Go Mother, It's Your Earth Day!

Celebrating nature is to me like a mother is to her child. This is why nature, mother nature, is my first love.

Go, go, go, go, go, go. Go, Mother, It's your Earth Day! We're going to party like it's your EARTH DAY! 

Shout out to Mother Earth, my one genuine true Mother. Today, it's HER DAY, so I am celebrating endlessness. 

My connection to mother nature, aka mother earth, goes back to my earliest memories in my childhood. Around five years old, I learned I was adopted, and everything immediately became very confusing and complex. 

My adoptive parents divorced when I was one year old. My adoptive mom was mentally ill and unable to parent, so the home I grew up in was very toxic and emotionally damaging. My adoptive dad's home was an escape, but only into a different toxic situation. My oldest stepbrother started to molest me at a young age and continued throughout my childhood. 

While it seemed there was no "safe space" for me inside my adoptive homes, I would run outside to frolic in the forest, which is when I began my deep-rooted connection to mother nature. Nature was an escape from the anguish I lived in each day, but getting outside wasn't always easy. 

My adoptive mom kept me captive, never letting me go outside to play, so I would have to sneak, which became a full-time job. She was manic depressive and suicidal and couldn't care for herself, let alone the two daughters she adopted. She adopted two daughters so she wouldn't have to go to a nursing home and be her caretaker. I cared for her my entire life, keeping her alive by feeding her narcissistic supply until I escaped by moving across the country in 2005. Within five years, her narcissistic supply died, and she did too. ( I will be writing about this soon) 

Consider Reading: Sneak Life (A chapter in my audible memoir) 

On the other hand, my adoptive dad would let me go outside and play freely, where my freedom in being in nature began. Outside seemed to be a rescue from my stepbrother's wrath, but being in the woods in Iowa was where my relationship with mother nature began. 

Consider Reading: Feeling My Birth Mother Through the Sky

Recently, I was shopping at a thrift mall and was taken back by a picture I saw for sale hanging on the wall. It was as if it captured my heart because my internal little girl parts were replicated in how I have always felt about Mother Nature, aka Mother Earth, from the beginning. 

Please take a look at the below photo of the painting. 

There were always many parts of me (research IFS), and the reality that two of my little girl parts are in this painting was awestriking, not to mention it shows one little girl being off by herself (unhappy) and the other (cheerful) making friends with the deer and wildlife in the woods. 

Nature is to me like a mother is to her child. This is why nature, mother nature, is my first love. This is why nature, mother nature, is my first love.

She is the sky, the air, the water, the trees, the sunshine, the moon, the stars, the grass, the flowers, the bushes, weeds, and so much more. She was comforting, protecting, embracing, understanding, and loving, and she was my most incredible escape throughout my early childhood. She embraced me with warm arms through weeping willow trees, and the warm sunshine kissed me like a mother's love kisses her children. 

There always seemed to be a deep sadness and longing (replicated in the unhappy little girl in the painting) brewing below the surface when I was a child.

That sadness reflects all that was lost because of adoption. 

While I would venture off into nature any chance I could as a child, I would lose touch with nature as soon as I turned ten to eleven years old, and not long after, I discovered alcohol. I traded nature for alcohol, and my life was never the same. Alcohol was my new love, and it seemed to take the pain away, at least temporarily. But, unfortunately, being consumed with adoptee pain, it would take me 27 years to find my true Mother again, mother nature. 

On August 13, 2012, I stopped drinking alcohol to numb my pain from relinquishment and adoption trauma. Everything got genuine, authentic, and bonafide reality showed up. No more running. I spent over a decade unraveling all the damage and trauma adoption caused and finally made it to the other side of healing. I am healing daily, but in this decade, I rediscovered mother nature, and we have been inseparable ever since. 

Consider Reading: Earth Day, Mother's Day & My Adoptee Epiphany

Once again, she's a beautiful escape for me and a never-ending source of peace, fulfillment, and happiness. She fills me up, and she is always there for me; she protects me, loves me, and she is always around. Between the flowers, trees, weeds, wilderness, sunshine, sky, rain, and moonshine, I am constantly surrounded by Mother Natures unconditional love. Waterfalls are my altar call, and I attend church in the wild regularly, minus all the counterfeit people. 

No mother on earth has meant as much to me as mother nature has, and no mother on earth has been as loyal to me as mother nature has. I had a birth mother, who relinquished me, so she passed me over to strangers. Once I found her, she rejected a relationship with me. (soul-crushing) 

My adoptive Mother is someone I never bonded with; she repulsed me and could not parent me. My entire childhood was stolen to take care of her. 

My adopted step-monster was always cold as ice, and I never felt any connection, bond, or love from her. Three times my chances at earthly mothers couldn't give me what I needed. 

But I have Mother Nature.

Go Mother, It's Your Earth Day!

So the ball has been in my court. Now, I am in charge of giving me now what I needed then. I have learned to mother myself, love myself, and be true to myself. I have learned that I get to create my own life and happiness. Even when the first pages of my story were written for me, I can rewrite my story, shift the narrative, and take back what was taken from me. Every day I walk in my genuine authenticity, I am doing that. 

Mother's Day is difficult for many people, but especially for adoptees. I used to be plagued by the holiday, as the missing mothers have plagued me. However, today I can take that sorrow and feel it for as long as I need to when May 14 comes, but I can also celebrate that Mother Nature has been here from the beginning and continues to be here for me. She's a lifelong loyal companion, and it brings me peace to know she's always in my back pocket, like a wildcard I can play any time of any day. I can also rest easy: I am a mother and deserve to be celebrated. So Mother's Day doesn't plague me as badly as it used toy. The key is to sit in the sadness, feel the feelings, embrace, welcome them, and then let them go. 

