Holistic Therapy
Healing and thriving of the body, mind, and spirit.
Thriving in the Desert
The Desert
The desert is a place of scarcity and harshness. It can be a place of disorientation and suffering, lacking in clarity and direction. A place that can be perceived as dull, boring, ugly, and desolate. And yet, in slowing down and being in the discomfort of the desert, it can be a place of deep healing, clarity, strength, resourcefulness, and beauty. Cacti, with their intentional water capturing and consumption, not only sustain life in the desert, but thrive in their production of beautiful flowers and fruit. It is not a coincidence that many vision quests take place in the desert.
An intention and hope of Desert Thriving is to foster slowing down, peace, resourcefulness, strength, growth, and seeing beauty in places that can initially be perceived as stark; and to apply these characteristics to experience peace and joy despite and within the challenges in our lives.
Thriving
For all of us, stress is vividly present - pain, insecurities, doubt, worry, hardship, and trauma. With respect to these difficulties, resilience* (bouncing back from stress) is commonly encouraged. Ideally, however, we not only bounce back from stress, but we thrive** - we learn, grow, and find benefits in and from stressful events.
And thus, an additional intention of Desert Thriving is to uncover how we can derive our greatest strengths and joys from our stress and pain; to uncover how we can thrive regardless of our life circumstances.
*Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The brief resilience scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194–200.
**Smith, B. W., Erickson, K., Guzman, A. (forthcoming). The brief thriving scale: Assessing the ability to learn, grow, and find benefits in stressful events.
“Sometimes it takes great suffering to pierce the soul and open it to greatness.”
~Jocelyn Murray
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
~ Rumi