## Metadata - Author: [[Julie Brams]] - Full Title: The Nature Embedded Mind - Category: #books ## Highlights - Whenever participants can sense that the guide has an expectation, they are prone to performing whatever they think the guide wants. The way people relate to leaders, they are conditioned to look to the leader to validate their experiences. This conditioning is so deep that people rarely even notice themselves doing it. By offering everyone a chance to express themselves, even if it is in silence, Circle provides an opportunity for each story to be heard. And the art of facilitating this kind of Circle is not as simple as passing around a sharing piece; the real art is in welcoming every story with equal dignity and respect. ([Location 1255](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=1255)) - Most people think the point of listening is to figure out what to say in response, so that you might be helpful in some way. But in Circle, the point of listening is just to listen, to give space to another person to say what they want to say, without any interference or manipulation at all. ([Location 1267](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=1267)) - For me, the thing that’s really countercultural about holding space is that you have to decouple empathy and compassion. Because if I’m receiving your story with a sense of empathy, I’m entangled in it. And when I get entangled, then I’m in the story. I have an agenda because of who I am and because of my own story. If I’m entangled in your story, I might want to resolve it, and now I’m influencing the field and I’m influencing the emergence of the story. ([Location 1272](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=1272)) - I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. Mary Oliver, American poet ([Location 1679](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=1679)) - Feelings of awkwardness or judgment are fine. What’s important is not to let it stop you. In fact, it might be a good sign that you’re on the right track since what we’re challenging is a set of learned beliefs that have broken our natural relationship with our environment. Our perceptions are the only broken part of our relationship with nature. Our physical bond is not broken; our emotional bond is not broken. Only our way of thinking about ourselves and nature is broken. Reconnecting with the rest of nature, seeing yourself as nature, and feeling your place in the whole biosphere, your Earthbody, is more akin to remembering than learning. This is a practice of allowing your original nature to come back to you on its own. ([Location 1709](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=1709)) - The most certain way to destroy intimacy in a relationship is to project our thoughts onto another being, human or other. ([Location 2036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=2036)) - Life seeks life and loves life. The opening of a catkin of a willow, in the flight of a butterfly, in the chirping of a tree-toad or the sweep of an eagle — my life loves to see how others live, exults in their joy, and so far, is partner in their great concern. Edward Everett Hale, American author, historian, and minister It seems to be a sign of our modern times that we need to see scientific proof of things to believe them. I, myself, have a very healthy dose of skepticism, needing more than one form of proof that something is true. For me, it usually begins with an intuition, validated by science, and finally ascertained through my own experience. I encourage that method. Because two of the three components rely on you. Your own discernment, your own exploration, your own educated guess validated by others who have an agenda of verification through objective measures. ([Location 2081](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=2081)) - My intuition suggests to me that like the way my body increases its temperature to fight off an infection, we humans also have biological instincts that kick in when we face extinction. Why would we be the only species without it? We “know” what we need and where to heal. We only have to break through our collective story that keeps us separate from our original home and healer. Earth is calling us back to realign, to restore health. We simply have to be brave enough to listen. ([Location 2096](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=2096)) - We can no longer act as if a relationship with the rest of nature is optional. This is the next evolutionary step in understanding human thought and behavior. Just as we moved from thinking maladaptive behavior was only in the individual, then began to understand family dynamics and larger social systems as creating maladaptation, we must broaden our understanding to include our relationships with the rest of nature to arrive at genuine mental well-being. Continuing to fail to include our relationship with Earth in our understanding of mental wellness perpetuates a lie as well as prevents actual health from being attainable. We must, as a professional community, create an ethical and moral standard of care that recognizes and values holistic sustainability, based in a paradigm shift that reinstates us in our natural family, our web of interbeing. This new, old and undeniable truth must be rewoven back into the core of psychological principles of health. ([Location 2107](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=2107)) - Like the Copernican truth that the Sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth, I believe we must at last recognize that humans are also not the center of the universe. By taking our proportional place in the biosphere we can finally unburden ourselves and have a chance of not just surviving, but thriving and flourishing in partnership with Earth as ourselves. ([Location 2124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=2124)) - Once men and women were able to turn themselves into eagles and fly immense distances. They communed with rivers and mountains and received wisdom from them. They felt the turning of the stars inside their own minds. Susanna Clarke, British author ([Location 2128](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DV3LKHFP&location=2128))