we all
Kaitlyn: love, [00:22:00] right? Well, and I, I love from what you just said, I love the way you set it up because I think more often than not, Sometimes what stops us is that we just don't think it's a big enough plan.
Like, yeah, great. I'm going to haul my kids outside and then they're going to complain about being bored. And so, you know, unless I plan this whole event of, okay, we're going to go to the beach and I'm going to pack a picnic and we're going to put all this stuff together. All these pieces. Um, we, we feel like we.
We're, we haven't got sufficient planning to make a thing. And what you just pointed out, what you just sketched out through that, just go take three pictures of, of rainbow, of the rainbow, is indeed this experience. That doesn't take planning, uh, but can have such a value add and can be easily gamified.
And then what happens if at the end of the year you pick your favorite pictures and you make a photo album, [00:23:00] you know, and you go back and you revisit the, what did you like about this one? Yeah. There's so many places to take that and, and a fantastic reminder that we don't always have to have a complex plan to walk our butts out the door.
Mel: Exactly. You're right, you know, and, and I am, you know, I am the culprit of this so often and I imagine a lot of the listeners of this podcast who are, you know, the big dreamers of the world. You think so big that sometimes, you're right, we, We struggle to get into the like, what's the tiny thing that I could do to actually achieve this big dream while we're here, right?
And the tiny thing is, if the big dream is to be outside for, for example, I'm doing the thousand hours outside. There's an organization in the UK, there's an app you can record every time you go outside. It's wonderful. I'm doing it and it is the big dream to hit the thousand, but I'm also forcing myself to not care if I hit the thousand.
And it's more like to notice how much I have gone outside. We're not right. So taking it. What's the [00:24:00] tiny step instead of being like, Oh, no, I don't have the capacity to think, Am I going to hit 1000? Let's be honest, we don't have the mental capacity to necessarily sometimes one more non mandatory to do list.
Totally. I don't need more things on my list. That's not what we're trying to do for our listeners as well as to be like, feel guilty if you haven't gone outside enough. Like that is not what we're saying today. What we're saying is go outside for five minutes. What's the tiniest little thing? Go drink your
Kaitlyn: cup of coffee in the morning outside on your front porch, sitting in front of your front door.
Yeah. And then when you finish your coffee, go back inside. Yeah. It matters.
Mel: That little bit matters. The little, little things matter, exactly. Um, and you know, this is, is leading to, into, for me. So I went to this, um, really amazing workshop, uh, in Stanley Park in Vancouver at the, um, IPPA, the International Positive Psychology Association Conference last summer.
And they had a nature based workshop and it was half a [00:25:00] day and, um, in the park. And one of the key things that I, I really got out of there was this concept of rewilding ourselves. And then we are nature, we are not separate from nature, but our, our society is kind of set us up in that way. Like we, even our language, we have inside and outside.
We have to go out to nature. Yeah. Actually, we are nature. Like we are part of nature. We are not a separate thing. And I think the closer we can take those tiny little steps, even if it's just a coffee, you know, outside the door, or even if it's just noticing the plant that's sitting next to you. Right, starting to, those little steps start to help us notice that we're not separate from them, like start to think about like how is what metaphor shows that I am similar to this tree that is strong and rooted and connected under the ground to the ones beside it.
And, you know, like all the little things that, [00:26:00] um, that, that we are part of, we're a living thing as well. Right? Yeah. I was having this conversation about death with my husband the other day, and like, you know, our culture's fear of it, and how we haven't necessarily, uh, replaced what used to be a very strong religious, um, society with, you know, You know, that had this beautiful kind of way of understanding how death works and yeah, in their, in their, their views and what, what's ours,
Kaitlyn: right?
Yeah, the ritual and the mythology have both been kind of rolled over and it is an incredible loss. To us as a people that we don't have that anymore
Mel: agreed. And I was reflecting that like, maybe nature is it maybe nature is where we're if we are nature, we can go out and we can see how death happens constantly.
