Join Me Outside 🌲 How DO We Connect with Nature? | 066
In this special episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast, host Toréa Rodriguez takes listeners on a unique journey into nature. Recorded live while hiking along a picturesque river, Toréa shares her profound insights on the deep connections between humans and the natural world. Drawing inspiration from Dr. Suzanne Simard's book, "Finding the Mother Tree," she delves into the intricate relationships between trees, fungi, and the mycorrhizae network, revealing parallels to our own interconnectedness with nature.
Toréa also explores how simple moments of presence in nature can foster emotional well-being and deeper self-awareness. From the sensory experiences of hiking to the importance of maintaining a balanced relationship with our environment, this episode is a call to reconnect with nature in meaningful ways. Join Toréa for an unique adventure that will leave you feeling more connected to the world around you.
In This Episode
[00:00] - Join Me Outside 🌲How DO We Connect with Nature?
[01:11] - Everyday interactions with nature
[02:34] - Hawk Sighting
[03:25] - “Finding the Mother Tree” book and discovering the mycorrhizae network
[06:44] - Human Connection to Nature
[10:14] - Sensory Exploration Of Connection
[13:28] - Processing emotions in nature
[17:01] - Shared Experiences
[21:57] - Inviting listener feedback
Resources Mentioned
Finding the Mother Tree by Dr. Suzanne Simard
Merlin Bird ID App
Presence w/ MAK
Connect with Toréa
Website: https://www.torearodriguez.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torearodriguez/
Threads:https://www.threads.net/@torearodriguez
Transcript
Toréa Rodriguez 00:00 Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness. I am your host Toréa Rodriguez, and I've had a lifelong fascination with the natural world, and its impact on our well being. For over a decade, my work as a functional practitioner has been exploring how our relationship to our environment, to our thoughts, beliefs and emotions can have a profound impact on our physical and mental wellness. And because of that neurology, and brain based rewiring is a core focus of my practice. I am passionate about helping people not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves. They've been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you liked what you hear today, I would love it. If you would leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. Because we never know how much we can impact others when we do. Let's start today's adventure, shall we?
Toréa Rodriguez 01:11 Well, Hi friends. Welcome to an episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness Podcast. Today we're doing something a little bit different, going on quite a little adventure but I wanted to record this while hiking along a river and do something so that people who are listening can join along can have more of the experience of what it's like to be outside and to be in nature. And what better way then to get out and listen to some of the sounds of the rushing water and the birds and everything else that we will encounter here. And I also wanted to explore the topic of connecting to nature and our connections with nature. A lot of times I think, you know, the connection with nature is highly associated with being outside and being athletically active or, you know, going on some grand adventure.
Toréa Rodriguez 02:34 And just going to pause moment because what I just witnessed was I think it's a hawk. But I literally saw the hawk dive down and grab a fish out of the river and now it's flying up the river with its catch. So it can go have some breakfast, what an amazing sight to be able to see. But as I was saying, like, a lot of times we associate the being out in nature having to be this grandiose expenditure of energy doing some kind of physical feat and more often than not, it's something else entirely.
Toréa Rodriguez 03:25 You know, it's I just finished reading this fabulous book that I can't stop recommending. It's called Finding the Mother Tree by Dr. Suzanne smart and in that book, I mean, it's for a scientist and the nature geek kid is quite the book is so good. It's, it's her autobiography and you know, she, early on in her career, she was hired as a forester scientist with the Canadian Department of Forestry. I don't know if I have these names, right, because I live in the United States and she lives in Canada, but she was a scientist working with the Department of Forestry. And part of what she was tasked to do was start to really look at how do we regrow these areas of forests that we have cut and this is several decades ago, you know, she was really looking at the way that forestry was working a lot in those days and still a lot today, to be quite honest, is they'll harvest timber and they'll just clear out a space like just mow it to the ground. And so she was hired to figure out what is the fastest way to grow timber back so that they can do it again and continue profiting off in the timber and using the timber and during her research as a forester one of the things that she discovered It was the mycorrhizae relationship of trees and fungi. Mycorrhizae is a term Myco is mycology or fungi, and Rhizae are the rhizome, which I think is a part of a plant. But it's been a long time since I've done my basic biology classes. But basically, it's it's this combination tissue where plant becomes fungi, and then fungi, moves into the mycelial network. And what she discovered is all of these trees and all plants actually are connected together through these mycorrhizae relationships. And of course, that opened up a ton more questions for her in terms of, well, what is the purpose of the these materials and these connections? And is it a way to communicate? Or is it simply a way to pass nutrients. And so she went on to further study and shape some of the ways that we now regrow forests, there's so much more that we can do in this area. And I think today, she is a professor at a university in British Columbia. And she in her lab and her undergrad or graduate students are still investigating and learning more and more and more, but what she, the novel work out of her lab is that there is this relationship that we have this connection that that trees are connected to each other, but the plants are all connected to each other. And we're starting to learn how exactly they are connected, like what the purpose is. And I don't want to spoil the book, because honestly, it's a fabulous book. So you should go out and read it.
