One of my go-to Joy triggers in life is spending time in nature.
The connection between joy and nature for me is so strong, sometimes I’ll drive 40 minutes to the ocean just so I can feel moist sand under foot. The explosion of joy from my soul is almost instantaneous.
Perhaps you feel the same?
Feeling nature’s vibration through my body tells me I am alive. My senses are dancing, rather than drowning in the white noise of the city.
Here’s the irony…
One afternoon on a recent holiday, I wandered off with my mum and sister to meditate in what we thought was a quiet patch of grass. As soon as I sat down, the chorus of birds was deafening. Instead of dancing, my senses were screaming for silence. I was irritated, I wanted to quit.
But in that moment, I realised that if I wanted to continue the answer was simple – surrender.
Bingo. And in that moment of conscious choice, the same feelings of being truly alive came flooding through my body.
I became one with nature.
Most of us are conditioned to believe that surrender is a sign of weakness, we’re finished, it’s over, done, no second chances. You see my love, surrender is not a dirty word.
Just like that day in the country, when I fully surrendered to what ‘is’ a beautiful thing happened – I experienced pure ‘joy’.
With every inhalation and exhalation it flooded in and out of my body.
Raw, authentic, beautiful, feminine, spacious…surrender
A moment of divine, intuitive, full-bodied energy.
Too often, we create ideals around how and where we should conduct our spiritual practices. A quiet, serene space will make for a smoother transition but this is not always achievable. Constraining yourself to this ‘ideal’ will actually have you practicing less, and forming long term habits become harder.
The exquisite thing about meditating in nature that day, was that when I fully surrendered to what was around me, I was given the opportunity to feel everything the day had to offer. The breeze kissing and dusting my skin. The deafening melodies were in fact songs of joy. The sun – warm, radiant and healing.
In our city lives, we often resist the world outside, we resist feeling it, we fear it. It gets in the way of our so called ‘mission’ for the day. As we walk or drive to work, we often make every attempt to experience a timely, smooth, uninterrupted, journey. In doing so, we miss moments of joy, everywhere.
Meditation is about creating space, whether it be 2 or 20mins long. With space comes clarity. Where and how I meditate isn’t conditional on finding the perfect moment, a quiet place, or a time of day. Right now, it’s about forming a regular practice. Removing the judgement, the need to be perfect. Conscious surrender.
Again.
And again.
And again.
So with joy in my heart, I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts…
1. When you are at the park, in the country or perhaps walking along the beach, consciously open your eyes, listen for the sounds of nature you realise that we are only a small part in this huge cosmos.
2. Make time for nature, space to distance yourself from routine. I find this especially helpful if I’m feeling stuck. Clean air and salty ocean air do wonders for the mind. You’ll be more productive in the end.
3. Ask yourself, can I stop. drop. meditate. anytime or anywhere? This is the ultimate goal.
Want to learn more about joy and nature? You might like this post on Biophilia or this one on the link between Exercise and Emotions.
