Connect with nature, connect with yourself

Welcome to the real world

If you live in countryside or somewhere in the mountains, you can probably skip this article, as most of what I could say, is probably obvious to you. If you’ve lived all your life, like me, in a big city, it can be entirely different. City life can be exciting – there possibility to meet new people, go for all night parties, immerse in fascinating job projects, go to cinema, concert, art gallery and so on. Everything in beautifully architected buildings, wonderfully designed grid of streets, pavements and colourful lights. Furthermore, some beauty can be even found in post-industrial buildings, partially destroyed, covered by graffiti, reminding of past years of greatness. All the world people created, built and are proud of.

Outside of that brick, concrete and tarmac world, there’s another one – made of trees, mountains, rivers, lakes and more. The world created by Nature – place where big city rules do not apply. Where’s no need to rush, to seek artificial excitement, to chase after money and be actively engaged in all activities known only in towns. Like watching TV to get frustrated about politics or your football club losing another match. As there’s no politics or football clubs in the nature, simple.

When we go to such places, we lose all benefits of civilised world, what can be really frustrating at the beginning, as we can feel we lost something we used to have. On the other hand, we also lose all problems known to civilised places. Like traffic, pollution, stress, anxiety, “rat race”, politics, crime and many more. Go to any place not inhabited by humans and you realise all those issues are non-existent there. Fot that reason, wherever you find a place which isn’t man-made creation, which is there as it used to be for hundreds or even thousands of years, you realise you can feel absolutely free there. That’s the real world given to us by this planet.

Connect with nature, disconnect from…

Should we all leave cities and move to some remote locations then? Possibly. But that would be quite radical step, which only a few are either brave or desperate enough to do. Most of us, including myself, wouldn’t. If we aren’t ready for such revolution in life, we can still benefit from the wisdom of the Nature. Anything needed is just to find a spot outside a town, or at least a closest park. Stop and observe. Maybe sit down, disconnect from any problems of daily life and just observe. Start to realise how do we feel about what we see. Start to realise WHAT we see. How any other life on this planet is similar or different to ours? Start to understand how connected or disconnected we are from this entire world.

Connect with yourself

When we begin to notice entire life around us, we’re starting to be more focused and more present. So we’re getting opportunity to forget, at least for a moment, about all our problems rooted in the past. Or related to the future. We’re able to cut off this stream of thoughts filling our heads with constant problems, solutions, memories, plans and any kind of internal chatter. It just happens – we begin to connect with our surroundings. We’re more aware and we’re more here. That’s what some people call mindfulness (find something about it in article Be here, be now. Why mindfulness is bad for you).

When we are more integrated with our surroundings, there’s one interesting side effect – we’re getting more connected with ourselves. Consequently, we’re getting more conscious of our presence here, of our thoughts and feelings. Also, more or less consciously, we feel somewhere inside that we are integral part of this world. We’re closer to our true selves. And overall happier.

Be sceptical

I may be right or wrong – unless you’ve got similar experience, there’s no real reason to believe in all written above. Be sceptical. Go outside and try this yourself. Try a few times to be sure. And if you can spare a few minutes, leave a comment below, to share your findings.