Toréa Rodriguez 06:44 But it's really gotten me to start thinking about our connection, human connection to nature, how do we connect with nature? And does that necessarily mean that we have to go move to Siberia and live in a handcrafted cabin, if you will, and live off the land? No, that doesn't mean that at all, like we are so interconnected with nature. You know, as I was looking for a spot to record this, I hiked a little bit further up the trail, and the river is rushing so much, that it was a little bit too loud. But I sat for a moment on this log, that was part of the log was in the water, and part of it was up the slope of the bank, and I'm sitting on this log, and all of a sudden, it starts moving, vibrating. And I turn around and look behind me. And of course, there's nobody behind me. But what I was connected to was the movement of the water because the water was causing this vibration that was then moving up the log, and then getting to me. And it's just another example of connecting with nature in a way that is not the typically thought of norm. But if there's anything that I have learned in my time being a you know, studying biochemistry at undergrad, and then also functional medicine later on in life is that it's it's much more about the system and the ecology, I think a lot about our own human ecology. Because if you just think about the gut microbiome for a second, right, we've got trillions of different microbes that live in the gut, a lot of them are beneficial to us. In fact, we really do depend on them. A lot of the vitamins that we take in through food really aren't created because the gut microbiome is converting the food into the vitamins so that it can be bio available for us to take in. And so we are so connected to this microbiome, that if we aren't caring for this ecology, and starting to think about our entire human existence as a more complex inner connection of relationships between bacteria and even viruses, and even parasites that are in the body and part of the microbiome, fungi, we even have fungi in our gut, you know, it's like, if we are not paying attention to those relationships and tending to those relationships, things can get off balance, this is what get gut dysbiosis is things get off balance and one of the species will start to overtake. So if we are not taking care of the individual species within the gut, this is when gut dysbiosis occurs. This is when one species starts to overtake and kill off other species and then becomes dominant. Yet some of these species one example A pylori, a little bit of it is beneficial. A lot of it is very negative experience for the human body, and can cause a lot of problems. And so we want to keep these things in balance.
Toréa Rodriguez 10:14 So really, the, the book has gotten me to think about, like, what are all these interconnected ways that we connect with our environment and connect with nature. And, you know, like I said, at the beginning, when we come out into nature, a lot of times the expectation of I need to connect with nature means that I'm out doing some kind of physical activity. But for me, it's very different. You know, each time I'm out here, it could even be in a park or next to some trees on my street, like, it doesn't mean that I have to go to a particular space. I do love that. Don't get me wrong, I do love being out here getting to listen to the river go by. But being able to be in nature, for me is really about that essence of presence. And if you haven't heard that episode on presence, I encourage you to go back and do so it was such a great episode, where we were talking about having that sense of awe when we have that time to just slow down and be present with our environment. But for me, you know, it really comes down to being able to be present yet also start to explore. So for me the connecting with nature, it's a lot more simple. It's a lot more basic than doing a particular activity. You know, it's as simple as just pausing and starting to really take in through all of my perceptual senses. What are the things that I'm present to right now, you know, and I'll use my senses as a checklist a lot in a lot of different techniques. And I teach this to my clients in my courses and programs and one on one work, but, you know, really start to take in with your senses. What are you looking at right now? Like, what do you see? What are the colors, you know, for example, I see the sun shimmering off of the ripples of the water as the water is floating by and I see the the green colors of the plants on the bank that are blooming because it's springtime or early summertime. I see the cobwebs in the trees and the dancing, little silver lights that the individual wear web strands will create in the trees and I see the birds that are flying along the river and catching insects in order catching a fish as we heard earlier, you know, so really kind of taking in all of the different things that I see, you know, the wild flowers that are coming out, you know, I wish you could see them. The columbines are all along the bank and the wild roses. The What else do we have out here we've got some of the balsamroot flowers, which are these really pretty yellow flowers. Even found the Star Lily, which is really kind of cool. I think it's called a Star Lily. I'll have to go back and figure it out.