It's a cycle of life always in nature and see what happens that is regrowing like these nursery logs with things growing out of them. [00:27:00] You know, like it's, it's this beautiful cycle then. Instead of something to fear like a plant doesn't live in fear of death, right? A plant lives. in connectedness with everything around it.
Right. We depend on nature and nature depends on us and we are nature and like all of that. So to me, um, I don't even feel like I quite have the words to describe what I want yet, but I have this like intense feeling that like that is what we all need is to start to feel that connection again and the way we do it.
Is that we don't have to go out all day every day, but it's those tiny little steps that we've discussed right to just simply slow down and watch notice.
Kaitlyn: Well, and I think that from the, the scientific studies that I've read through, I think that's actually one of the coolest parts is that it takes so little.
to make a difference. I think the very first, [00:28:00] the very first study I stumbled across that just blew my mind and I'm like, this is amazing. And then I just derailed myself and way off left field I went and the next couple of days were spent digging through the field of biophilia, uh, which is, Our human resonance with the world around us, that being nature, not our drywall.
Uh, but the study that they did was a simple comparison of patients in the hospital whose room window faced a brick wall, and patients in the hospital whose room window faced an area of greenery. I mean, that was it. That was the difference. And yet, when they did a comparison on the two groups, the group that had a view of nature out their window had a faster recovery time, fewer complications, fewer infections, less pain medication use, Less anxiety, uh, I think I already said a faster discharge time, [00:29:00] and pertinent to the healthcare providers, less complaints against the nurses and less use of their call lights.
Yeah. Overall, a better state of being. And since then, they've gone in and it's like, okay, well, what does it matter if we just, you know, what if we have some fake plants? What if we have a, a few posters in the room of nature? Um, what if we just, you know, switch the way we tilt the bed so that it's facing the window instead of the door?
What if we allow a little bit more of natural light in the room instead of having the fluorescence on all the time? And every single tiny little thing that they did made a huge statistical impact.
Mel: Yeah.
Kaitlyn: It didn't have to be that they were able to be taken across the street to the park or to the rooftop garden in the hospital, just a tiny bit of nature.
And I mentioned biophilia and that now is a design practice within certain institutions and kudos and kudos beyond to the hospital systems and healthcare institutions of any kind who are [00:30:00] starting to consider that when they design new buildings.
Mel: Exactly. Because it matters. And if you want to look at it from a business point of view, someone could write that all up.
But if you, you know, the less, the less calls to the nurses, the quicker discharge, you know, less
Kaitlyn: use of pain medication, which means that you're also going to recover faster. And oh my gosh.
Mel: Yeah. So many things. Yeah. Yeah. And from the human perspective, of course, you know, we feel more human. I can't say like, like, so I grew up, I have a nurse as a mom and I remember the few times we would go inside the hospital to pick her up and I never wanted to go.
Yeah. No, I feared that space. And what if that's not the way it was? What if that is, you know, yes, there's, there's injury and illness and death and all those things that can happen in that space, but also there's this, there could be life, you know, and beauty and nature. And yeah, there's so much [00:31:00] opportunity there.
Kaitlyn: If you want to color your imagination in a little bit more, I'd encourage you to, uh, hop into the search engine, Singapore and their airport. And their hospital, Singapore got this idea that they were going to become known as the garden city and they heavily started interweaving biophilia into their architectural designs.
And I tell you what, if you told me that I had an extra eight hour layover at that airport. I would not be sad. There's this massive waterfall and botanical garden in the middle of the building. You know, there's plants lining the corridors of their hospital all the way down. There's bright lights and nature everywhere.
