The Importance of Touch Trees in Living a Created Life
This past week, I hosted the December Gathering for my Empowering Motherhood program.
Given what I was hearing all my participants dealing with, I designed the Gathering around finding a Touch Tree in the midst of holiday chaos.
I first heard of the concept of a Touch Tree in Glennon Doyle’s book, Untamed. (I highly recommend that book if you’re looking for something to feed your soul!). Glennon heard about it on survivalist shows she was watching - it’s a large, distinct tree that you can come back to as a home base so that you can venture out to forage and explore the area without risking getting lost in the wilderness.
I think we need Touch Trees in life in order to navigate the wilderness around us. Especially at times when the waters we swim in feel like a rushing river, carrying us along without much consent. That’s how the holidays are - it’s something to recognize and accept. The torrent of the season includes excess sugar, consumerism, lack of boundaries, family drama, and more plans than is healthy for our nervous system. It also includes a lot of obligations and expectations placed on moms in particular to create the magic of the season for her kids and family, sometimes at the cost of her own mental, emotional, and physical health.
This is your friendly reminder to create a Touch Tree for yourself. Here are some options for you:
An intention for a day, week, or season
E.g. My intention this week is to be present for the small moments of joy.
A commitment you have to yourself and others
E.g. I’m committed to having grace for myself and others during this Holiday party.
Who you want to show up as
E.g. This week, I want to be joyful, loving, and accepting.
Who you want to be for other people
E.g. Around me, people will experience lightheartedness and fun.
There are two choices in life at any given moment: live by creating a future, or live by reacting from the past. Live from love, or from fear. Live from our divine, creative self, or from our animalistic, survival self.
Using a Touch Tree like the above gives you an access to living from creation vs. reaction. It gives you a choice. Otherwise you’ll just be the version of yourself and you’ll experience the circumstances in your life from a default place. The default is usually unconscious, status quo, and “normal.” We become numb to life when we live from the default.
I hope you take some time today to create a Touch Tree for yourself. Creating this will be like putting a pair of glasses on that are a certain color - everything around you will show up inside of that color. Wouldn’t it be lovely for everything around you to show up inside of being joyful, loving, and accepting? Maybe then, when your parents, siblings, partner, or children are doing something to bother you, you will see it as an opportunity to live true to your Touch Tree. “Oh! Here’s an opportunity to be accepting! I created this!”
I would love to hear what you’re creating - send me a note with your Touch Tree for the next week or so as you experience the holidays.
