If I say the word Roots, what’s the first thing that springs to mind?

Trees and forests?

Buying a house?

Starting a family?

Or, perhaps, must book a hair colour appointment?!

In an era where millions of people are physically displaced from their homes through war or weather extremes and millions more feel a sense of drifting, loneliness or isolation, it’s time to talk about connection. In particular, our connection to nature, ourselves and the Universe.

You see, putting down roots is about more than buying a house or starting a family. Having roots is a connection to Mother Earth and to ourselves.

You can only start to truly connect when you realise that numbing the emptiness is futile.

A great new haircut or that first cocktail on a Friday night certainly makes you feel good, but it’s a temporary high. A series of picture perfect temporary highs might make your life seem pretty perfect to your Facebook followers. It may even make you think you’ve got this happy life thing sussed.

But when you’re brave enough to stop and look inwards, you realise there’s a gaping BIG h o l e.

A hole that will never be filled, until you stand on the edge and jump right in.

When I was 21 I thought I had my life figured out. I’d done well at school, been abroad for a year and got a good job with prospects. I was engaged to a lovely man who I lived with in a little three bedroom house with a garden, garage and two gorgeous cats. We had a great group of friends, an active social life and regular holidays to the beautiful Greek islands.

But there was something missing.

I was literally 99% on target to tick everything off that imaginary life wish list we all write when we’re teenagers (you know the one, married by 25, two children by 30…) but I carried a sense of longing and loneliness that I couldn’t describe, name or really feel into.

Until one day someone (far older, wiser and more in tune with her feminine nature) said to me: ‘If it doesn’t feel right, it’s ok. If it’s not what you want, you don’t have to do this.’

Her intuition was spot on. She felt something rising in me and put it into the words I was unable, or un-ready, to say.  In essence, she guided me to tune in to my innate wisdom, my gut instinct, my divine feminine energy. Without her light around me I would never have had the strength to go through the inevitable heartbreak and change in situation that followed.

Looking back, this was one of the big turning points in my life.

Suddenly I wasn’t just following the ‘good girl’ path expected of me and started following my heart.

Opportunities opened up for me the more I tuned in to who I really was and what I really wanted. A redundancy payment led me to retrain in nutrition, fitness and health and within a few years I had moved country, met a new man and had two beautiful daughters. (So my wish list did come true anyway!)

Connecting to our inner selves is an ongoing adventure where sometimes we’ll sit on a mountain top together admiring a beautiful sunrise, and other times we’ll be crying ourselves to sleep, hitting the pillow and shouting ‘Why me, why now, why this?’.

Connecting is not something we just do once, like setting up a broadband service or booking our annual holiday.

Understanding who we really are on the inside doesn’t just take work, it takes a willingness to open up; to be vulnerable, raw, messy and ready to receive.

When there’s a lot going on in our lives and the world around us that makes us feel like the ground is being pulled from underneath us, and that life will never be the same again (that’s actually a good thing, trust me!), this is the perfect time to tune in, reconnect and grow our roots.

Before you can put down roots, you have to trust in yourself first. Trust that your intuitive guidance system will take you to the experiences, places and emotions that you most need to move forward.

• Trust that whatever you’re faced with, you can, and will, get through it.
• Trust that your emotions are leading you to uncover more of who you really are.
• Trust that the solutions will always appear, as long as you keep believing in yourself.

To connect with nature is a great way to begin reconnecting with yourself and trusting your intuition.

• Walk barefoot on the grass or along a sandy beach.
• Lay under the stars on a clear night.
• Walk in the forest and listen to the sounds of the leaves and branches dancing in the breeze.
• Eat fresh, ripe fruit with your hands and allow yourself to get messy! (Mango is great for this.)
• Swim in the ocean.
• Spend time with your pets; feel the unconditional love vibrating back at you and filing your heart with warm fuzziness.
• Watch a sunrise or sunset.
• Grow flowers or vegetables.
• Climb a mountain (or at least a big hill with a view at the top).

As I write this blog from an olive tree covered mountainside on the Greek island of Corfu, I notice the way the trees have grown and thrived over many decades and am reminded that the beauty and strength of nature is in each and every one of us.

Our Western culture has led us to believe that we and nature are separate.

But we’re not.

We and nature are all one and the same energy.

• So why do we say trees, flowers and sunsets are beautiful, but women of a certain shape and size are not?
• Why do we say that we need to protect our animals, our oceans and our rainforests but we don’t seem to be doing enough to protect our children against a future of online bullying, shaming, grooming and self-esteem destruction?
• Why do we say we want to live in a happier world and then spend our time watching sensationalised news reports, reading magazines filled with body-shaming tips masquerading as beauty or fashion tips, or trolling social media to have arguments with people we’ve never even met?

If you do one thing today to reconnect to your inner self and grow more roots, make sure it begins with love and compassion.

Do small things with big love.

In a volatile, ever-changing world, where we’re powerless to control so many things, the ONE thing we all have to take responsibility for is to create our own roots through reconnecting to our inner selves and showing up from a place of truth and alignment to who we really are.

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Lorraine xx