And it's like, that could, I would totally kill eight hours in that space and not be sad. And it's not that same, you're right, anxiety provoking, very clinical, very austere, very Yeah. Absolutely. I'm going to say off putting designs that we, that we've sort of defaulted to. It's [00:32:00] radically different and incredibly impactful.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's this, uh, so that sounds amazing, by the way. I'm like, I wrote down Singapore. I had the privilege of being in Hawaii recently as well. And their airport is like all outside pretty much. Yeah. A couple of little undercover spaces just in case for like the rainy season, the small one that they have, but yeah, it's outside and it's just wonderful.
Oh, this is great. Um, but what, you know, what is also making me think about, you know, getting into the healthcare kind of side of things is, is a lot of this nature stuff is our mental health, which impacts our physical health as well. Right. And, um, one of the areas I've been starting to research and doing some courses on is nature based therapy and how This exists in the world, right?
Like my family has, we've gone to a nature based therapist [00:33:00] and it's all outside. We're outside. We're using nature as a co therapist, right? So it's there to help us regulate. It's there to get us into the point where. We can kind of reset our nervous system and then maybe want to be able to talk or whatever it is that we need to do from a therapy, from a therapy, therapy perspective.
So does it end
Kaitlyn: up
Mel: sitting
Kaitlyn: as more of a background to the conversation or does it end up being pulled in actively as like part of an exercise? It's often
Mel: pulled in actively. Yeah. It can be a bit of both depending on, of course, what, what the person needs at the time, but it is quite actively involved. So like the first thing we do is we, um, I go with one of my kids and we, we pick up, we arrive, we look around and we pick up something that represents how we're feeling right now.
And then we go and meet them down in a space in the next to a Creek in the woods. And, um, and we use that as a like, okay. So like mine the other day was, I don't even know what [00:34:00] type of. Leaf it was, maybe like an ocean spray or something. Anyways, it was kind of rigid, rigid around the edge, spiky, but not like pokey.
It didn't hurt or anything, but it was soft and had these amazing veins in it. I was like, this is how I feel right now, right? This is how I feel. Right? Okay. And that just gets you to a different level. And also we think in metaphors naturally as humans, so that works for you too. Um, and I'm like, I'm curious because I see all these things that's, that represents my curiosity, but I'm a little bit like, I'm a little rigid around the edges, but not sharp.
Like that's my feeling. And could I put that into a single word? Probably not. Right. How would you sit there on the
Kaitlyn: couch in the, in the office of your therapist and say, yeah, this is how I feel without having that visual representation of, no, really, it's just us. Yeah.
Mel: Exactly. Yeah. And I have some coaching, nature based coaching.
So I take people for walks in the woods or outside and we, we do it in a similar way. And I've said, you know, a similar thing at the beginning, but it's [00:35:00] like, look around you and think of a metaphor as an adult. Think of a metaphor. That represents like where you're at right now. What are you coming in with?
You know, and it might be, they could come up with honestly anything. Um, and it really stops because your temptation is to go in and start blah, blah, right? Like, here's all the things that are wrong in my life, or here's what I need to change or whatever. But actually that's just, we're all up in our head.
And what nature is doing is bringing us back down into our bodies. It's like, okay, you're describing
Kaitlyn: it, I guess, as using nature as a way to step back and widen your perspective a little bit. Definitely.
Mel: Yeah. Okay. And then you're touching in with like, okay, like how, how does that relate to how you're feeling right now?
Where are you feeling that in your body? What does that feel like? Like, you know, and it just, it's beautiful. It really sets the scene for then a different conversation. One that's slower, one that's more regulated.
Kaitlyn: Yeah. And we're back to the beginning. It's that mindfulness hack that's, exactly, [00:36:00] allows us to do those shifts in our, in our brain and in our chemistry.
Mel: Exactly. Yeah, it's really beautiful stuff and something that I'm, I'm like, that's my excitement right now is how can we, I love doing it with kids and how can we do all this with adults and, and use nature in a way, um, like just build that relationship and use it to help us feel good.
