For those of us with an ecological consciousness, we're always asking ourselves what can I do?
What can i do to help this Earth? What can I do to help the healing?
Often the options or the solutions seem really overwhelming, like something that
would be impossible for a single person to take on, or would take many lifetimes.
But what if there was something? What if there was a solution and something that you could do?
Something that you could start doing today that would make all the difference in the world? I'm
Asia Suler of One Willow Apothecaries, and this video is a message directly from the Earth to you.
What is this one thing that the Earth is asking of you that you can take on today
to truly help this planet? Self-compassion. I used to think self-compassion and selfishness
went hand-in-hand, but the exact opposite is true. Self-compassion is about learning to see
ourselves, to understand ourselves, as a whole part of nature. Just as a tree is a beautiful
part of this planet, self-compassion helps us to see the same within ourselves. And it helps us
to come back into wholeness within our own being. The roots of the problems in our world right now
come from fragmentation—it comes from wholeness having been broken. I remember hearing the
physician and author Gabor Maté describe trauma as a disconnection from yourself. In the moment
that trauma happens the experience is too intense that we can't fully stay with ourselves, so we
actually break from ourselves. Now this is a way to adapt to the stress and shock of this moment,
but then we always need to be able to come back on the other side—to come back into wholeness.
Now if we look at the world at large, what we see is trauma playing out in basically every man-made
disaster and ecological hurt that's going on on this planet. It's the trauma of individuals
and whole cultures who are disconnected from themselves, who don't remember their wholeness.
When we can have compassion for ourselves, what we've experienced, how we react to things,
what's going on in our life, we come back to our own wholeness. We reclaim the wholeness within us.
We begin to heal our trauma by simply coming back to this wholeness and reuniting with the width of
who we are. And when we can access that, we can begin to understand the gifts that we were meant
to bring into this world to help this planet heal, to help the Earth on this journey of regeneration.
When we can see and recognize this wholeness in ourselves again, we access the most precious
thing of all, which is our gifts—the gifts that we came here to give this planet, the gifts that we
are here to translate and bring to this Earth to help the Earth heal. For this reason, the Earth is
always reflecting back to us our goodness. The natural world, the living world, is constantly
showing you your wholeness. It is teaching us self-understanding, and self-compassion,
because the living world—which is much wiser and wider than our own minds and selves—knows
that self-compassion is essential to stepping into healing, personally and globally. So if
you need some science to back this up, research shows that increased self-compassion can help us
also increase our sense of responsibility towards others, morality, and empathy. Stable self-esteem
is also positively correlated with things like curiosity to learn new things, and a desire to
challenge ourselves. If we take all of this as a whole, we see that learning self-compassion
is not a side pursuit in the healing of ourselves in the world, it is essential. That when we learn
how to have compassion for ourselves, we step into our power—as those who hold healing, and hold
gifts for this planet, for our communities, and for ourselves. Learning self-compassion has been
a huge part of my journey here on this planet. If you had asked me 10 years ago if i struggled with
self-compassion or self-love, I probably would have told you no, and it was because i was so
disconnected from what true self-compassion felt like, that I wouldn't have even have known that
what I experienced about myself or the way I saw myself in the world wasn't actually my wholeness.
I wasn't seeing myself for who i really was. Now there's a lot of reasons why we can start
to doubt our own goodness and lack compassion for ourselves, and normally it boils down to
some sort of trauma in our life—which all of us have experienced at some point in our existence.
But the incredible thing is, all you need to do is spend time with the living world and this
Earth will show you your wholeness again. It will lead the way back to self-compassion. And this is
exactly why I wrote my book, Mirrors in the Earth: reflections on self-healing from the living world.
This book is a guide from the living world, that takes you on a journey in tandem with nature—to go
from self-recognition, to self-acceptance, to true self-compassion. Each chapter will introduce you
to the living world, to a process that is going on around you, to the magic of this Earth we call
home, and it will show you exactly what the Earth showed me through all these explorations—that
you are good, that you are worthy, that you are needed, and that you are beloved. Because at
the end of the day, the truth is, self-compassion itself is a force of ecological healing. The Earth
knows this, and it's time for us to remember this as well. Your journey of learning to come home to
yourself is essential to the whole. And I wrote Mirrors in the Earth to help you on that journey.
The book is available for pre-orders now, and for anyone who pre-orders themselves a copy,
or copies for all their friends, can gain access to a library of exclusive content developed just
for you to help you really step into and embody this incredible journey of communicating with the
Earth. In this bonus library you'll receive a class, called Writing the Earth's Voice,
to help you step into the channel that you are for this Earth. There's also a behind-the-scenes video
into the making of this book—a video that was also made to support all of those who are writers and
creators, who are also working in tandem with the Earth. And as a part of this nourishing package
of resources, you'll be invited to a private launch event with me, where i'll be doing a
live Q&A when the book releases. To everyone who's pre-ordered already, thank you so much
from the bottom of my heart—it means the world. For small authors like me, pre-orders really help
because they let the publishing company and the printers know that there's interest in this book,
that there's enthusiasm for it, and it can really define how much of the book is available,
and where we go from here. So I'm just so thankful for everyone who's pre-ordered, and for everyone
who's about to click on the link that I'll put below to get yourself or someone you love a copy.
Thank you so much for being here with me on this journey of connecting to the living world and
learning self-compassion; I truly believe that this one thing can change the world.
So whenever you pre-order the book, I'd love to hear from you—leave an emoji or a comment
below so we can start connecting. And until launch day, thank you so much for your support,
and may the living world continue to show up for you, to show you your goodness,
and to guide you on your unique and deeply healing path here on this Earth