What the Sequoia Can Teach Us About Pain, Change and Growth
There is something remarkable about the giant sequoia.
These enormous trees can live for thousands of years. They grow in landscapes where fire has been a natural part of life for generations. Their thick, fibrous bark helps protect them from the heat, allowing many mature trees to survive fires that would destroy less resilient vegetation.
But there is something else about the relationship between sequoias and fire that I find particularly interesting.
Fire can help the tree reproduce. The heat dries its cones, allowing them to release their seeds. The fire also clears away much of the vegetation covering the ground, creating open spaces where sunlight can reach the soil and new seedlings have a better chance of growing.
Something that appears to be purely destructive can, under the right conditions, help create the possibility of new life.
Yet not every fire is beneficial. A sufficiently intense fire can kill even a giant sequoia. The tree is not invulnerable, and its ability to survive fire does not mean that fire is harmless.
There is something in this natural process that offers an interesting way of thinking about our own lives.
The things we carry
Most of us encounter difficulties that we would rather avoid. Relationships break down. Work becomes overwhelming. We lose someone important to us, question the direction of our lives or find ourselves struggling with feelings we do not fully understand.
Sometimes we try to carry on as though nothing has happened. We keep working, looking after others and meeting expectations, even when something inside us feels unsettled.
There may be good reasons for doing this. We have responsibilities, people who depend on us and lives that cannot simply be put on hold.
But the things we push aside do not always disappear. They can remain beneath the surface, influencing how we feel, how we relate to others and how we experience ourselves.
At some point, we may find ourselves needing to stop and pay attention.
When we have the space to reflect on what has happened, we may begin to see things differently.
What survives the fire?
The sequoia does not survive fire because it is unaffected by it. Its bark can be scarred. Its surroundings can be changed dramatically. It survives because it has characteristics that help protect what is living beneath the surface.
Perhaps there is a parallel here with the ways we learn to cope with life.
We develop ways of protecting ourselves. We may become independent, avoid conflict, work hard, keep our feelings to ourselves or try to meet everyone else's expectations. These responses often make sense in the context of our experiences. At times, they may have helped us get through something difficult.
Yet what once protected us can sometimes begin to restrict us.
Independence can become an inability to ask for help. Keeping the peace can mean avoiding conversations that matter. Being the person everyone relies on can make it difficult to acknowledge our own needs.
Counselling can offer an opportunity to explore these patterns without judging them. Rather than asking what is wrong with us, we can begin by wondering how we came to be this way, what these responses have meant to us and whether they are still serving us.
We do not necessarily need to discard the ways we have learnt to cope. Sometimes we need to understand them, appreciate what they have helped us manage and discover whether there are other possibilities available to us.
Making space for something new
After a fire, the conditions on the forest floor may be very different. Vegetation has been cleared, sunlight can reach the ground and seeds have the opportunity to take root.
In our own lives, change can sometimes create a similar opening.
A relationship ending may lead us to question the ways we have related to other people. A change in work may prompt us to reconsider what gives our lives meaning. Becoming a parent, moving abroad or reaching a particular stage of life may bring questions about identity and what we really want.
These experiences do not automatically lead to growth. Sometimes they leave us feeling lost, anxious or uncertain. We may need time to grieve what has changed before we can begin to imagine anything different.
And new growth is rarely immediate. A seed needs the right conditions, time and nourishment. Understanding ourselves can be a similarly gradual process.
In counselling, there is no expectation that we will quickly find an answer or turn a difficult experience into something positive. Sometimes the work is simply to make room for feelings that have not had much space before. Sometimes it is to recognise a familiar pattern or begin to put words to something that has been difficult to explain.
Small changes in understanding can eventually make other changes possible.
Finding a way forward
There can be a powerful expectation, particularly for people who are used to looking after others, that they should be able to deal with their difficulties themselves. They may feel that asking for support means they have somehow failed.
Seeking help does not mean that we are weak or incapable. It can be a way of giving ourselves the conditions we need to understand what is happening and decide how we want to move forward.
Counselling offers a space to explore difficult experiences, understand ourselves more fully and consider possibilities that may be hard to see when we are dealing with everything alone.
We cannot always choose the circumstances that come into our lives. Nor can we control how deeply they affect us. But, with time and support, we may be able to find new ways of understanding ourselves and responding to what happens.
The giant sequoia reminds us that survival is not the same as remaining untouched. A tree can carry the marks of fire and continue to grow.
Perhaps we can allow ourselves something similar: not the expectation that we should emerge from every difficulty stronger, but the possibility that even after painful experiences, there may still be room for something new.