Kaitlyn: Well, and I can see it even being helpful in really, I mean, you're describing a, somebody who's coming in in a reasonably calm state of being, but I could see it even especially helping somebody who's in more of an emotional crisis state.
Um, when we're, when we're in that survival brain, one of the ways that they describe it in academics is that we shift from conceptual processing to perceptual processing.
Mel: Yeah.
Kaitlyn: So when we're in survival brain, we're not, we're not thinking well in words. We're not thinking well in complex concepts. We're thinking in pictures.
And here you've got this automatic bridge and this automatic process that allows people [00:37:00] to do that. Uh, and that's, that's a therapy tool that's been studied in other directions as well, where to poke a hole in that amygdala part of our brain, that survival function, or what I know calling the blowfish zone.
You know, we freak out, we puff up and now nobody can talk to us because we're all defensive and, and, and pokey. Deflating the blowfish has to do with establishing safety. And one of the ways we do that is by kind of allowing access back into prefrontal cortex, allowing access back into the thinking part of our brain, but still, as you said, that interwoven piece.
And it's. When we start using words to describe what we're seeing, when we start using words to describe how we're integrating with our environment and what we're really feeling on that mindfulness aspect, it, it helps us exit that survival strategy. It's like, wow, okay, if I'm doing this, then I'm, I'm in a safe place.
If I'm doing this, I'm in a safe [00:38:00] place. And it's, it's almost a self soothing kind of maneuver,
Mel: you know. And how beautiful is that, that yes, we can go and we have therapists that are getting trained in this. We have coaches that are slowly, we have coaches being trained in this. And also. We can, we can use it ourselves, right?
This is a very accessible tool. It's literally right there. It's right here where we are right now, right? And we can use these and learn more about them. And, um, you could ask yourself that question every day if you want. Even if you're not looking at nature in that moment, like, what would it rep, what would represent how I'm starting my day or my goal for the day or how I want to be today and just, you know, uh, use it in that way because we can also imagine nature, we can't get out in it.
Just close your eyes and like. Visualize whatever it is. My space, usually my go to. I know I did a hypnobirthing and that's kind of the whole concept is you get yourself in this space and it's so ingrained in your mind that that's where you [00:39:00] go in the time of, you know, a lot of bodily stress. Um, I can't say enough.
I, I actually went there during birth, to
Kaitlyn: be fair. No, I practiced that too, and I didn't either. Yeah,
Mel: but it was a beautiful practice to get to that point and to not freak out beforehand. And the space that I went in my mind is on a beach, I can picture it, literally, I can, as soon as I think about it, I have it all in my head.
You know, there's this like balcony I can stand on, I'm looking out over the ocean, I can step down the stairs, I can walk over, there's little waves, there's shells, there's trees back here, you know, there's all the things. And actually our body will calm even if I just close my eyes for like 15 seconds and think of myself in that space, right?
Yeah.
Kaitlyn: And the whole process behind the hypnobirthing that if you practice this when you're calm, and when you practice this when you're not in pain, then you're going to have such better access to it when you're not calm and when you're not in pain. And even though you and I may not have used it in the exact moment of birth, I have indeed also used it at other times [00:40:00] because it did work.
It's like, okay, that there's still that place in my head that I can go to and just kind of calm down and reestablish roots and, you know, So, agreed. Oh, and I, I just remembered one of those other, from another parenting cheat of the outside. Yeah. Um, I watched a, one of my little family movies, uh, just a couple of weeks ago.
And one of the art pieces that came up was when we just went outside and gathered a bunch of stuff outside, sticks, acorns, leaves, um, and then sat everybody down with a glue stick and a piece of paper. Yeah. And you just made, uh, an art piece, you know, one of them made a seal using sticks and leaves to, to be the drawing.
Um, one of those made a little bunch of just crazy creatures, little, little fairy goblin creatures out of, uh, leaves and nuts and bits and pieces. So another, another fun one for the, uh, the outdoor hack for mamas and kids. [00:41:00] Definitely. And it's so fun. And you didn't, you don't have to plan
Mel: that in advance.
