Shobukai Shift
Shobukai Shift is a podcast dedicated to the inner work of transformation. It isn't about performance or productivity, it’s a space for real conversations about what it takes to shift paths, break from convention, and grow. It’s about the emotional, spiritual, and psychological terrain of transformation. Shobukai is a Japanese word meaning “group walking the path of mastery,” and that’s exactly what the show is about: walking the path consciously, through complexity, without bypassing the hard parts.
This podcast is to help you remember your power and worth. And maybe, inspire you to be the change you, and the world, are waiting for.
Shobukai Shift
The Well-Gardened Self: Nature, Growth and Personal Transformation
What if the key to navigating chaos isn’t more control—but more connection to nature?
In this episode of Shobukai Shift, Mary explores how the natural world—gardening, birdwatching, even groundhogs—can heal us, grow us, and guide us through personal, organizational, and societal transformation. Drawing from Sue Stuart-Smith’s The Well-Gardened Mind, neuroscience, client stories, and her own pandemic experience, Mary unearths a simple but powerful truth: transformation is our nature.
Whether you're planting tomatoes, battling burnout, or feeding the birds, this episode will remind you: Growth is messy. Nature is wise. And healing starts where you are.
Topics:
🎯Nature as a metaphor for personal evolution
🎯The neuroscience of growth and pruning
🎯Grounding, mindfulness, and biophilia
🎯Client stories of finding connection through nature
🎯Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, and the psychology of being
Key Takeaways:
💡Nature provides a living metaphor for change: cycles of death, renewal, and intention.
💡Engaging with nature activates right-brain attention and reduces stress.
💡You don’t have to escape to the woods to experience the healing power of nature—it starts with awareness.
💡Tending to a garden, or even a houseplant, can cultivate mindfulness, purpose, and connection.
Quotes:
🎤“When we sow a seed, we plant a narrative of future possibility. It is an action of hope.” – Sue Stuart-Smith
🎤“You are not a machine. You are an ecosystem.” - Mary Schaub
🎤“Nature meets us where we are—and grows us from there.”
🎤“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung
Keywords:
✅nature and healing, ✅the well-gardened mind, ✅Sue Stuart-Smith, ✅gardening and mental health, ✅transformation through nature, ✅grounding, ✅burnout recovery, ✅biophilia, ✅mindfulness and nature, ✅Jung transformation
#NatureHeals #TransformationPodcast #MentalHealthMatters #ShobukaiShift #Biophilia #MindfulLiving #PersonalGrowth #SlowLiving #GroundedLeadership #WellGardenedMind #JungianPsychology
Links:
🔗The Well Gardened Mind: Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World, by Sue Stuart-Smith.
Disclaimer:
***The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice.***
Credits: Written, produced and hosted by: Mary Schaub. Theme song written by: Mary Schaub. Mixing Engineer: Dylan Yauch
Contact: Tell us how your transformation is going. Email us at Shobukai_Shift@mschaubadvisory.com or leave us a voicemail at (631) 371-3240 and we may play it on a future episode.
Website: M. Schaub Advisory (MSA)
** Shobukai Shift is a MSA Production **
Mary Schaub (00:39)
Hello fellow Shobokai, how are you doing? Has anyone asked you that today? I hope you're having a great day. And if you're not, let's see if we can shift that together. At the very least, I'm grateful you've carved out some time for yourself and for letting me share it with you. Today's episode is something I think you really need to hear. We're talking about the power of nature and transformation.
Now hold on, Gen Z, this isn't your grandmother's podcast on nature. And for my Brooklyn millennials, I know you love city life, but bear with me. There's a lot here for you. and for my Gen X and Boomers who already buy into the nature stuff, just stick around. You just might learn something new. At the very least, you'll get to meet Chubby Sauron, the baby groundhog who's recently moved into my backyard.
Disclaimer, this podcast is not a substitute for professional advice about your specific situation, and it reflects my personal views alone. So I'm sitting in my office right now, overlooking the five raised garden beds I just put in last week. There's a bird feeder just outside the window, and somewhere under the arbovite lives Chubby Sauron, the groundhog who may or may not be plotting to eat my tomatoes.
So I need to be honest and say I'm fairly new to all this. I grew up in the suburbs and I've lived most of my life in cities like New York and London. But something shifted in me after March of 2020. But first, let's flash back to when I was a little Gen X girl. I spent a lot of time watching TV. I was a latchkey kid. I wouldn't call my family of origin particularly active. Sports and hobbies weren't exactly encouraged.
But one of the things I absolutely loved to do, other than watching TV, was to explore the woods around my town. Now, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't think it was particularly good for me. I can't tell you what the draw was, but I do remember loving being outside. I used to pretend and explore, play in the snow, pick flowers, tromp through muddy fields, and even climb some trees.
