The Invasive Species Inside Of Us
Treating self-growth as restoration (NOT a grind)
Maybe the “grow” part of self-growth has been a hint.
Maybe it’s not about manipulating science-backed hacks and psychological frameworks to mold yourself into the idyllic version that exists in your head…
Most self-help treats you like broken software that needs debugging. But what if you're actually a thriving ecosystem that just needs the right conditions?
That’s why I use the lens of nature restoration as a blueprint for my personal growth. Although to me, the word “restoration” is a bit misleading – like it implies doing… active voice.
The process is mostly waiting… passive voice. Creating the right environment, posting the “KEEP OUT: Sensitive Natural Habitat” sign, and waiting.
Still, the small, active parts of restoration – clearing weeds, setting boundaries, creating space – carry outsized weight. They decide whether this patch of land thrives or falls to invasive species again.
That same paradox shows up in our human experience, where so much is out of our control, yet the few things we can influence matter enormously. Something Liz Gilbert said on the Tim Ferriss Show comes to mind:
“I believe that I am loved beyond measure by a magnificent, complex, amused God who has given me power over practically nothing. Really, very little that I have control over, but what tiny amount I have control over is extremely important.”
As much as we pretend we’re in control, our lives are mostly decided by outside forces. The most fundamental things: where we’re born, the language we speak, the trauma we carry…
Seems that a common human response is trying to exert control where we don’t have it – to believe we’re more in control than we are.
The opposite response to the uncontrollability of life is to opt out – to resign yourself to life’s unpredictability and take yourself off the hook. It is what it is… life is out of my control.
After my father suddenly passed last year, I completely let go of my grip of control over life. I thought that complete surrender was wisdom. But as I write this, I realize that looseness, too, can be another coping mechanism that doesn’t capture the full picture.
It can be a way to take yourself off the hook from the “high stakes in even the average human life.” (David Whyte)
It seems that balance is the key to nearly every aspect of life. And although attempting to control every aspect of my life won’t serve me, neither will entirely opting out from control.
Maybe the key is to have a deep respect for both the unpredictability of life and the very important aspects we do have control over.
As the Serenity Prayer goes…
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Maybe a lot of life boils down to the wisdom to know the difference. And maybe that’s why so many of life’s fundamental truths are difficult to pass down to the next generation – the wisdom to know the difference is about discernment, not a set of rules. And discernment comes through experience, not benign platitudes.
It’s the wisdom to know the difference between what we can control and what we can’t. A task too large for my human mind, so I turn to nature restoration for guidance.
I’ve divided this analogy into three parts: removing the invasive species, reviving the native species, and then protecting your boundaries.
Removing Invasive Species
Restoration begins when invasive species crowd out what’s native to an ecosystem. The first step is removing them.
What are the invasive species?
They spread because of an emerging world – seeds that traveled from other parts of the planet on birds and boats and hiking boots and whatever else…
They’re a reflection of a new world. Just like the invasive species that impact us:
Except in human terms, our invasive species are the unexamined beliefs and expectations that we absorb from our culture or family, which prevent our authentic desires and inclinations from taking root. They are…
> The ideas of “hustle culture” that pervade our minds and cause horrible self-criticism and self-doubt.
> The negative content that surrounds us, impacting our mood and perception of reality.
> The processed food that probably impacts us in more ways than we know.
> And our addictions as a way for us to cope.
There are a wide variety of invasive species, but a few mainstays that have been so successful, you see them nearly everywhere: The honeysuckle, the ivy, the barberry – you can imagine the human equivalents yourself.
Invasive species aren’t necessarily “bad”. They’re simply in the wrong environment, choking out everything that belongs.
Take competition for example: some type A people thrive in it, but others completely wither – and the pervasive, competitive environment that lingers over our late-stage capitalist society can partially or completely destroy their natural gifts.
But nature restoration tells us this doesn’t have to be permanent. We can prune those invasive species from our personal ecosystem to make room for what’s native – the first step in the process.
It won’t happen overnight
Unfortunately, you can’t just yank the invasive species out of the ground and expect to be done with it. These invasive species are more deeply-rooted than we can possibly address at once – they’re the plants with years of seeds banked deep in the soil below their roots.
And so, it’s not about taking one action that’ll get rid of them forever. It’s understanding they will be back, and being ready to address them when they are.
