It is the second week of April 2023 and only now do I realize how tired I am. For the last six months, in hindsight, I have been working against the odds. The engaging presence and collaboration with the WorkAwayers (WA) made this possible. Not just because it gave us more hands but even more so because it kept me on standby time and again at 8 or 9 (depending on the temperature). Stick around in a positive sense. With a plan in place and also with the intention that it would be fascinating, interesting, sociable, in short, right on all sides because it’s inspiring to see others inspired.

Each of these mornings followed by lunch, if possible also tasty, healthy and varied. Often, when the WA’s hours were over, I would be busy for hours afterwards. With the less interesting things and preparations for the next day. In the background, ordinary life played out, between hoover, dishwasher and washing machine and shopping bag, the social and all that comes with renovating our place and little studio in Lisbon. Finally painting our little house, scoring second-hand cupboards, getting them home and piecing them together so we can - finally - get rid of piles of boxes.

I have paused my painting for over a year and a half and have yet to find any closeby yoga. Of course, I can’t complain (family motto). I am finally living outside where I want to be and I get to make a difference on our own, in hindsight not such a small place after all. Bring others along in that and hopefully also let something behind for future people. But the balance has been lost for a while and waking nights turn into hour-long circles of worrying fuelled by all the opinions about the climate crisis but especially by the changes I observe around me that make these opinions seem so futile compared to what is happening on a large scale. Can we afford to claim the right to keep what we have at all? Is that fair, set against the fact that our prosperity is based on the exploitation of areas that are already in the midst of deforestation and desertification? Shouldn’t we instead take the lead and fully commit to regenerative alternatives instead of always playing on our own leg? I often feel enormously guilty about our greed and my own inability to really scale back, because we too fly, we too have all kinds of renovation projects running… I am grateful for some dear people who do not judge me, but take me as I am and at moments like this help me reset, refocus on what I can do and how I can regenerate myself in the meantime. One such person is Mathias from the RegenWaves project in Palmela. With Mathias’ help, Gijs is initiated into syntropic thinking and we discuss the current situation. What emerges from our joint evaluation so far is that the drip irrigation we have installed is not making enough of a difference: many cuttings and seeds have failed to take root even now. But there is more. My design shows gaps: I have wanted to start too many tree lines and have not yet been able to add some also crucial elements. Overeagerness, not fuelled by arrogance but by the hot breath of the changing climate that I feel constantly on my neck: the spring rain is still letting up and we are already halfway through April! Eagerness fuelled by yet some other worn-out mottos: If I just work hard enough, I’ll get there! And: don’t whine, get on with it. So this is how I lose sight of the common thread.

I feel grateful, to them, that there is an eye for the human side in this. For exchanging feelings of overwhelm, resistance, exhaustion, naivety. Space for expressing my sense of shame that I haven’t done well enough, that in doing so, I am fuelling an old pattern. For the re-acknowledgement, the honesty back and forth. For Gijs’ unwavering trust. I realise that that too is regeneration, working through a process that eventually leads to something broader.

Of course, I also think of the book our friend Nuno lent me the other day, Falling upward written by Richard Rohr. About how our dualistic thinking keeps us from using experiences as moments of growth. And that’s what I’m busy with right now, putting a stop to my Monkey mind over and over again and taking the bumpy but fascinating path of ’learning something again’ instead of the obscure path with the signpost ‘guilt’. That means, first of all, standing still, evaluating and also, appreciating what is there which really is a challenge for me. Can I stop condemning myself? Can I break the link with old experiences where I have been condemned recklessly? Can I transform that old pain into more, let go of it?

Together we see how Gijs and I have different ways of coping with stress situations: Gijs withdraws and focuses on other things that also have to be done in order to feel good. On the other hand, I buckle down and try twice as hard to compensate for Gijs’ absence ‘because he is already so busy’. I was once told that the hustle and bustle of ’the men’ has priority, should be facilitated, Gijs that there is no point in starting the conversation, running the risk of feeling small again. We both have our own ‘victim’ cues.

I realise that these are ‘stories’ that, in the words of Eckhart Tolle, provide bread for the psychiatrists, fodder for our egos. But people are different. I process all input long and deep (not necessarily better!) and thus draw deeper neurological grooves. I am more often than not unable to turn off my ‘story’ with mindfulness alone and thus clearly do not meet the Zen standard. I believe that the stories we cannot let go of get stuck in our bodies. Like a cramped position, a continuous inflammation or a recurring injury. Our body does not do ‘stories’, our mind does. To which will I listen?

Taboos within society or families on seeking (specialised) help for this kind of fixing I find culpable because almost without exception, within the framework we grow up in, some idiosyncrasies are rewarded more than others. It is either conforming to or breaking away from family culture and both are harmful. It is often said ‘You have a genetic predisposition, nothing to be done about it, fortunately there are medicines.’ But when we realise the large percentage of people who take medication for this reason, is this true? Is it perhaps also because family norms are unmentionable, because loyalty must not be violated? And that as a result, the same hurt is passed on from generation to generation and perhaps even intensified? Is this one of the reasons why cross-generational traumas occur?

If there can be little or no appreciation for individuality and differences, the strongest norm is maintained at the expense of many, thus weakening our coexistence through polarisation - you are ok or not ok.

Big steps, quick home? Maybe so and yet… I find a beautiful parallel with natural ecosystems. A forest that is self-sustaining and expanding along its edges is a forest brimming with diversity, in which each component is a unique building block. This makes sense. Each species has its own needs and enters into collaborations in the soil with which specific exchanges of nutrients take place. With only one type of nutrition, no human will stay alive and therefore neither will a soil covered with a monoculture. Whether that plantation consists of just tulips, apple trees or English ryegrass. Enforcing and conforming to a single standard, to simplification, renouncing complexity, is in the long run the deathblow to an ecosystem but also, in my short-cut reasoning, to a society. Now you’re thinking ‘but a forest has no story!’ True but it doesn’t judge either because everything is different and equally important in its uniqueness.

My dear sister reminds me that I am just a fluff. A fluff with deep thoughts with which I am not going to save the world. And yet I share this first because I want to get past my own shame. With my eagerness, I too have placed myself above the very ecosystem I wanted to strengthen. I have listened to my own fears, my worn-out mottoes and not to the wisdom of the old, experienced and above all, diverse forest.

My sense of shame distorts my view of what is and thus hinders the openness I need in this process with Gijs and Mathias. How do I get past my shame again and again? It helps to show my vulnerability to the right people, people who don’t judge me and can listen from recognition or with a wise heart. To them I can ask for help: can I knock on your door when my old story rears its head? Will you tell me then that it doesn’t apply now? That I am ok despite the scratches in my long-playing record? Do I dare? What does it take to dare? Letting go of the fear that I will be declared spoilt, a poser, a wimp and too intense for sure and also remember how good it feels to be understood or held by the right people.

If we manage to see falling as just another experience, the painful cramps that growth involves have less impact. It’s a reset of our system to not go down. It’s how we reinvigorate declining growth in the syntropic system with a firm pruning before everything goes to seed. The cycle will repeat itself but the natural capital, the soil that becomes richer and richer, keeps increasing and so does our own understanding.