What happens when the path you carefully planned is no longer the path you're meant to follow?

In this episode of Rooted, Susan sits down with friend, leadership advisor, and AI educator Cheryl Thompson for a conversation about career reinvention, burnout, self-agency, and the stories that shape our lives.

Cheryl shares her journey from automotive manufacturing and engineering leadership to entrepreneurship, sound healing, and helping leaders navigate the emerging world of artificial intelligence. Along the way, she reflects on the lessons she learned as one of the few women in highly male-dominated environments, the challenge of asking for help, and the burnout that ultimately forced her to slow down and listen more closely to herself.

Together, Susan and Cheryl explore questions that many of us face:

• What story am I telling myself about who I need to be? • How do I know when it's time to change direction? • What happens when we stop proving ourselves and start paying attention to what energizes us? • How can nature help us reconnect to ourselves in an increasingly artificial world?

This conversation is an invitation to consider where you may have more agency than you realize, what old stories you might be carrying, and how slowing down can create space for something new to emerge.

Connect with Cheryl: Website: https://www.cherylthompsonadvisory.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylthompson/

Learn more about Susan and Rooted: https://www.susanmorganbailey.com

Resources Mentioned: • Coaches Training Institute (CTI) • Sound Healing and Sound Bath Practices • Artificial Intelligence for Leadership and Career Development

What if nature isn't simply good for us—but foundational to human health and wellbeing?

In this episode of ROOTED, I sit down with naturopathic doctor and NatureQuant advisor Dr. Owen Wiseman to explore the growing evidence connecting nature exposure to better physical health, mental wellbeing, resilience, and quality of life.

But this conversation goes beyond individual health habits.

Together, we explore how cities, healthcare systems, schools, workplaces, and communities are shaped by access to nature—and what happens when generations become disconnected from the natural world. Owen introduces concepts like environmental generational amnesia and shifting baseline syndrome, explains how nature prescriptions are being integrated into healthcare in Canada, and makes a compelling case for viewing nature not as a luxury, but as essential infrastructure.

If we are nature, what are the consequences of designing lives and systems that keep us apart from it?

This conversation invites us to think differently about health, wellbeing, and the role nature plays in helping both people and communities thrive.

NatureQuant

NatureDose App

PARX – Canada's Nature Prescription Program

Shifting Baseline Syndrome

Environmental Generational Amnesia

Website: https://www.owenwiseman.com

NatureQuant: https://naturequant.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-wiseman/

Visit Rooted online for episode notes, reflections, and additional resources:

https://www.rootedsoulliving.com/rooted-podcast

Connect with Susan Morgan Bailey:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanmbailey/

As we approach the summer solstice—the longest light of the year—nature offers a quiet reminder: belonging isn't something we earn. It's something we already have.

In this Sit with SMB episode, Susan reflects on the loss of a beloved hundred-year-old white pine that stood in her yard for decades. A triple-topped tree with deep roots and a steady presence, it became an unexpected teacher about grief, gratitude, and the ways nature continues its cycles even when they don't unfold as we imagined.

Drawing inspiration from the writings of Mary Oliver and her own experience saying goodbye to the tree long before it came down, Susan explores what it means to be part of "the family of things." The conversation moves through themes of belonging, nature's wisdom, interrupted cycles, and the permission we receive from the natural world to simply be ourselves.

This episode is an invitation to consider how nature holds both endings and continuations at the same time—and how what appears to be loss may sometimes be transformation.

As the solstice approaches, Susan leaves listeners with a gentle question:

What in your life might be ready to change form?

• Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

• Mary Oliver, When I Am Among the Trees

Visit Rooted online for episode notes, reflections, and additional resources:

https://www.rootedsoulliving.com/rooted-podcast

Connect with Susan Morgan Bailey:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanmbailey/

If this episode resonated with you, consider following Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing and sharing it with someone who could use a reminder that they already belong.

After getting sober in her twenties, Breezy Nowlan found herself navigating the often-complicated world of recovery housing. That experience led her to create Taste Recovery, a platform that helps people find safe and supportive sober living options across the United States.

But as the platform grew, something still felt missing.

In this episode of Rooted, Breezy shares the question from her father that changed the course of her work: What do you love to do? The answer led her outdoors and eventually inspired Camp Sober Fest—a unique recovery community experience that combines camp activities, connection, personal growth, and belonging.

Together, we explore the role of community in recovery, why environment matters, what happens when people feel safe enough to be themselves, and the courage it takes to create something that doesn't yet exist.

While nature isn't the central focus of this conversation, it quietly supports the experiences Breezy has created—offering space for connection, play, challenge, and transformation.

• How Taste Recovery began from Breezy's own recovery journey
• What sober living is and why it matters
• The story behind Camp Sober Fest
• Why belonging is such an important part of healing
• How play, challenge, and shared experiences build connection
• The simple question that helped Breezy discover her purpose

Taste Recovery: https://www.tasterecovery.com

Camp Sober Fest: https://www.campsoberfest.com

Instagram: @taste.recovery

Website: www.rootedsoulliving.com

Instagram: @susanmorganbailey

If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow, rate, and review Rooted. It helps more people discover conversations about nature, wellbeing, connection, and living more fully rooted lives.

In this WALK episode of ROOTED: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing, Susan Morgan Bailey reflects on her personal experience with stress, burnout, anxiety, and the role nature has played in helping her reconnect with herself.

