There is something that draws us into the beauty of nature. I like to think of it as surrender to the elements we can’t control- and in the lack of control, there is beauty and peace. It is wild and unpredictable and we are just in it. I think of being in the ocean with water so deep, waves high, and animals swimming beneath our feet. It’s thrilling and yet, it can be the most relaxing and refreshing experience. We spend our time and money getting to these places so we can experience this escape. What if we didn’t have to fly away on vacation to experience this kind of escape and relaxation?

This is where I believe nature can come in to provide rest from our busy lives.  If we can routinely (key word) let ourselves experience something purely present, we can calm those physiological symptoms (heart rate, breathing, other stress responses), and we can settle the emotional and mental noise.  

There is new research in the mental health community about the healing affects of nature. There are scientists right now testing the affects of soil bacteria in healing allergies and now even depression (article here). We are increasingly drawn away to other worlds through our phones, social media, netflix, etc. None of these are unhealthy in themselves, but they can send us back into that mental loop that we get stuck in sometimes. I call it rumination. It can be a thought pattern of fear, discouragement, overwhelm, or stress. By contrast nature is present. It’s the beautiful now.

I discovered how true this is a years ago when my first daughter was born. I struggled with post pardum depression. I had dark days where my thoughts spiraled into despair and despondency. One day I decided to get outside and work on my backyard. I started digging and planted a small vegetable garden. Since then I have come back again and again to my garden as a respite from my internal world.

My garden is seasonal- it teaches me things change. It has a mind of its own and teaches me patience and peace in what I can’t control. It’s beautiful, which pulls be back into the present every time I see a seed sprout or a flower emerge.

There are so many benefits to my garden, it’s difficult to determine what really helps the most: the exercise, the vitamin D, the distraction, the soil, or the beauty? It was so healing for me in a time in my life when I felt under water.  Douglas LaBier Ph.D. wrote an article about this very thing. In nature “…you’re simply present. Conscious in the moment. Observing the flow of your mental and emotional activity; but not being pulled into it. That conscious “now” allows for greater inner calm, clearer judgment, and it enables more focused, creative responses to everyday life.” Dr. LaBier talks about broadening our view by seeing ourselves as connected to the world right around us. Where you can move from self-focused thoughts and feelings to seeing yourself as part of a community of people and within the natural world. To try this practice out, try a mindfulness mediation (click here) then take a walk or try one of these ideas.

Some ideas for engaging with the present world around us:

• Plant some seeds
• Take a walk (leave your phone at home)
• sketch something you see outside
• smell the flowers and the freshly cut grass!
• Take a drive with the windows down
• Try this mindfulness meditation

Morgan Myers, LPC-intern
Supervised by Jessica Taylor, LPC-S

Morgan is a therapist at East Dallas Psychotherapy specializing in mothers with young kids overwhelmed by life, figuring out relationships, and dealing with depression and anxiety. For more about her click here.

More articles about the benefits of Nature and Mindfulness

Read about the “relaxation response” (as opposed to a stress response) by Dr. Herbert Benson

Have you ever thought about what it must be like to be a kid experiencing the world for the first time? If you’ve ever been in a foreign country you remember the feeling of looking out the window and there are signs with symbols you’ve never seen and letters that seem to be pushed together to form some word that has meaning to everyone else but you. Then you see that everyone seems to be behaving in similar ways but you can’t seem to fall in line. Maybe you don’t want to fall in line. Maybe you want to rebel! Or you wish they drove on the right side of the rode and followed the appropriate amount of personal space, and didn’t talk so loudly or so quietly. You wish they were like the people in your own country.

I’ve been thinking about how a kid might encounter our world and its unspoken rules at each developmental stage with newfound awareness/confusion. We assume they will fall in line with our mini-culture in our family. We try to speed through the “learning” then “modeling” process that is our job as parents. When they learn to talk we are surprised, sometimes irritated when they speak too loudly. They scream their new words happily in the car, but then they do it in the middle of church. We forget they don’t know the difference between the car and a nice restaurant.

When they begin to have an opinion, they get to have choices. They choose their shirt for the day, they choose what drink to order. But then they think they can choose to paint on the wall too! Right? We forget they don’t know there’s a difference between those choices.

Oh lordy, what about puberty? When they begin to open their eyes to romantic relationships. This has to be like visiting the Italian Riviera for the first time, having never stepped foot out of the monotonous suburbs! They see everything in brilliant emotional color. We forget they’ve never experienced this kind of admiration, love, infatuation- even if it’s just with their own reflection! The newness of all the hormonal firsts is all consuming.

We forget that at the beginning of each of those developmental stages they get saturated by the newness. They don’t know the rules and boundaries. It’s our job to show them without judgement. Give grace. And Model! Maybe we can relive some of those moments with them. The firsts. The firsts that cause all the conflict in a family and cause us to set new limits as parents. But the firsts are where they stretch their legs and grow into the humans we hope they will be. And isn’t it exciting!?

Morgan Myers, LPC-intern is a family therapist specializing in adolescent counseling and adult counseling. Issues include depression, anxiety post partum depression and parenting concerns. She currently seeing clients in North Dallas at Hope Child & Family Center of Texas. Beginning Fall 2018 she will also be seeing clients in East Dallas. For a consultation and to setup an appointment for you or your child, call 469-203-1533 or email morganmyers@therapyemail.com.