You just like go collect your favorite things. All right. What can we make with them? Right. Like you don't even have to do the collecting part. Like the kids love it.
Kaitlyn: Right. Yeah. Collect your own by all means here. Here's something to put it in.
Mel: Pardon me. And yeah, exactly. And you don't, you know, it's, it's really easy to think we have to live in the perfect place.
We have to live on Vancouver Island, or we have to go to the, you know, curated beach at the lake down the road. And I just got a text from my sitter who's watching my kiddos today. Um, and she's like, can I take them to the river instead? I was like, yeah, definitely. And she says, And the text, uh, we showed up and the first thing your kid says was, this is the best beach ever.
Because it's, it's more natural. Right. There wasn't this process that has made itself into its space and there's this little beach area and there's trees and there's rocks and there's sticks and probably bird poo and you know, like all the [00:42:00] things. Um, so nature can, it can be anything. Right. It is. It is.
Yeah. Everything around us. Um, and we have to start, start tying ourselves, uh, up here, Caitlin, but you know, the thing that I'm going to come back to you for some closing thoughts, but mine are, mine are this. And the thing that's really on my mind right now is, is about the noticing. And there was this amazing lady, um, Catherine, I forget her last name, but I'm going to be a.
Okay. I'm going to be trying to get her on this podcast because she's a neuroscientist who was at this, the do lectures, the event that I was just sat in Wales. And my key takeaway was around noticing. And she says there's, I believe the number was 11 billion things we could notice in this moment, but we can, that that are possible to notice in this moment, but we can actually only notice 40 and we can choose what those 40 things are.
That draws me back [00:43:00] to nature because one of my biggest connections was, you know what, two years ago, I didn't notice nature. I didn't notice what was around me. Maybe three, like, when we moved back to the island is when I started to notice it. Right? Because it was very easy to notice it's all around me.
But then I also purposely wanted to be like, I want to be one of those kind of forest school type of people. But I don't even know like what the name of that tree is. Right. I had no idea. So my daughter started learning it because she, she just learned it faster. And then I was like, one at a time, started to notice what the tree looks like and how is it different from that one?
And what is it called? And what's that plant down there? And, you know, now when I went to this, this workshop, um, and this event, the Dew Lectures, I, the first thing I noticed was the climbing tree. What I would call the climbing tree. I don't know if anybody else climbed it, but I definitely did when I got there.
Oh, that's, that's where my head would go. We can go to the
Kaitlyn: type of [00:44:00] tree.
Mel: And that's fine. And you don't need to know the names and you don't, it's more about like, what do you choose to notice? Right. What is the 40 things that you want to notice? And I've chosen to notice nature as one of those 40 things in many of the moments in my life.
And. It comes naturally now. I used to have to force myself to do it, and now it just comes. Now that is what I notice, because the neural pathway is built, right? Um, so, so I, I want to kind of leave people thinking, if nature seems like the scary thing to go out in right now, that's okay. If it seems overwhelming to get to the stage of whatever stage, that looks like for you, that relationship that you want to have it.
That's okay. Just start with the tiny little things. Just notice the snail on the ground or the ladybug and how many dots does it have? And just ask questions. Notice and ask questions. Don't need to know. Just notice. Right? We're
Kaitlyn: allowed to
Mel: be
Kaitlyn: wrong. We're allowed
Mel: to [00:45:00] be wrong. It
Kaitlyn: doesn't matter. Nobody's grading
Mel: us.
Nobody's gonna call us on it. Exactly. Nobody's gonna call you up on it. And if they do, that's fine because the beauty is in noticing you've done the work. Right? You don't have to go write a identification book. Right. We're off the
Kaitlyn: hook for the master's thesis.
Mel: Exactly. Exactly. Um, is there anything else that you are like really wanting to, to let people know today, Caitlin?