Toréa Rodriguez 13:28 But those are the kinds of things that I'm seeing right now just to give you an idea. And then of course, what do I hear? What do you hear perhaps there's not much right now besides the rush of the river, but beyond that, with the mic is not picking up I can hear the birds singing different birds. Often oftentimes, I love this app that I use, it's called Merlyn. And it's by the University of Cornell and it records birdsong. And then I get to identify birds via birdsong. And so that's always been a fun pastime while I'm out in nature is to record the birds and see if I can find them with my eyes. But I can hear the birds and I can hear the wind through the leaves of the plants that are next to me. You know, when I'm hiking along I can hear the rocks and pebbles move out from beneath my footsteps. You know, what am I smelling? That's another piece of it for me that it's so sensory rich, when I'm out in nature is trying to smell the smells and for a lot of us unless we are a fragrance scientist or somebody who has heightened olfactory senses. Seeing now I can hear a plane but you don't really take it in the sense and the smells and the Some of the sense that I can detect when I'm on this trail specifically is the aroma of the wild roses, which is so light and delicate. And the Ponderosa Pine gives off a little bit of kind of almost a vanilla like, scent. And then further on down the trail, you'll get a whiff of the sap of the Douglas fir, which is a very pine, pine smelling type, scent, and so really kind of paying attention to what those scents are. And then using the sensory of feeling both in two ways. One is the tactile feeling, I like to pause and touch the bark of a tree and feel the actual sensation of the bark underneath my fingertips, you know, feel the smoothness, yet the roughness at the same time. Yet, there's also the the energetic sensing, with touch, you know, it's like if I am touching a plant, and getting a sense of its texture, I'm also picking up a sense of its energetic presence. You know, same thing with the trees, you can kind of get a sense of their energetic presence when you're touching them. So using our tactile senses as a way to bring in a connection to nature. And then of course, there's the the emotion, piece of it. I think one of the beauties about being out in nature is that I can be in touch with my emotions, and feel my emotions in a way that doesn't feel as frenetic. And when I say frenetic, really what I mean is like when I am in the middle of working or doing a lot of stuff on my computer and an emotion pops up, it's almost like it's this annoyance, right? It's like, I don't have time for this. I'm shutting you down, we're gonna deal with this later.
Toréa Rodriguez 17:01 And I don't give myself ample time to process those emotions. Yet, when I'm in nature, it feels like I'm held by nature, with the ability to feel the feeling fully, and be able to lean into that emotion and touch in with that emotion. And of course, oftentimes, that's me starting to question like, where do I feel this in my body? And what is the sensation look like? And what does it feel like? What is the texture of it, or what's the shape of it, that helps me really identify an emotion, rather than trying to name it with an emotion name, sadness, anger, apathy, frustration, whatever it happens to be. So, you know, being out in nature allows me to be in touch with my emotions and process them in a way that is much more healthy than me trying to be like, Oh, I don't have time for that. So I gotta shut this down. So, you know, it's not uncommon for me to get into a space, out in the wilderness, out in nature, and just be struck with all these senses at once. And that is, that is where art is, at play, you know, I'm taking all of this information in and then all of a sudden, I am just in such awe and joy, of being able to be so lucky to see these views to be in this kind of environment. And then there, don't get me wrong, there have been many times where I've been hiking and hiking along. There's one specific River, actually, which is about an hour from here. But the first time I hiked along that river, all of the sensory input that was coming in was so intense that literally, I just had that moment of feeling like my heart was cracking open wide, just feeling like the heart was expanding so much and just that feeling in that chest area was just wild and it broke down into tears. So it's not uncommon for me to do that nature because I just love it so much. But you know, kind of rounding out this conversation while we're here. And really thinking about how we're all interconnected. You know, we're, you're listening to this on a podcast that you've downloaded to your device that I've uploaded from my device into the the internet, and the internet is a massive network of computers exchanging information all over the planet. And it's amazing that we have all these different ways to connect with each other. But I think that nature also at allows us to connect to other humans even more. I haven't quite thought through that concept too much. But it really does like when I am out spending time with some of my favorite humans and some people that I've never met before, yet we're out in nature. We're sharing this experience together. And there's a connection there because of that shared experience. And it's part of the reason why I wanted to devote an entire episode two this is that I believe that when we are able to get out in nature and share that time with each other, even if it's just being in a park and lying on your back and watching the clouds, change shape, like doing that with another human creates this kind of connection. And we've got these wonderful technologies that also bring us these connections together. Like the fact that you're able to listen to this and hear the same river that I am sitting next to is quite awesome. And so I think it's up to us to really choose wisely how we are using technologies and how we are connecting with each other, and with nature, so that we are not finding ourselves in a disconnected state. And I find that happens to me when I am in the process of just consuming things. So like consuming my Instagram feed and consuming my emails and consuming news and consuming. Whatever Netflix show I might be Binging at the time, when I get into a mode where it's too much of the consumption and not enough of me sharing that connection or going out and interacting with the world, then I get a little bit off balance. And I find that apathy can sink in for sure.
Toréa Rodriguez 21:57 So I have to take a break and I have to reconnect, reconnect outside. And that's usually what it is. So I want to thank you for joining me today on this little adventure hike that we have been on. You know, it's fun to think of this as a way to connect with each other, but also to share the sights and sounds with you as as I experienced them too. So I would love some feedback on this one. If you're enjoying the idea of joining me on some of my outdoor adventures in this way, please give me feedback. I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me through the email on my website. And of course, you can send me a DM on Instagram. I'm also over on threads. And we will post all of that into the show notes. And to wrap up, I'm just going to put my feet in the water because it's my opinion that we should never pass up an opportunity to put our feet in the water. So thanks, everybody, and I'll see you next time and see you outside.
Toréa Rodriguez 23:21 Hey, thanks for joining me for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your wellness, you can check out my website torerodriguez.com. Want to have a peek into what it's like to work with me? Check out the Wellness Curiosity Collective or any of my other programs or retreats. And if you found something helpful in today's episode, don't forget to leave a review hit that follow button or share it with a friend because they're gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, See You Outside.