Looking back, I realized my imagination and nervous system were both being fed by nature, even if I didn't have the language for it then. Okay, now fast forward to 2020. I'm working on Wall Street and living in New York City. When the pandemic hit, I didn't step outside my apartment for nine weeks. Nine. I lived in a high-rise near the World Trade Center, not far from the mobile morgue units that the city had to set up downtown.
And between fear and grief and Zoom marathons, I slowly shrank inside myself. I worked 12 hours a day, watched TV, doom scrolled, and went to bed. And then repeat, repeat, repeat. For nine weeks, I did not leave the confines of that apartment. Then, like a lot of folks at this time, I ended up buying a house and moving out to a more rural area. The effect was...
amazing. mean, the first thing I came to realize was just how sedentary my life had become. The day after I closed on my house, I woke up literally sore from just walking around. The next thing I noticed was how I started to crave sunlight. Now, not just like a bit of sun creeping through the window sunlight, but like full blazing sun right on my face and body. I spent every minute I could outside.
My energy levels came back and I began to roam and explore. I rode my bike, I took walks on the beach and explored a nearby nature preserve. I started to put up bird feeders and plant tomatoes and cucumbers. I actually started to wake up early, and I hate waking up early, to take care of all this stuff. I even came to look forward to it. And during some of the darkest days that have followed since 2020,
I have taken refuge in it all. I got myself out of bed even when the news made me want to pull the covers over my head. Why? Well, because my flowers needed watering. And during the day, I put down my phone so I could pay attention to what birds were visiting my feeder. I felt like I needed them as much as they needed me. Well, probably more. Nature had shifted from a nice backdrop
to being a key partner in my healing. Okay, right now we're facing crises on every level. AI, disruption, economic instability, mental health collapse, loneliness, burnout, disconnection, environmental disasters. Many of us feel helpless in the face of these huge forces, but nature offers something steady, something ancient.
something actionable.
Sue Stuart Smith's The Well-Gardened Mind explores how engaging with nature helps us process trauma, heal emotionally, and grow more resilient. She writes, when we sow a seed, we plant a narrative of future possibility. It is an action of hope. To start, the act of gardening and nature itself is a great metaphor for growth and healing. And if you think about it,
Nature mirrors our own life cycles, birth, growth, decay, death, and renewal. The other thing about nature is that it puts us in our place. We humans love to control things. Nature reminds us we're not boss. Often it takes a video of a tornado, hurricane, or earthquake to remind us of this. A less extreme example can be found in a garden. I spend a lot of time and money
building fences, planters, putting in seeds, flowers, plants. And what happens? Well, some of them never grow or die. Some get eaten by other members of nature. Two weeks ago, Chubby Sauron decided to set up camp in my yard. I didn't invite him. but he's here and doesn't seem at all embarrassed about it.
Thinking about nature as a metaphor for processing your life experiences can be helpful too. Maybe it's a new relationship or a job. It starts out as a seed, an idea, and it evolves from there. Maybe you've been laid off recently. It can very much feel like a death, and in a way it is. The death of that part of your life, a chapter closing. It can be difficult to process an unexpected job change.
and many of us will feel grief and uncertainty after. It's important and necessary to process these experiences, to mourn the loss so that you can be refreshed and ready for the next opportunity. And how do you get the next opportunity? You plant a seed, you update your resume, you network, apply to jobs, or maybe you decide to switch careers and do something entirely different. Gardening mirrors life.
Seeds are ideas and intentions. Soil, support systems. Sunlight, clarity, truth. Weeds, distractions, or outdated beliefs. And pruning is letting go. I really liked that Stuart Smith wrote about the popular metaphor of the brain as a computer. When I was eight years old, I announced to my father that I had a computer brain.
and that I could program and run scripts off of it to do all sorts of things. Stuart Smith cautions that the brain is computer metaphor is misleading. She notes that our thoughts and feelings are constantly giving shape to our neural networks and they in turn influence how we think and feel. But most of all, the metaphor is problematic because it suggests that we are unnatural. Despite our inner fantasies,
None of us are like Lieutenant Commander Data of the Starship Enterprise. Sorry, I had to drop that little nugget in for my fellow geeks. If you know, know. No, our brains aren't machines. They're ecosystems. So dendrites, right, our brains' neural branches, they grow like trees. In fact, pruning is part of healthy brain development.
Like nature, our brain needs to be pruned to make way for new growth. All living things, us included, are programmed to grow.
Psychoanalyst Eric Fromm used the term biophilia to define the passionate love of life and all that is alive. For him, a healthy mind wishes to grow and to be surrounded by growth, whether it's a person, a plant, an idea, or a social group. He contrasted biophilia with necrophilia, which is anti-growth, and involves being drawn to things that are unhealthy, dying, or even dead.