Kaitlyn: I would probably wrap to two central ideas or one, one is the science piece, which is simply two hours, two hours over the span of one week is enough to make you healthier. if that's how much time you spend in nature that week. So I'm going to kind of just ride right on what you were saying. You know, it's the little things.
It's the little things that matter. Go take your cup of coffee and go sit out on the steps in front of your door instead of the kitchen [00:46:00] table at the inside of the door. Um, take the camera outside with the kids and take a few pictures. Uh, when, and indeed I, I agree with you completely, you know, notice.
When, when you're off walking towards the beach, kick off the shoes, notice the sensation of your, of your toes in the sand. Notice, notice how it feels when you pick up the rocks and just look through things. And, and take those tiny little moments of connectedness to, to reset your body and your soul because we have over time lost track of our interconnectedness with that web at large.
As you said, it gets to be a choice.
Mel: And you might have to, you know, start with one little habit, such as like, so, such as having your coffee outside. Or I walk my dog already every morning and I used to brudge it. And then suddenly I went, this is like, I get 10 minutes by myself [00:47:00] outside. to walk down the street and just, and now I really enjoy it.
I don't bring my phone. I can't get distracted by the many tasks of the day. I, I just, I started to notice like the hummingbird that lives, like, likes to hang out there or whatever it is. Um, and I'm sure your dog
Kaitlyn: just says that you just made his day by taking him for a walk. So, you know,
Mel: she's so happy, right?
Exactly. And, and I got to, I got to feel efficient because I like ticked a box as well. So like you can do both. Right? It doesn't have to be another thing on your list of things to do, it's more about what is on your list now already that you can include nature within and you can notice the nature that is within those tasks.
Kaitlyn: Right. And, and taking a look at the places maybe that you spend the most time and saying, can I put a tree? Can I put a plant? Can I put something nature related in that space that I can use to retune myself? Totally.
Mel: Or even a picture, like I can see behind you in your room, you have a picture of, I think it's the ocean.
Kaitlyn: I have a picture of the ocean [00:48:00] and on my desk is this thing that I went totally nuts at and I built with my kids.
Mel: Oh wow. And it's a little
Kaitlyn: koi pond. in a tabletop garden box. And we made the koi pond with little clay fish that you don't have to, you can just order tiny fish from, uh, from Etsy craft shops.
And my kids and I designed this little tabletop garden space.
Mel: I love that. Oh, I would love to do that with my kids. You've given me a, an idea now I can see. There are YouTube videos
Kaitlyn: of how to make epoxy koi fish ponds and there's so much lower maintenance than real ones.
Mel: Yeah. That sounds great. That sounds great.
And we even like, so outside of my patio here, um, Well, we're getting a house painted right now, so I had to move it all off, but I got the kids to help me, like, design it out there, and like, what plants? Let's, we've got these plants, where are we going to put them? My daughter took a, um, an empty, uh, pot with dirt in it, and, and I was [00:49:00] like, just, can you make this beautiful?
And she's like, oh. Okay. And off she went and she found like, we had some broken clay pot that she put it in different, she picked some grass, like from the roots and rooted it in there and like, just put all this randomness in it. And I'm like, this is beautiful. This is great. Thank you. Like, and I think I was like, make a fairy garden is, is what I actually said, because that's the kind of language that made sense for them.
And, um, and it just, that's, it worked. Right. I got 15
Kaitlyn: minutes by myself, too. It was great. Yeah, and they had something to show for it that they can still look over at and be proud of. And
Mel: so those are, I mean, we've come up with some great hacks there, and I think there's like a million more. So what I actually would love to do is invite the listeners.
If you, if you have a kind of hack or a time that you've Being able to go outside, such as like, go outside with your coffee in the morning, walk your dog and notice what's around you. You know, whatever your hack might be, how, [00:50:00] how can, or have you already, put into place getting in nature? And I think it'd be great, great to share that, so, maybe pop over to the Facebook page and just stick it on there, and I'll collate it, uh, I'll collect a list, and we can share it with everybody of like, this is the ways that we can get out in nature.
