Spending More Time in Nature is a Mindful Choice
“Whether it be a stream, a forest, a mountain or the sea, connecting with nature’s intelligence will give you a sense of unity with all of life and help you to get in touch with the innermost essence of your being.” Deepak Chopra The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
It is no co-incidence that many of the practices in Making Mindful Magic relate to nature and happen outdoors. Similarly our Seven Day Mindful Challenge has experiences set in nature and our Guided Meditation is an imaginary walk in nature! There are movements worldwide that now actively promote children spending more time in nature! It is where connection with ourselves and the universe are made. Endless hours engaging with technology cannot touch the heart and lift the spirit, the way time and pastimes in nature can.
As I write this I am on retreat in Bali surrounded by the most lush and amazing jungle vegetation. I feel enlivened by the sight and calmed by the natural sounds that surround me. This is my view as I write. It makes me feel open-hearted and peaceful. Knowing this what nature creates for all of us to share makes me feel grateful and connected to the world at large.
We lead busy lives but being in nature is one of the very best ways to re-ground and de-stress ourselves after all the activity. Depending on where you live and how your family lives their lives, you’ll need to gauge for yourself how much effort and time you’ll need to put in to make a change.
You might already be lucky enough to have nature at your doorstep in which case your contribution to increasing your children’s time engaging with nature might be to limit the amount of time they spend on media and increase the time they are in the backyard. If you live inner city perhaps your children need to have some time slotted into their lives to go the local park. Perhaps you know the whole family is involved with many activities that keep all of you constantly on the go so perhaps a weekly outing together for something as simple as a picnic or a walk in a quiet, peaceful but vegetated are might be what you need.
Whatever it is you need will become obvious to you if you spend a little time yourself in quiet reflection on the subject. This is an opportunity for you to also engage the children in the process – ask how they feel when they are in nature, how can we make more time to spend in nature, where can we go to spend more time in nature?
Looking for opportunities to make choices about how we live our lives can be filtered down very easily but very powerfully to our children to encourage them to be more mindful in their own lives.
