‘Your Natural Rhythm Is the Earth’s Rhythm’
Your natural rhythm is the Earth’s rhythm.
Last week we talked about how nature is how we truly rest. This week, let us go a level deeper, to the rhythm humming underneath it all, the Earth’s rhythm.
Have you noticed how calm you feel by the ocean, in a forest, by a fire, or in those slow moments just before sleep? That deep settling is not random. You are slipping back into your natural rhythm, the one you were born with.
Nikola Tesla said that to understand the universe, we should think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration. We are no exception. We are energy, humming at a frequency all day long. Our brains run at different speeds, measured as brainwaves. Stressed and busy, we are up in fast beta. Truly relaxed, we drop into the slower, calmer waves called alpha and theta, where we feel peaceful, creative and clear. That is our natural resting rhythm.
Here is the part that gives me goosebumps. The Earth has a natural pulse of its own, around eight cycles every second, which scientists call the Schumann resonance, and it sits right inside that same alpha and theta range. Our calmest rhythm is tuned to the heartbeat of the planet. When nature settles you, your body may literally be syncing back to the Earth.
The trouble is that modern life keeps us revved up in fast beta almost all the time. Notifications, deadlines, noise and screens keep the engine screaming, and we end up wired and tired, lying awake wondering why we cannot switch off.
The beautiful news is we can tune back in any time. Nature, slow breathing, stillness, meditation, hypnosis, music that moves you, or losing yourself in something creative, all gently guide the mind back into alpha and theta. This is coming home to ‘The Garden.’ As a hypnotherapist, it is the very state I help people reach.
‘What helps you drop out of the rush and back into your natural rhythm?’
‘Nature Is How We Reset’
Nature is how we rest. Find the place that does that for you and go there often.
We think rest means collapsing on the couch, scrolling, or binge watching another show. And yet we so often get up more tired than before. There is a real difference between simply stopping and truly resting.
Real rest does not just pause you; it restores you. And one of the deepest, simplest forms of it is nature. We are not separate from the natural world; we are part of it. Our bodies were shaped under open sky, near water and trees, not under screens and fluorescent lights. When we step outside, something in us exhales. The nervous system softens. The shoulders drop.
In my book I talk about how we seem to be quietly attuned to the rhythms of the Earth itself. The rustle of leaves, the flow of a stream, the warmth of the sun on your skin, these settle something in us far below our thinking, reminding the body that it is safe, and that it belongs.
Nature is ‘The Garden’ made real. Birdsong, a breeze through the leaves, green in every direction. Stepping into it is one of the fastest ways to walk straight back into the calm ‘Garden’ inside yourself.
Everyone has a place that does this. A beach, a bush track, a quiet river, a park bench under a big old tree, the backyard at first light. For me it is a few favourite spots around Melbourne that feel like open country, all within a twenty-minute drive, where I can sit in the quiet and somehow see things in my life clearly again. You know yours by the way your whole body settles the moment you arrive.
The mistake is saving it for the once-a-year holiday. Rest is not the prize at the end; it is the fuel for the journey. Ten minutes barefoot on the grass, a weekly walk among the trees, beats one big escape a year. Unfortunately we sometimes forget to go.
Where is the place that truly rests you, and when did you last let yourself go there?
‘Sometimes a Miracle Moves Through Us’
Have you ever witnessed something you could only call a miracle?
I want to share this gently, and with great care, because it involves someone I will never identify. Her privacy matters deeply to me. What I can share is what moved through a therapy room one day.
A client had recently come into my care, and in our first session, as she talked about her life, something came over me. I found myself answering things with words that poured through me from somewhere internally. It amazed her, and it stunned me just as much.
Near the end of the session, she told me something that stopped me cold. The night before, she had decided that if she did not find the answers she was searching for, she was going to end her life. Somehow, without ever knowing her questions, I had answered all of them. Then I asked her how she could turn her life around from now on.
The next session, I witnessed a miracle. She had taken her power back, and in one week, doing what she needed to do, she turned her whole life around. I want to be clear; the answers were already within her. I simply got out of the way long enough for something greater to move through, and the courage was hers.
This was not the first time. In my book, Where the F*ck Do Our Minds Go? I share a moment with a mate in the building Industry, Frank, who reached out for advice while wrestling with something heavy. The year was 1988. And without planning a word, I said exactly what he needed to hear, and it surprised us both. The same quiet place.
I drove home trying to understand it. I believe these moments happen to many of us when we quieten our own noise and let something larger move through. Call it intuition, grace, the deeper knowing we all carry, our guides, angels and our higher self. It is truly a miracle.
And if you are sitting where she was, please hear this. You matter, and the answers are often closer than they feel. Please reach out. You do not have to carry it alone.
‘Where in your life might a miracle be quietly waiting, if you got still enough to let it in?’
‘Um. The Atomic symbol for confusion.’
Um. The atomic symbol for confusion.
We have all been there. That foggy, stuck, “I don’t even know what I’m feeling or what to do next” place. And most of us treat confusion like a dead end, a sign something has gone wrong with us.
Here is a gentler way to see it. Confusion is not the end of the road. It is the step right before clarity.
Think about it. You only feel confused when your old way of seeing something no longer fits. The fog is not a wall, it is a sign you have outgrown the old map and a clearer one is forming. Confusion is clarity, still getting dressed.
The mistake we make is running from the fog, numbing it, scrolling past it, staying busy, anything to not sit in the not-knowing. And whatever we run from, waits for us. The way out of confusion was never around it. It is through it.
So when the fog rolls in, and this is not a judgement, we all get lost in it, try not to panic. Get still. Ask one honest question. Clarity is closer than it feels.
What are you confused about right now that might simply be clarity on its way?
'From the top of the mountain, you see clearly. Looking down at your own crap, all you can see is more crap'
From the top of the mountain, you can see clearly. Looking down at your crap, all you can see is more crap.
When you're down in it, the worry, the noise, the emotion, more crap is all there is all you can see. The view only changes when you find a way to rise above it and become the observer of your own mind.
There's a simple practice I've used for years to do exactly that. I share it, and where it leads, in my book.
What would you see if you could get above your crap, just for a moment?
‘You're not made of steel. You just get treated like you are — mostly by yourself.’
You're not made of steel. You just get treated like you are — mostly by yourself.
You'd never run a machine flat out with no maintenance and expect it to last. Somehow that's exactly what we ask of ourselves.
Easing off isn't going soft. It's how you keep standing.