These are some of the more successful invasive species I’ve identified:
→ Glorification of “the grind”: leads to performance anxiety, the erosion of intrinsic motivation, and commoditization of relationships.
→ The “right” way to be: Whether this is dictated by culture, or your family, or the people you associate with… the expectations of “the right” way to live can be extremely detrimental to your most true form of living.
→ Delayed gratification: as a way to justify a daily life we don’t enjoy, we accept present dissatisfaction as a trade-off for potential future happiness.
→ Negative content: induces chronic dysphoria, escalation of perceived difference, and existential dread.
→ Processed foods: leads to a malaise, low-grade inflammation, and a variety of problems we probably don't understand yet.
→ Excessive scrolling: creates a sense of inadequacy, fragments attention spans, and creates a constant need for short-term gratification.
→ Our addictions: as a self-perpetuating coping mechanism for living in a personal ecosystem that’s full of invasive species, our addictions demand ever-increasing doses for momentary relief.
I’m sure there are many more I’m forgetting.
Don’t get me wrong, removing or replacing these invasive species isn’t easy. But it’s not complicated, either.
It takes time and attention.
"To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”
Lao Tszu
Reviving Native Species
The “native” part of this feels very fitting, since I believe that these are things that are inside of us:
> The stuff you’re randomly thinking about at 2am when you can’t sleep
> What you’d spend all day doing if social media and Netflix didn’t exist
> The topics that make you interrupt people mid-sentence because you’re so excited.
These are our natural inclinations, strengths, passions, and curiosities that are being blocked by the invasive species. So the first step is discovery:
Identifying the Seeds
Before planting the right seeds to revive an ecosystem, you need to identify them. And unlike nature restoration, where the answers probably are a Google search away – the answers we’re looking for in our personal restoration are inside of us.
They’ve been there the whole time.
In this case, you are the ecosystem. And the path to identifying the right native seeds is through reflection. So ask yourself:
> What were the things you loved most as a child? What would it look like to return to those?
> Where does your heart go when you don’t block it? What do you most commonly think about when you’re not thinking about anything?
> What are the things that seem oddly difficult to others, but come easily to you? The things that others comment on positively, but seem like a natural part of the process to you.
> When do you lose track of time? This points to areas where your inherent abilities are fully engaged without a conscious effort.
> What are the conversations you can have for hours without getting bored? This reveals areas of natural curiosity and passion.
> What activities leave you feeling energized? What activities leave you feeling drained?
> If you had no obligations, fears, and guaranteed success – what would you spend your time doing?
> When and where do you feel most authentically you? What situations make you forget to be insecure?
The answers won’t immediately reveal themselves, and they’re not supposed to. They need time to emerge, so keep these questions in the back of your mind and let them arise in their own time.
If you’d like a more active hand in the process, paste these questions into a Google Doc and treat it as a reflection journal exercise. Though I wouldn’t recommend treating this as a one-and-done exercise.
Creating the Right Environment
Our mind and body are the vessels for this ecosystem. Without the right environment, our seeds simply won’t grow.
Building the right environment will be different for everyone. But I think there are some very basic universals we should all be conscious of.
→ Stillness: Quieting the mind to create space.
Could be prayer, meditation, physical activity, yoga, puzzles… either practices to quiet the mind or activities that require such focus, they force the mind to quiet.
→ Diet: Nourishing your body as the soil for your personal ecosystem.
This *will* look different for everyone based on genetics and goals, so it’s a lifelong process of finding out what works best for you.
→ Movement: Engaging the physical form in some sort of activity, most days if not every single day. We are human beings, after all.
→ Relationships: Intentionally cultivating the social landscape around you.
Who are the 5 people you spend the most time with? Be intentional about spending time with people you admire and those who make you feel most fully yourself.
→ Learning: Engage your inherent curiosity about the world, in whatever form your curiosity may take.
→ Meaning: Defining a purpose for yourself beyond simply existence or pleasure.
This is the key to doing things for reasons other than immediate satisfaction. It’s how we can find meaning in the suffering.
There’s also a secondary goal. By strengthening our body and mind, identifying the right seeds can be easier. I think of it as building the intuition that acts as a compass for what I truly want – learning to tell the difference between “I should want this” and “I actually want this.”
Without tilling the soil – building the right mind and body for our seeds to thrive – we’re simply putting seeds into the Earth. No sprouting will come out of it, no matter how much we try to force it.
We are our body. We are our minds. It’s easy to forget these simple things.
