Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] When the mountains teach what the Swiss Alps showed me about letting go.
[00:00:09] It was an August afternoon when I went hunting for mushrooms in the Swiss Alps. I knew exactly where to look. My ex boyfriend had showed me the special spot years ago.
[00:00:20] A damp meadow with conifers where chanterelle grew.
[00:00:24] I searched everywhere. Nothing. Not a single golden cap.
[00:00:29] So I gave up. I just kept climbing. My breath found a rhythm. My legs danced with the earth. An hour later, I reached the summit. My mind was clear and problems disappeared.
[00:00:39] On the way down, I passed that same spot.
[00:00:42] Suddenly, bright golden mushrooms were everywhere.
[00:00:46] How had I missed them?
[00:00:48] They were there all along. I just couldn't see them when I was trying so hard.
[00:00:53] This is what the Alps taught me first. When we stop forcing things, they appear and leave me in a state of wonder.
[00:01:01] It reminded me of a time years earlier. I had spoken with a seven year old farmer boy who went to school with my daughter and who spent his summers high up on an alpine pasture. I had asked him what he loved most about his time up there.
[00:01:14] The sunrises and the sunsets. He had said.
[00:01:17] His family spent July to September in a cabin or chalet with wood fires and candles.
[00:01:23] No Xbox, no computers. Kids mopped stalls, raked hay, milked cows. It was a simple existence. Everything belonged. Everything was as it should be.
[00:01:35] People ask me during those years why I chose to live alone in such a remote place. Didn't I need shopping, culture, people?
[00:01:43] Sometimes, yes. But for daily living, nothing beat. Full moon so bright you had to stop and stare.
[00:01:50] Stars that twinkled without city lights drowning them out. Morning light hitting mountain peaks like nature's own theater.
[00:01:58] The Chinese author Deng Mingdao wrote that we need to let go and enter nature's process. If we fight it, we fail. If we join it, everything becomes as clear as the coming sun and moon. Sometimes we need silence to connect with nature. When snow falls in the Alps, the world goes quiet.
[00:02:17] Not just quiet, silent. The white crystals swallow every sound. Cars, trains, voices. All gone. A silence you can't escape. A silence that does the clearing for you.
[00:02:31] In this silence, worry dies. The what ifs and should haves disappear. You're left with just today. As the poet wrote, the past has flown away. The coming year does not exist and ours is the only present's tiny point.
[00:02:46] Snowstorms remind us we're vulnerable. Droughts teach us to save water. Rain reminds us to be grateful. We don't control these things, we adapt to them.
[00:02:55] At the time, I was a single mother with little time for myself. I had to adapt to taking care of myself in those moments of freedom. One Saturday morning in 2012, the temperature hit minus 18 Celsius. I jogged anyway, metal spikes on my shoes gripping the icy road. Then, after dropping the kids at ski training, I met friends on the mountain.
[00:03:16] Most went snowboarding in the forest. And one friend and I had the slopes to ourselves for two hours.
[00:03:22] Just two hours. But those two hours were pure bliss. That's another thing the Alps taught me. Joy doesn't come from unlimited options. It comes from fully using the time you have. A hard boundary sharpens attention. You take advantage of the time you have. You. It made me think of time itself. Nine kilometers from my house, one of the Rhine's river's sources bubbles up from the ground. Waters that start in my backyard travel through Europe to the North Sea. Moving to the Alps was like returning to my own source, my childhood place.
[00:03:53] Life, like a river, has three parts. There's the source, our past, the channel, our present, and the mouth, our future.
[00:04:00] We need all three in balance.
[00:04:03] Live only in the past and you miss today. Live only for today and you forget consequences. Live. Live only for tomorrow and you burn out.
[00:04:11] The Alps forced this balance on me. You can't ignore the past when you're living where you grew up.
[00:04:17] Can't skip the present when a snowstorm traps you inside. And you can't control the future when nature decides the schedule. Living in the Alps brought unexpected health benefits. The fresh air cleared my lungs. The dry climate helped my allergies. And clean water from the tap meant I drank more. The silence helped me sleep.
[00:04:38] But the real benefits went deeper.
[00:04:40] The solitude taught emotional self reliance. Embracing alone time and not relying on others to regulate me.
[00:04:49] The slow pace reduced stress. Being close to nature meant a 10 minute walk filled every sense. Local food, milk, cheese, eggs, meat connected me to the land and its people.
[00:05:00] There were downsides too.
[00:05:02] Real loneliness when villages felt empty, no specialists or hospitals nearby. Skin that dried and burned in the mountain sun. But these limits were teachers too. When you can't escape loneliness with shopping or events, you learn to be okay alone. When hospitals are far away, you take better care of yourself. And when the sun is strong, you respect its power.
[00:05:22] All those years in the Alps, I was learning the antidote to a disease I didn't yet have a name for.
[00:05:28] The hyper agency that comes with success and limitless freedom. The mountains were teaching me what my wealthy clients would later struggle to learn. That control is an illusion and peace comes from accepting limits, not eliminating them.
[00:05:41] That day, searching for mushrooms taught me what we privileged people often can't see.
[00:05:46] The harder you look, the less you find. It's like searching for a partner. Dating apps disappoint. Then when you stop trying, you meet someone or searching for happiness, Chase it and it runs. Stop chasing it and it finds you.
[00:06:00] Catherine in under the Tuscan sun said it best as a girl. She'd chase ladybugs all day and never catch them. Then she'd fall asleep in the field and when she woke up, ladybugs were walking all over her. The Alps taught me this. We live in the most connected time ever, yet feel disconnected. We have more choices than ever, yet feel trapped.
[00:06:21] We can control more than ever, yet feel anxious.
[00:06:24] Maybe that seven year old farmer boy understood something we've forgotten.
[00:06:28] Maybe those chanterelles were trying to tell me something.
[00:06:32] Maybe the snow silence holds the answer.
[00:06:35] When everything belongs, everything is as it should be. Even us.
[00:06:43] If this episode landed for you, share it with the someone who might need to hear it. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming. But here's the real thing. I want you to know if you're carrying something you can't talk about. If you have every resource except someone who actually understands what wealth costs. I work one on one with people like you navigating exactly that. You can reach me@diana oehrli.com thanks for listening.