Fromm believed that many modern ills were linked to the loss of our unconscious connection with the natural world. I think I agree. Okay, maybe right now you're thinking, well, metaphors are nice, Mary, but I don't see how that can practically impact my situation. Okay, I hear you. Metaphors have their limits, and frankly, they're most powerful when embedded in practical utility. So let's talk about the tangible benefits of nature.
Here's the science. Nature lowers cortisol. It boosts serotonin. It improves sleep. It reduces inflammation. Even just being near green spaces improves cognitive function and attention span. Ian McGilchrist's work on the brain's hemispheres shows how nature supports right brain activity. You know what's up with the right brain?
It's all about presence, connection, intuition. Things we are starved for in today's over-optimized world. Nature restores the balance we've lost in hyper-digitized living. I watched a pretty crazy documentary on earthing recently. Have you heard about earthing? It talked about the benefits of walking barefoot on the ground.
Some believe doing so allows your body to absorb electrons from the earth. The basic concept here is that earth carries a negative electrical charge. modern life, including our rubber-soled shoes and indoor living, disconnects us from this natural electrical field. The premise is that grounding ourselves to the earth restores this connection by allowing electrons to flow from the earth into the body. Okay.
So to be fair, the research is limited, but what it suggests is fascinating.
From an evolutionary perspective, we humans have only been living in cities for a very, very short period of time. Environmental scientist Jules Priddy has calculated that we've been nature-dwelling mammals for about 350,000 generations. If you're one of those people who can feel overwhelmed or burnt out by being in a city for too long, it's not your fault. The human brain evolved in a natural environment.
Of course it's going to work better there compared to the unnatural urban surroundings that many of us live in today. As we expanded ourselves into urban environments, we started to recognize what we lost. So a few examples. As early as the 18th century, reformers in the UK began to build psychiatric hospitals with gardens to help patients recover after noticing how outcomes improved
when being around and working in natural today, UK doctors prescribe gardening as therapy.
And since the 1980s, the Greenhouse Program, run by the Horticulture Society of New York, provides nature therapy and job training for inmates at Rikers Island. Inmates work in a large outdoor garden growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs. They learn horticultural, landscaping, and even flower arranging skills. The program provides support and job placement in landscaping or nursery work post-release. And how successful is this program?
Well, participants have had less than 10 % recidivism rates compared to New York City's average of 65%. The men and women participating in the program reported improved self-worth, emotional regulation, and stress relief. A former participant is quoted as saying, the garden saved my life. Wow. Maybe it can help us save ours too.
Stuart Smith writes, caring for plants is intrinsically a mindful activity. And to practice true care means becoming receptive to one another. You've heard me talk on the show about the psychological benefits of mindfulness. Check out episode 14 on Eastern philosophies for our modern age. But mindfulness isn't just about coping through difficult times. It's a counterbalance to a digitally transactional world
filled with distraction, self-absorption, and disconnection from ourselves and others. Nature pulls us out of our screens, our worries, our preoccupation with the minutiae of our lives, and invites us to pay attention. I teach the Being Becoming program in my private practice. Two components of the Being Becoming framework are nature and service. Gardening.
is an activity which encompasses both. Connection to nature, no matter what it might look like for each person, is a pivotal component to reconnecting with our true inner nature. And connecting to this inner truth, well, it's critical for personal transformation and finding purpose and meaning in life. Speaking of my coaching practice,
I'd like to tell you about one of my clients who completed the Being Becoming program. I'll call him Len. Len is a Gen Z introvert. He sought me out to help develop relationships and find a healthy community where he could find personal support and socialize offline, like in person with real people. He tried the gym, cafes, social apps, but none of these environments made him feel comfortable.
During our work together, we spoke about nature and Len decided to go for a free walking tour sponsored by a local Audubon bird watching group. He liked that it was slow paced, quiet, observational, and that the people were sensitive and a little shy, like himself. He took to it immediately and now joins weekly groups and activities where he has a circle of like-minded friends.
He now considers two of the people he met as real friends. Nature does that meets us where we are. Let me bring this back to Chubby Sauron. He's fat, fearless, and currently feasting on my clover lawn. And while he might terrorize my garden soon, I can't help but smile every time I see his jiggly belly waddle through the yard. He reminds me I'm not alone, that I'm part of a web of life.
He reminds me that I'm not here to conquer and control, but to coexist as nature itself. Now, the burrowing under the foundation of my house, yeah, well, that might mean coexisting with me in a nearby nature reserve, but more to come on that.
Carl Jung believed transformation is not about becoming something new, but about remembering who we already are. He wrote, who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakes. Nature invites both, looking out at life, looking in at what's growing or asking to be let go. So I leave you with this.
How is nature calling you back to yourself? I'd love to hear your stories, how nature helped you grow, heal, or shift. Send me a message or a voice note. Links in the show notes. And if this episode resonated, share it with someone you care about, or better yet, go for a walk together. Until next time.
You are the change you and the world are waiting for.