The Art of Waiting
After planting the right seeds, some native plants will start to show themselves quickly. These are the plants that have been ants-ing to grow, just pushed out by invasive species. Now that those are out of the way, these native plants will emerge quickly.
But most will take time to grow. Lots of time.
These are the plants that need to establish deep roots in the soil before you see even a hint of them in our above-ground world. Not a single leaf or stem.
In our human world, change takes time – more than our allotted amount of human patience prefers. We get frustrated with the lack of progress, but a lot is happening just beyond our sight.
It’s practicing the guitar with seemingly zero progress, until you hit a breakthrough, and the thing you’ve been practicing suddenly feels fluent. It’s the hours of work you’ve spent behind the scenes on a project without notice from the outside world, until one day you reveal it in full.
All of a sudden, in what feels like an instant compared to the amount of time it took to get the first sprout, the seeds become a full-blown plant. While it’s been real and growing for years, it finally becomes real to us in the world of eyes and noses and other human senses.
There’s a lot of patience that goes into this stage. We may think nothing is happening – that it’s not worth it – but the roots simply need time to establish themselves.
So I remind myself:
"In nature, nothing rushes. Yet, everything gets done.”
Lao Tszu
Protecting Your Boundaries
In this hyper-stimulating world, the inputs you don’t allow into your life are as important as the inputs you do.
Sometimes it’s simple. You put up the scarecrow to rid the crow problem. You set a self-imposed boundary, and that’s that.
But in many cases, the threats are more pervasive. They continually creep in, as much as we try to exclude them from our lives.
What are these threats?
That’s something each of us needs to decide for ourselves. But for example’s sake, some threats I try to protect myself from are hatred-driven news, mind-numbing social media (I know it when I see it), unsolicited advice from people I don’t truly admire, and unhelpful comparison.
I call these threats because if I don’t make a conscious effort to put up my guard, they’ll undoubtedly slip back into my life. They’re the environmental pollutants of our inner ecosystem; creeping in unless we actively keep them out.
You may have noticed that many of my threats are considered “the norm of our time,” and so I need to be active in my avoidance. Because I often find myself guilty of recognizing the problems – the endless consumption, constant distraction, comparison – and just accepting them as symptoms of being born when I was.
But not all threats are equal…
There are some things in life that we can moderate and some things we need an on/off switch for. It depends on the person: some people can smoke weed every once in a while, but if I even take a puff of a joint with friends, I’ll revert back to being high all-day, everyday.
It’s different for all of us. And experience is the only teacher… the wisdom to know the difference.
"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
Marcus Aurelius
Life is growth. And if we’re alive, we’re growing in some way.
We’re either growing in the direction of change, or growing so that our current circumstances (beliefs, habits, frameworks for the world) become more ingrained.
So the question becomes… which direction are we growing in?
Are the invasive species – presented by society as a “one-size-fits-all” mold that doesn’t serve most people – slowly overrunning your ecosystem? Or are you cultivating the ecosystem, so that it can grow in the way it’s supposed to?
I use this model as an alternative to popular self-help advice which positions discipline and willpower as the almighty solutions – if they don’t work, it’s a you problem… not a problem with the model.
This alternative suggests that we’re constantly growing. The ecosystem is always evolving. Our job is to simply tend it and allow it to be what it’s supposed to be – not to mold it into the vision of success that lies in our head (and that we’ve probably inherited from other people).
Over-cultivation – trying to form the ecosystem according to your own vision – creates a landscape that may look nice, but isn’t natural. It’s the difference between a city park built from a blueprint and untouched nature, deep in a forest somewhere, far from human intervention.
The manicured version is nice. Pretty flowers and trees and all. But it’s not real – and we all feel it in some way that’s beyond physical. It’s an Amazon Basics knock-off at best.
Central Park is nice and all. But you can only fool yourself into thinking this is sufficient until you actually step outside of the city, into real nature.
So this is a hopeful view that self-growth is about setting the right conditions, and waiting. Then waiting some more. Allowing nature to grow at its own speed and in its own way, rather than forcing it into what you’d like it to look like or think it should look like.
Liz Gilbert puts it:
“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”
That’s why direction is more important than speed. It’s not a run to become a finished product because the product is never finished. It’s just a matter of understanding whether the direction you’re going in is your own, or the product of invasive species that destroy what’s supposed to be there.
You are what’s supposed to be there.