Nature Connection as a Necessity for Mental Wellness, Not a Luxury. Part 1
I cannot remember a time when stepping into a natural space hasn’t held for me the possibility of acceptance, kindness, restoration, excitement, or adventure. I cannot remember a time when it hasn’t felt like coming home.
What a fortunate thing to be able to be able to write. What a luxurious thing to be able to write, it might be argued. To live in such a way that I know the tingle of cold water on my skin, as the adrenalin and endorphins shoot through my body. That I know the peace that comes when I place the trunk of my body against the solid, grounding trunk of a tree. To know the expansion of my mind and my soul when I stand on a mountain and look up at the stars cascading across the night sky, knowing myself to be tiny piece of a jigsaw that is infinite in its nature. To know the power of placing my attention on the ant that works its way over the landscape of my garden, bringing my mind and being into the here, the now.
Yet, is this a luxury? Is this a ‘nice’ add-on? We live in a world that sees these experiences as such. Yes, that sounds a very ‘nice’ to do. Oh, yes, I ought to spend some more time in nature, we might ponder, as though it’s optional.
Of course, at this very moment that I write this and as you read it, we are already in nature. We are part of it. We are made of it and we exist as one element in a complex web of interconnected life and death. We are in symbiotic relationship, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Nature is not a luxury, but a necessity. In her book, Losing Eden, Lucy Jones asks, can we miss something that we’ve never had? I would answer, as Lucy does, that yes we can.
Our bodies, minds and souls ache for this connection when it is absent. One of our un-learnings to be done is the idea that we are separate from nature, or above it. Our re-learning is our re-connection. Our coming home; our listening to that ache and responding. It is about how we choose to be in nature, how we choose to be in relationship with it, that is of importance.
It is no accident that the focus of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is Nature Connection. For many of us, nature has held us more explicitly over this past year than ever before in our lives. The experience of slowing down, of becoming – through necessity – more anchored to the local spaces around us, the removal of many other forms of connection and support, has opened the door for many of us to this coming home.
The range of research that supports the benefits of nature for our mental wellness is ever expanding. Valid and vital, especially if we are to build the argument for re-integration of nature connection into the fabric of our capitalist post-industrial society, this scientific research supports what has been known by indigenous peoples for millennia. One of the most learned, deft examples of the intertwining of scientific knowledge with ancient wisdom is Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, a book that I highly recommend. Her themes of gratitude and reciprocity, amongst many others, contain much-needed guidance for our current world.
If nature is a necessity, rather than a luxury, for our mental wellness, a necessity for our engagement in the fight against climate change, how do we bring this into our everyday lives?
The power of regular practice, through placing our feet on the grass first thing in the morning, or taking two minutes to listen to birdsong outside our window at lunchtime, is equal in its impact on our wellbeing as standing at base camps in the Himalaya (though, yes please to both!).
A few ideas for our everyday practice:
• Take five minutes with your bare feet stood on grass, feel the ground beneath you, and take some slow deep breaths down into belly.
• Open the windows and feel the breeze
• Five minutes drinking your coffee looking out the window at the clouds
• Close your eyes and listen the birdsong – or if there isn’t any, play some on your phone
• Put pictures of nature around you at home
• Go for a walk outside at lunchtime
• Dunk in water and stimulate your vagus nerve! If it’s not nearby, try a cold shower
• Sketch a ‘soundscape’
In Part 2 of this piece, I will expand further our use of the word nature: invite us to consider the necessity of connection with our own ‘true’ nature, in order to support our wellbeing, our efficacy and, ultimately, our continuation as a species.
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