“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” ~John Muir
I used to think life was like an obstacle course, a series of hurdles you either cleared or stumbled over. For a long time, I stumbled a lot.
What I didn’t realize then was how easily repeated setbacks can turn into a habit of expecting the next one. After a while, you stop living in the present and start waiting for the other shoe to drop.
After I graduated from college, I followed the path I thought I was supposed to take. I moved to Philadelphia to begin a master’s degree. I was in my early twenties, working during the day, taking classes at night, and trying to build a life in a city that still felt unfamiliar.
I’d always been an anxious person, but it was usually manageable. Then, without warning, something changed. I’d be sitting in class or standing at work when it felt like my entire body was shaking from the inside.
That’s when the panic attacks began.
At first, they came only occasionally. I’d feel a surge of electricity rush through me, my chest would tighten, and I’d struggle to catch my breath. Most of the time, I could take a few deep breaths and wait for it to pass.
Soon, though, they became more frequent.
I couldn’t concentrate in class or at work. I remember leaving a movie theater halfway through the film because I was certain I couldn’t breathe. I tried therapy for a few sessions, hoping someone could explain what was happening, but nothing seemed to help.
After my first semester, I realized I couldn’t stay in Philadelphia. I packed my car and drove back to Florida, convinced I had failed.
The panic attacks came home with me.
I was twenty-two years old, had no clear direction, and felt as though my mind and body were constantly on fire. To escape the feeling, I started taking walks at a nearby park. There was a small pond there, and beside it stood a large banyan tree.
I found myself drawn to it.
I learned that banyan trees don’t only grow upward. They send roots down from their branches until they become trunks themselves. This one seemed to form a living cathedral, its limbs stretching outward as if making room for anyone who needed shelter. One afternoon, I climbed into the place where the branches divided and sat there.
For the first time in months, I felt peaceful.
Leaning against the bark, I had the strange but comforting feeling that the tree was absorbing some of my anxiety and carrying it into the earth below.
Over the next several visits, I began paying closer attention to the tree. That’s when I noticed something that saddened me. Someone had driven nails into the trunk.
Some of the nails were old and rusted. Others looked newer. Each one felt like a small act of violence against something so generous.
Without really thinking about it, I started pulling them out.
I climbed higher, searching every branch I could reach, prying loose one nail after another. The more time I spent caring for the tree, the more connected I felt to it.
Over the next several weeks, something changed.
My panic attacks became less frequent. When they did come, they no longer overwhelmed me in the same way.
Eventually, I realized that even when I wasn’t at the park, I could close my eyes, picture the banyan tree, and feel my body soften. Decades later, I still return to that place in my mind whenever life becomes overwhelming.
One afternoon, I climbed into the tree with that familiar tightness already building in my chest. I thought I’d found every nail by then, but tucked into a shaded section of the trunk was one I’d missed. It took several minutes of working it back and forth before it finally came free.
As I held the rusty nail in my hand, I realized something.
For those few minutes, I hadn’t thought about my own chest once.
I kept returning to the park. For the first time in a long while, I felt small in a way that wasn’t frightening. I felt like I belonged to something much larger than myself.
Years later, after I got married and became a father, the first place I wanted to take my children was that park.
They loved climbing into those same branches. My daughter even gave the tree a name: Nelly.
Every now and then we still go back. Watching my children settle into the same crook of branches that once held me during one of the hardest seasons of my life fills me with gratitude. Few gifts are greater than passing on a place that once helped heal you.
Looking back now, I think the tree taught me something I had never understood. Anxiety has a way of pulling our attention inward.
Every sensation feels important. Every heartbeat becomes something to monitor. Every thought becomes another problem to solve.
During those years, I spent so much energy watching myself that I almost forgot there was a world beyond my own fear.
The banyan tree invited me into a different way of living. Instead of asking, How do I make this feeling stop? I began asking, What needs my attention right now?
Sometimes it was a rusty nail buried in the trunk. Sometimes it was the breeze moving through the leaves or a turtle slipping silently into the pond. Without realizing it, my attention shifted from trying to manage myself to caring for something beyond myself.
That didn’t mean ignoring my own struggles. Learning to pay attention to my own thoughts and emotions has been an important part of my life. But I’ve also discovered that healing requires another movement, one that turns outward toward the world.
We need moments of self-reflection, yet we also need moments when we become so absorbed in loving, serving, or noticing something beyond ourselves that our anxious minds loosen their grip.
I’ve found that same lesson many times since then. It appears whenever I’m fully present with another person, listening to someone who’s hurting instead of thinking about myself. It appears while watching birds in my backyard, walking through the woods, or sitting beneath a canopy of trees.
Again and again, the natural world reminds me that I belong to something larger than my own thoughts.
Nelly still stands beside that pond.
The rusty nails are gone, but the blessing remains.
Every visit reminds me that while our own inner work is needed, healing doesn’t happen in isolation. In caring for another living thing and paying attention to beauty, we offer ourselves to something beyond our own fears. And when we do, we just might discover that we are the ones being healed.
About Daniel H. Shapiro
Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, author, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out yourinherentgoodness.com.
