I recently got to head back home to the country to the place where I grew up. It really is so true what they say, that you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl !

As much as I love living where I’m living now and consider that we truly live in paradise, I always feel a deep feeling of calm and inner peace within me when I cross the Great Dividing Range and can smell that fresh country air and those smells that come with it.

As I was driving home on this last trip to catch up with some lifelong friends I was confronted with the scenes from the devastating bushfires from earlier this year and it got me thinking….The desolation and despair was obvious, especially as I drove past a town that had only one home still standing and everything else had been destroyed.

Life is so precious and nature so unforgiving at times….

It got me thinking and comparing the scenes I was passing to work and business and to life itself…. We go through things in life, life is definitely full of ups and downs , that’s inevitable and things can be going along so well, opportunities knocking and new beginnings and new life that brings excitement and wonderful experiences and happiness and love….

THEN….

We can experience significant change and turmoil in the blink of an eye, something terrible can happen, you can lose someone or something that means the world to you, and you can feel bleak and desolate and despairing just like the scenes before me of the fire damage and destruction….

And it can feel drab and awful and extremely scary and you can feel like things will never improve, and certainly never get back to what they were, or even to some basic state of ‘normality’….

HOWEVER….

What we know is that just like the picture below, the regrowth occurs, and new shoots come and things green up again, and life does go on around us….

….whether we choose to want it to or not.

And as I drove through the depressing scenes before me,  I began to notice the new shoots that were showing, the regrowth that had occurred and the regeneration that had already occurred in some areas and it gave me hope ….

It’s no different to when you experience something so horrible and traumatic that you feel that things simply won’t ever get better and things will never continue for you….

Nature has a lot to show us and we can immerse ourselves within it, to reflect in times of shock and despair….

For just as the new regrowth will eventually happen and the bush will flourish again and the cycle will continue….  your life will move forward, and you will start to get glimpses of hope again…..there is just no clear timeframe as to when this will happen….

So I ask you, that if you are experiencing a challenge right now and your world looks and feels a bit like the bush that was ravaged by fire in this picture ….look around you right now, and see if you can find, just one  tiny sign of regrowth, or greenery, getting ready to emerge…. Look closely and open your eyes for the signs that the regrowth is coming….it may not be ready to fully emerge yet….however it will be there somewhere…..be willing to look for even that simplest of signs and acknowledge the hope and new growth that is coming your way.

All the best and don’t forget to take time out for you !

Nat x