Inspired by Mental Health Awareness Month and this year's theme — More Good Days, Together — Susan explores how chronic stress can quietly become normalized, especially for high-functioning people who are used to pushing through.

In this episode:

• Susan shares her journey through near burnout, physical stress symptoms, and anxiety awareness
• explores how modern built and artificial environments affect the nervous system
• explains why time in nature helps the body soften and regulate
• introduces simple nature-based interventions that support wellbeing
• offers practical ways to reconnect through small "doses" of nature

From birdsong and nature snacks to walking the Camino in Spain, this episode is an invitation to slow down, reconnect, and create more good days through small repeated moments of connection.

Nature is not presented as a cure-all or replacement for mental health support — but as one meaningful part of an ecosystem of care.

Visit Susan online at Rooted Soul Living

Modern life makes it easy to assume that access to nature is simply about proximity. A nearby park. A trail down the road. A place to go.

But what if access is more complicated than that?

In this conversation, I sit down with public health researcher Jen Roberts to explore the intersection of nature, equity, and belonging. Together, we look at how our environments—both built and natural—shape not only our ability to be outside, but whether we feel like those spaces are actually for us.

Jen shares how her work in active living and public health led her into the nature space, and how that work expanded to include a deeper question: who has access to nature, and who feels welcome once they get there?

We also explore the story of Buffalo's historic parkways—once designed for connection and movement—and how their removal reshaped both land and community.

This conversation invites a wider lens.

Because access to nature isn't always as simple as it seems—and sometimes, the deeper question is whether we feel like we belong there at all. Walk with us. This conversation is part of Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing — an exploration of how connecting with nature helps us feel more whole in the lives we're actually living.

For episode transcripts, resources, and additional reflections, visit the ROOTED podcast blog at www.rootedsoulliving.com.

A ten-minute break outside turns into a reflection on awe, wonder, and the quiet intelligence of the natural world. In this solo Walk with SMB episode, Susan shares how spotting a perfectly camouflaged sphinx moth on a tree outside her home shifted her attention completely away from work, stress, and mental noise — and back into observation, curiosity, and presence.

Through stories of a robin building a nest, maple seeds emerging in spring, and a green turtle gliding through the ocean, this episode explores how nature invites us to slow down enough to notice what we often overlook. Susan also shares research on awe and wonder, including how these experiences may support nervous system regulation, attention restoration, and a deeper sense of connection.

Sometimes the moments that root us most deeply are the ones small enough to miss.

This conversation is part of Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing — an exploration of how connecting with nature helps us feel more whole in the lives we're actually living.

For episode transcripts, resources, and additional reflections, visit the ROOTED podcast blog at www.rootedsoulliving.com.

I expected this conversation to be about coaching and vision quests. It became something else entirely.

Early on, Ryan said something I couldn't move past:

There is grief in the gap between who we say we want to be and who we are becoming.

What followed was a grounded, honest exploration of grief—not as something to fix or move past, but as something to be with.

Ryan is a transformational coach and wilderness guide who leads vision quest experiences—modern rites of passage that invite people to step away from their daily lives and listen more deeply.

In this conversation, we explore:

• What it means to "be with" your own experience
• Why modern life leaves so much grief unprocessed
• The role of nature as a container for reflection and transformation
• How initiation and rites of passage create space for real change

This is not a conversation about escaping your life. It's about learning how to be more fully present within it.

Walk with us.

This conversation is part of Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing — an exploration of how connecting with nature helps us feel more whole in the lives we're actually living.

For episode transcripts, resources, and additional reflections, visit the ROOTED podcast blog at www.rootedsoulliving.com.

Today is Earth Day.

And while this practice is offered in honor of this moment, it's not limited to it.

This is something you can return to any day you feel the need to slow down… to reconnect… to remember that you are part of the living world.

This guided walking meditation is an invitation to pause and remember something easy to lose in the rhythm of modern life — that we are not separate from the earth. We are part of it.

Through breath, imagery, and sensory awareness, you're invited to feel the ground beneath you, reconnect with your body, and experience the quiet steadiness of the living world around you.

You can listen while walking outside, sitting on a porch, or even indoors. The connection is still there.

This is not about doing it perfectly. It's about noticing.

If you've been feeling tired, disconnected, or like something is missing beneath the surface of daily life, this practice offers a way back into relationship — with the earth, and with yourself. You can come back to this practice anytime — not just on Earth Day, but on any day you want to feel more grounded, more connected, and more at home here.

What happens when you step out of the environment that shaped you — and into one that reveals you?

In this conversation, I sit down with Cory, a leadership coach based in rural Japan, whose work brings individuals and teams into nature not as an escape, but as a catalyst for clarity.

After years in Tokyo's corporate world, Cory found himself living and working in the mountains of Minakami — a place of shifting rivers, deep seasonal rhythms, and what he describes as a quiet "homecoming." What emerged wasn't just a lifestyle change, but a different way of working with leaders.

We explore how nature acts as a co-facilitator in leadership development, why many of us "armor up" to function in modern environments, and what becomes possible when that armor starts to loosen.

This conversation also holds an important tension: not everyone is meant to leave their life behind. The real work may be learning how to live more fully where you already are.

If you've ever felt the pull of nature — or wondered what it might reveal about who you are — this episode offers a grounded place to begin. This conversation is part of Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing — an exploration of how connecting with nature helps us feel more whole in the lives we're actually living.

For episode transcripts, resources, and additional reflections, visit the ROOTED podcast blog at www.rootedsoulliving.com.