Kaitlyn: That's a list I would love to read.
Mel: Yeah. Wouldn't it be great? Yeah. Awesome. Um, okay. Thank you so much for coming here today, Caitlin. I love speaking nature. I've loved talking with you and just thank you. If people can, uh, are interested in getting out there, finding you, seeing more about what you're up to, where would they, where would they head?
Kaitlyn: Uh, I've got a website where I post articles that I write for, around wellness topics and things along that line. Um, you can get to that on the articles page of it, but katelyncary. com, it's K A T E L Y N C A R E Y. [00:51:00] And that's where I, where I post some of my free resources and where people can see what I'm up to when I go and do teaching and such around the country.
Mel: Brilliant. And that is amazing. And Caitlin, you, the, the work you're doing, you know, nature within it, but also just almost like alongside it, the work you're doing with, you know, enabling people who care for others to be cared for themselves and take care of themselves is so, so powerful. So if that is something that people are really interested in, go listen to our last episode, find out more about what you're up to.
That's episode 42. And also check out your website. Thanks so much. Thank you. Such a pleasure.
You know when you have that dream or that idea and you hold it really tight and you don't really want to share it with anyone until you have it just right until you are absolutely assured that it is exactly what [00:52:00] you want it to be but you also know deep down inside that it is unlikely to get perfect it is unlikely to get to exactly where you want it to be unless you share it with others.
It's when we share it with other people that we get the energy and the momentum. It is when we get feedback. It is when we start to iterate inside of our own minds. We need to get it out of our bodies and into the world in some sort of way. And talking to someone who will cheer you on is exactly The first step.
Now, if you can't think of anybody in your life that you would love to share your dream with in this raw stage where you're not gonna get the words right and you're worried that they're gonna come back to you and be, yeah, but or ooh, what if? Don't share with those people. If you can't think of who to share it with, then I want to be that person for you.
[00:53:00] Totally complimentary, I am launching the Dream Haven and it is a simple message back and forth concept where you tell me your dream and I cheer you on and tell you exactly how amazing I think it is. I can be that safe space for you and your dreams to grow into whatever they're going to grow. It's going to grow.
totally complimentary. It remains your dream, not mine. And I would absolutely love and be honored by being that person who gets to hear it first. So head on over to permissiontobehuman. ca slash the dash dream dash haven. And let's get this going. Because your dream deserves to be out there in the world.
It could be a project. It could be a business. It could be the change that you really want to see in the world. It could be an adventure that you really want to go on. You got this. Let's hear about it. Again, all [00:54:00] you have to do is head on over to permissiontobehuman. ca slash the dash dream dash haven and put your details in and you'll get a video personalized back from me inviting you to take our next step.
That is it, folks. This has been Mel Findlater on Permission to Be Human, the podcast, and I am so glad that you have joined us here today and hope that you have taken away some tidbits that will help you go away, connect with your big audacious dream, and make that massive impact in the world that you are dying to make.
If you liked today's episode, please, please, please like it, share it. Think of one person. Think of one person that you think would also like it and send it on over to them. Let's get this out there and more moms feeling like themselves. Inspired, dreaming big, and out there [00:55:00] being them. Please do head on over to find me on Facebook with permission to be human or Instagram or you can even Off me an email and say hello.
Have [email protected] say hello and let me know that you listened. What did you like about it? I would love to hear. If you didn't like it, I don't really want to know. Just kidding, you can share that if you want. I would love to know, however, who you are. Let's connect. Let's find out what you want more of.
I want to hear from you and I want to make it what would be useful to you. As always, remember that you have permission to dream big, permission to feel big, and permission to be you. You have complete and full permission to be human. For real, [00:56:00] you do.
