Rooted Intentions
During our Christmas visit to Maine at the end of 2022, I found myself being blown across the streets of downtown Portland one afternoon with Jared. Literally pushed by the strength of the wind. On the drive back to his family’s home, I watched the trees bend almost 45 degrees left and right. Sometimes I thought I saw their tops nearly touch the ground and I braced myself for the snapping of their trunks and branches. But eventually, the tree would come back upright. “How grounded these trees must be,” I thought to myself. “How have they adapted to withstand the gusts of wind? How are they surviving? How are they thriving?”
A few days later I would find myself back in Central Park, running on an unseasonably mild day. This run was one of my firsts since nursing a running injury — an injury I can 100% say I brought on myself. As my sleep scheduled changed (shortened), my eating habits became dictated by a packed Zoom calendar, and my perfectionism took the joy out of marathon marathon training, my body began to become brittle back in October. Like brittle trees in a hurricane, my legs seemingly snapped and I found myself run down with a stress fracture.
Stress: the reaction to pressure
Fracture: the cracking or breaking of material
What an eerily perfect analogy for where I was physically, emotionally and spiritually as the final quarter of 2022 began! I was sporadic in my prioritization of self. I was stressed. I was no longer embodying grounding. As I passed my favorite block of elm trees, I wondered: “what would my roots say about how I’ve embodied grounding this year?”
Reflections from Year Two as a Founder Aspiring to Create an Ecosystem Rooted in Imagination, Rest, and Worthiness
Quarter 1 Assessment: Strong start
I was clear on how my rest and reflection practices would begin and end my day. I began my journey with Devoted to Rest. I paced my calendar, ensuring I didn’t have back to back meetings. I normed myself on starting mornings later and using the start of the day for planning and reflection.
Quarter 2 Assessment: Steady-ish state
Devoted to Rest and a collective organizational rest break anchored the busy season. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was delayed in looking around the corner on my calendar - a traffic jam for the last six months of the year was quickly building up without a plan for another route.
Quarter 3 Assessment: Organized chaos and exhaustion
As summer ended and a peak period began, I struggled to adapt practices and to shed ones that were no longer serving me or the season. I ended the quarter with no reserves.
Quarter 4 Assessment: Limped to the finish line
Literally.
When I began reading about roots in between winter travels, I must admit I thought the legacy of roots was seen through the stability of a tree trunk and its branches during stress - a gust of strong wind or heavy snow. I did not appreciate that what happens below the surface of a tree - the movement, the health, the evolution of its roots - is its legacy.
Over the last few months, I’ve found myself in deep inquiry with trees — wondering what I can learn from their roots to help me in crafting a set of intentions for embodying grounding this year and throughout my own legacy building.
Photo from a winter journey to Mexico
Rooted Intention 1: I cannot build a legacy without consistently nourishing myself.
Roots are essential to a tree’s survival. They seek to embody a constant state of nourishment: they transport food, water and nutrients throughout the body of the tree all the way up the stem to the leaves.
I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen into a multi-generational pattern of pouring the proverbial cup for others first before taking a sip myself. But I cannot build for a future of possibility and abundance if I am not nourished too. I am beginning to acknowledge where there are gaps between how I care for others and how I care for myself. I am intentionally going back to the basics, ensuring my days are rooted in self-nourishment.
Rooted Intention 2: “Building community is to the collective as spiritual practice is to the individual.” - adrianne maree brown
Our ancestors knew they could not build their legacies alone. They intentionally built, reflected on, and celebrated their legacies together - from the small to the large wins.
The roots of trees know they cannot build legacies in isolation. “A single root can’t hold up much weight, but the network of large and small roots work together to hold the tree upright and keep the soil in place.”
I cannot stand on one practice alone. I cannot build alone. I seek to create, take up space in, and contribute to loving, joyful, and imaginative communities. Community is essential to my survival, growth, and legacy.
Photo from a legacy walk in Mexico
Rooted Intention 3: I cannot control when and how change and endings come, but I can prepare my body to survive and thrive through it.
There are seasons where I can take up and enjoy the spaciousness of time. This winter is one of those times — a season that is feeling deliciously slow. A season where I’ve limited how I’m interacting with the outside world in order to heal, rest, and build up my reserves. But like everything, this season will end and I will enter into a peak season. I am clear I must identify now how I will navigate the seasons outside of winter.
Right now I am focused on intentionally building my capacity to evolve and remain steady through change and endings. This begins with taking stock of the practices, skills, and communities that will support me not only in accessing my vision, but building and sustaining a vision. I’m shifting away from prescribing I stick with my practices from winter with absolute fidelity through the spring, summer, and so on. I believe that was my major misstep last year.
Doodles of my antidotes and practices for nourishment, grounding, and clarity
To the left is a photo of my current library of antidotes and practices to tap into when I’m in need of nourishment, grounding, and clarity. Like the roots of trees, I’m focused on creating practices that allow me to create reserves and be rooted enough to bend - not break - when change and endings come.
Sitting squarely in the middle of wintering, I’m paying close attention right now to the movement, health, and evolution of my roots and antidotes. I learned from my former coach that my calendar and bank account will always tell the truth about whether I am walking with my intentions.
This means I’m practicing running every activity on my calendar and in my bank account through a set of questions anchored in these rooted intentions:
What allows me to be deeply nourished? To be connected with my roots to expand and stretch?
What is fueling my legacy? How are rest, community, celebration, and healing part of how I am legacy building?
How am I leaving space for revelations and change?
As we enter the final month of wintering and exploring grounding, I invite you to bundle up, ditch your earphones, and walk with me.
Notice the movement of trees.
Be in inquiry with the movements below surface: What allows you to be deeply nourished? To be connected with your roots to expand and stretch? What is fueling your legacy? How are rest, community, celebration, and healing part of how you are legacy building? How are you leaving space for revelations and change?
In still of grounding,
Gabrielle
