How Nature Because My Safe Space After My Diagnosis

There was a time when my body felt like an unpredictable place to live. Every new flare, every ache, every unexplained exhaustion left me feeling disconnected not just from others, but from myself. I spent years trying to push through, to pretend that rest wasn’t necessary, to chase a version of health that looked more like productivity than peace.

When I began spending more time outdoors, not as an activity, but as a way of being, something shifted. The land didn’t demand performance. It didn’t care if I moved slowly, if my joints ached, or if I needed to sit down halfway through weeding. The garden welcomed me exactly as I was that day, whether strong or fragile, clear-headed or fogged with fatigue.

In nature, there’s no judgment. The wildflowers don’t compare themselves to the vegetables, and the soil never asks why I’m not doing more. It just offers a place to belong, to breathe, to be part of something steady. When I couldn’t control what my body did, I could still place my hands in the earth and feel a heartbeat older and wiser than my own.

Over time, I stopped seeing the outdoors as something separate a space to visit and started to see it as home. The rhythms of planting and resting, of bloom and decay, began to mirror what my body was already trying to teach me: healing isn’t linear. Some days are made for sowing. Others are for simply standing still in the sun.

Now, when the world feels too sharp or my body too heavy, I step outside. I walk barefoot in the grass, breathe in the scent of rain, and let the wind tangle my thoughts into something softer. Nature doesn’t fix me, but it reminds me I was never broken to begin with.

Here, among the bees and the soil and the slow miracle of things growing in their own time, I’ve found my refuge. A safe space that isn’t defined by walls, but by the way it lets me feel human again connected, humble, and whole.