Latest / She Survived: Stories of Courage, Recovery & Reinvention / The Quiet Alchemy of Watching Grass Grow | She Survived
Transcript
- I used to think stillness was a form of surrender, until the day I realized the ground beneath my feet was holding me up without asking for anything in return. It’s not about stopping the world; it’s about letting the world stop you. Let’s be honest with each other for a moment. We live in a culture that treats stillness like a defect. If you aren’t moving, producing, optimizing, or curating your next thought for an audience that doesn’t really exist, you’re failing. I’ve felt that itch in my bones. The one that says, 'Gloria, get up. There’s a podcast to record, a garden to weed, a problem to solve.' But here is the truth I’m learning, slowly and sometimes painfully: the noise in your head is often just fear wearing the mask of productivity. And when we try to outrun that fear with motion, we end up exhausted, hollowed out, and strangely disconnected from the very life we’re trying to protect. I remember sitting on my porch last Tuesday, staring at a cracked paving stone where a dandelion had pushed through. It wasn’t doing anything remarkable. It wasn’t trending. It wasn’t scaling its growth. It was just existing, stubborn and bright against the gray concrete. And in that moment, I felt my shoulders drop two inches. Not because I had solved a problem, but because I had witnessed something that required no performance from me. That is the first gift nature offers us when we let ourselves watch it: permission to simply be. People ask me how I stay so grounded, and they assume I have some secret meditation technique or a quiet mind that never wanders. Let me tell you, my mind wanders like a lost dog. It chases squirrels of worry, barks at shadows of doubt, and occasionally pees on the rug of my self-esteem. The trick isn’t clearing the mind. The trick is shifting your gaze. When I feel that tightness in my chest, that urge to fix everything immediately, I don’t try to silence the thoughts. I go outside. I find a tree. I pick one branch and I watch it move in the wind. Just one. And as I watch, the frantic energy in my body begins to leak out, replaced by a slow, steady rhythm. This isn’t magic. It’s biology. Our nervous systems are wired to respond to soft fascination. When we look at fractals, at leaves, at clouds, our brain waves shift from beta, which is active and stressed, to alpha, which is relaxed and receptive. We aren’t ignoring our problems by watching grass grow. We are giving our brains the space to process them. We are letting the water settle so we can see the bottom again. It’s a physiological reset button, pressed not by force, but by gentle observation. There is a specific kind of humility that comes from standing in front of an old oak tree. You look at the trunk, thick and gnarled, covered in moss and history, and you realize that most of its strength is invisible. It’s underground. It’s tangled, messy, and dark. We want the canopy. We want the shade, the fruit, the beauty. But the work happens in the dirt, in the unseen places where things are rotting and transforming into fuel. I think about this when I’m going through a season of life where nothing seems to be happening above ground. When the job feels stagnant, or the relationship feels quiet, or the grief feels heavy and unmovable. I remind myself that I am rooting. I am gathering nutrients from experiences that feel like decay right now. Nature does not apologize for its winters. It doesn’t rush the spring. It trusts the cycle. And if I can trust the cycle, even for five minutes, I can breathe into it. I can let the ache be there without trying to plaster over it with busyness. The turning point was tiny, as I always say. It was the moment I stopped fighting the winter and started respecting it. If you’re listening to this while driving, or washing dishes, or trying to fall asleep, I hear you. Your impatience is valid. It’s loud. It tells you that you’re wasting time. But I want to write a letter to that part of you, the part that is scared of being useless. Dear Impatient Self, you are not wasting time. You are investing in your capacity to endure. When you watch the clouds drift, you are practicing the art of non-attachment. You are learning that things change, and you survive the change. You are learning that the sky remains vast even when the weather turns stormy. This is a skill. It’s a muscle. And like any muscle, it atrophies if you don’t use it. So today, I invite you to do one thing that has no measurable output. Sit on a bench. Watch a bird build a nest. Notice the way the light hits the water. Do not take a photo. Do not post it. Do not analyze it. Just witness it. Let it wash over you like rain. Feel the cold if it’s cold. Feel the warmth if it’s warm. Be the weather, not the forecast. Because the forecast is always uncertain, but the weather is always real, and it is always passing. One of the hardest truths we face is impermanence. Everything changes. The flowers wilt. The leaves turn brown. The seasons shift. We spend so much energy trying to hold on, to preserve, to make things last forever. But nature teaches us that holding on is the source of the pain. Letting go is the source of the peace. When you watch a leaf detach from a branch, it doesn’t struggle. It falls. It spins. It lands. And in that falling, there is a grace that is almost sacred. It reminds us that our own endings, our own transitions, are not failures. They are part of the design. I think about this when I look back on the years I spent trying to be someone else, trying to fit into shapes that didn’t belong to me. I was fighting the wind. Now, I try to be the leaf. I accept the descent. I accept the change. And in that acceptance, I find a freedom I never knew I wanted. It’s not easy. Some days, the wind is fierce, and I cling to the branch until my fingers bleed. But then I remember the view from the ground, the smell of the earth, the quiet hum of the soil. And I let go. Again and again. Until it becomes natural. Finally, I want to talk about the body. We treat our bodies like machines that need to be fixed, upgraded, and optimized. But when you stand barefoot on the grass, you remember that you are also land. You are made of the same stuff as the trees. Carbon, water, stardust. When you feel disconnected from yourself, when you feel like a ghost in your own skin, go outside. Touch the bark. Feel the roughness. Smell the pine. Taste the air. These sensations anchor you in the present moment, pulling you out of the abstract worries of tomorrow and into the tangible reality of today. You cannot worry about next year’s taxes when you are feeling the texture of moss under your fingertips. Your body knows how to heal. It knows how to rest. It knows how to grow. It just needs you to get out of the way. So, step back. Breathe. Listen to the silence between the sounds. It’s not empty. It’s full of everything you need to keep going. Thank you for sitting with me today. For choosing stillness. For trusting that you are enough, exactly as you are, in this exact moment. I’ll be here, watching the grass grow, waiting for you next time. Take care of yourself, my friend.