Consider Reading: Happy Mother's Day to the Missing Mother

Consider Visiting: Into The Wild: Kentucky Wilderness & Waterfall Adventures.

I have written my playbook and created a combination of activities that work for me based on my passions in life. I have added hiking adventures, nature play, wilderness wellness, waterfall chasing and bathing, forest bathing, and climbing mountains to my self-care toolbox.  

Today I wanted to share a few of my favorite ways to connect with Mother Earth as a way to honor her on her day:

BRAIN & BODY:

Thanks to friend & fellow adoptee Danielle Gaudette, I have recently started learning about brain & body techniques through Ilchi Lee and have found amazing healing tools to add to my self-care toolbox. Body & Brain has been a pioneer in Eastern holistic energy healing and mind-body practices since 1996. Today, Body & Brain can be practiced at over 80 locations in the United States. This comprehensive practice combines traditional Korean healing philosophies and Qi energy training informed by modern neuroscience to help maximize the brain’s function and integration with the body. I have learned so much already, and I am excited to explore Body & Brain in a deeper way. Many of the techniques are in conjunction with the earth and nature.

Consider Watching: Body & Brain TV on YouTube

SHINRIN YOKU:

Since reconnecting with mother nature, my life has never been more enchanting and rejuvenating. To say I live a fulfilling and adventurous life is an understatement. I have taken up the study of Shinrin Yoku, which is the Japanese Art of Forest Bathing. In the USA, we call it forest bathing. This is a practice where we tune into our five senses while in nature, and it's proven to bring many healing effects. I get great healing just by sitting in nature.

Consider Reading: Forest Bathing Benefits - How Shinrin Yoku can soothe your body and mind.

GROUNDING AKA EARTHING:

Even when I feel like I was shafted in the mother area, not once, twice, but three times I have struck the lottery when it comes to Mother Nature. I have taken up a passion for earthing, or what some people call grounding, so I can connect with my mother more profoundly. This is direct skin contact with the surface of Mother Earth with our bare hands, feet, or grounding systems. I actually sleep grounded every night. The benefits of grounding and connecting to Mother Earth in this way are astonishing! Grounding appears to improve sleep, normalize the day–night cortisol rhythm, reduce pain, reduce stress, shift the autonomic nervous system from sympathetic toward parasympathetic activation, increase heart rate variability, speed wound healing, and reduce blood viscosity.

Consider Reading: 30 Benefits of Grounding: Barefoot Walking & Earthing.

BLUE MIND, WATERFALLS, MISOGI & BODIES OF WATER:

Have you heard of the waterfall effect? Do you know what Misogi is? Did you know that waterfalls create negative ions that have a positive and euphoric effect on our emotional, psychological and mental wellbeing? I am the waterfall QUEEN with my great state of Kentucky having over 1000 waterfalls, I am in waterfall paradise. Have you heard of Blue Mind?

The concept of Blue Mind was written by adoptee, Wallace J. Nichols, PhD and it backs scientific discoveries Blue Mind is the mildly meditative state people fall into when they are near, in, under or on water. Water positively affects the mind and body, and the Blue Mind Theory provides ways people can use water to improve their well-being. Blue Mind is the term used to describe the state of water-associated peace. When I hike to a waterfall, I sit at the base, or jump on in to experience all the benefits negative ions create, by diving into the water and basking for awhile. Misogi translates as ‘water cleansing’; in the Shinto faith (one of the major religions of Japan), standing under a waterfall is a way to purify your soul. Every time I jump in a waterfall or even just put my feet in, I am creating a bridge of restoration by purifying my mind, body and the essence of my true self.

Consider Reading: Diving into Misogi: The Ancient Japanese Ritual of Waterfall Bathing.

Do you want to experience the adventure of a lifetime? I challenge you to find adventures in your own city and state because they are usually hiding as hidden gems, in our own backyards!

I INVITE YOU TO JOIN ME!

This experience I am sharing doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, only me. Just like your journey doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, only you. This is what's worked for me, and I encourage you to explore life and find what works for you and be true to you!  

As adoptees, I think it’s critical in our healing journey to get to a space where we take control of our lives and we follow our hearts in whatever we need to do to make that possible. It’s time we reclaim what was taken from us and rewrite our stories. We have all the power and I send a message of encouragement to each adoptee who has made it this far to follow your dreams and passions and find whatever makes you happy in life. We are the only ones that can save ourselves. No one is going to do it for us. For all the adoptees who haven’t made it to this stage of life yet, I was once in your shoes. Keep pressing, keep fighting, and never give up. I am with you, I see you, and I love you!

I hope where ever you are in your adoptee or adoption journey, you know you aren't alone. If you need someone to talk to, consider setting up a table talk chat with me. I have intentionally set aside this time to listen, hear and validate others who might need support. Click here to learn more. 

Click Here to Book A Table Talk Today

It's an honor to celebrate today and every day as an expression of how much love and loyalty the real Mother gives me. I salute HER for how much she gives the world, and I have endless love to give her in return. My commitment to My Mother’s Earth Day is to continue to do my part by recycling when necessary, picking up trash as much as possible, educating those willing to listen, and embracing HER as the sacred mother that she is.

Q & A

For my fellow adoptees, have you tapped into any of these tools at any time in your healing journey? If so, how has it benefited you? Share your thoughts below!

Understanding is Love, 

Pamela A. Karanova 

Recommended Resource for Earth Day: