Nature Connection and Emotional Wellness

Venture Outside for Good Health

As you may know, I’m doing my MSc in Positive Psychology focusing on emotional wellbeing. I’m about to launch my research on nature connections as an intervention for anxiety and depression. I’d be very grateful for participants to help explore the effects of mindful nature connection on emotional health. I know some of you have already kindly volunteered and further participation would be welcomed. With that in mind, let’s explore the topic of emotional health and nature connection.

Did you know?

Even before Covid, anxiety and depression were already the leading causes of the global burden on health services. Since then the number of people experiencing anxiety and depression has increased phenomenally with one in three adults experiencing anxiety and one in six experiencing depression (Office of National Statistics, 2022). The mental health workforce, beds and medical resources have been found inadequate in meeting the demands on services (British Medical Association, 2023). There’s clearly a pressing need for effective mental health interventions.

Shifting the Focus

Positive psychology offers a refreshing approach, focusing on human strengths, growth, and well-being. Combining the principles of positive psychology with mindful nature connection can lead to profound improvements in mental health and overall quality of life. Equipping people with self-regulatory, self-sustaining interventions for anxiety and low mood may be both cost-effective and personally empowering in improving their quality of life. 

Positive psychology seeks to shift the traditional focus on mental illness and dysfunction to explore the positive aspects of human experiences that make life worth living such as hope, wisdom, creativity, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance. By fostering optimism and empowerment, positive psychology interventions enable people to thrive and flourish – making the world a better place.

Mindful Nature Connection: A Holistic Approach

Mindfulness-based nature connection combines elements of positive psychology with the healing power of nature. This approach encourages individuals to engage in activities like savouring experiences, expressing gratitude, and building compassion while immersing themselves in the natural world. Research has shown that mindful nature connection enhances mental well-being, cultivates positive emotions, and fosters a sense of connection, purpose, awe and flow.

Scandinavian Inspiration: Outdoor Living and Happiness

Scandinavian countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Norway consistently rank among the happiest in the world. Despite their long, dark, cold winters, Scandinavians embrace an outdoor lifestyle called friluftsliv, spending time in nature year-round. This cultural emphasis on outdoor living aligns with positive psychology principles, promoting physical activity, social connection, appreciation for the natural environment and positive emotions. More on friluftsliv here. 

Practical Tips for Mindful Nature Connection:

  • Savouring Experiences: Take time to appreciate the beauty of nature, whether it’s a stunning sunset or the sound of birds chirping in the morning.
  • Expressing Gratitude: Reflect on the abundance of nature and express gratitude for its gifts, from clean air to lush greenery.
  • Practicing Kind Acts: Engage in acts of kindness towards nature, such as planting trees, picking up litter, or supporting conservation efforts.
  • Pursuing Meaning: Seek out activities in nature that align with your values and bring a sense of purpose and fulfilment.
  • Building Hope: Find inspiration in the resilience of the natural world and cultivate hope for the future.
  • Identifying Strengths: Recognise your strengths and how they contribute to your connection with nature, whether it’s through creativity, curiosity, or perseverance.
  • Building Compassion: Foster compassion for yourself and others through mindful interactions with nature, recognising the interconnectedness of all living beings.

Incorporating mindful nature connection into our lives offers a powerful antidote to the challenges of modern living. By drawing inspiration from positive psychology principles and the outdoor lifestyle of Scandinavian countries, we can cultivate resilience, happiness, and well-being. Let’s embrace the healing power of nature and nurture our mental health for a brighter, more fulfilling future.

Would you like to join the mindful nature connection challenge and participate in this research? The only side-effects are good health and happiness. Oh, and of course self-empowerment. I’d be delighted to join you in this adventure and am grateful in advance. Just click on this link and learn all about it: Mindfulness-based nature connection

Resources 
Time Line Therapy™ is unique in its approach to emotional healing and resolves issues remarkably fast without having to go into unwanted details. It is the quickest and gentlest way to heal and release negative emotions such as fear, stress, anxiety and depression. Time Line Therapy™ is equally effective in overcoming limiting beliefs and building empowering beliefs and self-confidence. For more information click through on Time Line Therapy™.

Natural Wellness Blog

Our Wellness Blog, is inspired by Nature on Prescription and Food on Prescription. This month we explore how your food is linked to your mental and physical health and how nature connection can restore happiness. Access it here now for practical inspiration on pro-active health.

Cosmic Overview and Current Energies

We’re birthing a new era. What does Spring 2024 hold for you? Get a feel for the current climate energetically so that you can flow with life, take a higher perspective and see things clearly … Read more for the bigger picture.

Meditations
Enjoy this Gratitude Meditation 
Enjoy these guided mindfulness meditations as your self-help tools.

Further reading

Flourish by Martin Seligman
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 
Lifting the Veils of Illusion, 7 Steps to Spiritual Enlightenment
The Foundations of Mastery, 12 Steps to a Fulfilled Life
Positive Psychology.

Newsletter

Sign up for our monthly newsletter and receive a wealth of self-help resources, tips and information on mental, emotional and physical well-being. Sign up for the monthly newsletter here to stay updated.

For all courses, visit the Events Calendar.

Transforming Fear

Our path of evolution is to move beyond fear and open up to the fullness of our potential, creativity, purpose and joy. How do you overcome fear at a time of significant world changes and economic challenges? How do you maintain hope and cultivate positive feelings and a positive vision of who you are and what is possible in your life and in the world at large? Start by seeing fear for what it is.

Fear is our most basic emotion triggered by our fight or flight instincts. A lot of the fear we feel are collective fears fuelled by the news stories. Fear is actually caused by our perceptions of external events, not by the events themselves. That makes fear an illusion. It’s not real because it exists in the mind rather than an external happening.

Fear is contagious

Emotions are contagious and tend to rub off. Your unconscious mind; your emotional mind is very sensitive and picks up very easily on the subtleties of feelings of the people around you. In fact, it doesn’t really distinguish between your feelings and mine. It all becomes intertwined and connected as one, because at the level of the unconscious mind, we are one. So we can be dragged down or uplifted. Equally, we can have a dulling or uplifting effect on others. Being aware of this gives us choices.

Fear is a low level of consciousness

We have all walked into a room and sensed the vibes. You can feel the tension or the lightness. Emotions have vibrations. Some, like stress and fear, are dense and low in vibration. Others, like love and joy, are light and high in vibrations. Higher vibrations are naturally more uplifting and expansive. When you dwell in fear, you dwell in the lowest state of consciousness that is more constrictive and limiting. Stress and fear can cause dis-ease.

Qualities of Consciousness

In the Negative: As is evident from the emotional scale above, if you dwell in lower emotions too long, you can experience apathy and your energy becomes more constrictive, rigid and solid. You can’t make decisions because you resist change. You want things to stay the same. You want to BE right. You take life too seriously and are motivated by safety and security. Stress and fear can make you ill. You feel like a victim of circumstances, feeling life is unfair. You can drag people down with you. People around you can find you draining.  People at these levels tend to be risk-averse. They remember past failures and generate a lot of ‘what if’ type mental chatter. Ironically, what we put our intention on, grows in possibility and prevalence.

In the Positive: Higher up in positive emotions of willingness, gratitude, excitement and enthusiasm, there’s more movement and flow in energy. You become more expansive and you have more space to create. You are driven (not by financial security) by a vision and purpose. You feel energised and healthy. It’s easier to come into your own power, to be creative and to manifest positive outcomes. Abundance is a natural outflow. People who cultivate positivity and dwell higher up the emotional levels, are playful and happy. They don’t take life too seriously. They take full responsibility for their own experiences. They have a contagious enthusiasm. They have strong positive intentions. They want to DO right. They feel inspired and serve as an inspiration to others.

We Always Have Choices and Options

We become what we repeatedly do. We become what we feed our minds. The unconscious mind is as open to suggestions as a young child and takes everything for real and personally. So whatever news content you take in has a profound impact on your unconscious mind; your emotional mind. There’s a lot of noise generated in the world right now. Collectively and individually we are experiencing immense change. Only you know what’s right for you. Following your own path is essential for your sense of freedom and well-being. Following your own inner radar, will fill you with the dynamic energy to create your own destiny. This implies cutting through all the noise, confusion and fear. Beyond fear, within each of us, is a space of innate well-being and peace. That’s where you want to dwell and from there you want to flow your creativity in your own unique way. Your inner radar is often feelings-driven. Your feelings are subtle, intuitive messages, so it’s worth tuning in, listening and following your own inner truth.

Calm doesn’t come from some change in the external world. It has to be cultivated from within. You always have a choice between fear-creating constrictive stories or uplifting inspiration that expands and stimulates the creative mind. The mind really needs a break from digital input. The mind needs stillness for you to tap into your intuitive wisdom and inner guidance.

Balance the input with quality silence; time to reflect, to listen within. That’s where you will find what is true for you. Also spend some time doing something enjoyable and creative. When the creative mind is engaged in the present moment, it expands and ideas and inspiration can get through.

Your mind is immensely creative, and the possibilities are infinite. What you focus your mind on is a conscious choice. What you focus on, you energise, expand and make more of. Focused thought expands the probability; the likeliness of that outcome.

Your nervous system is designed to bring about what you think about. Embrace your creative energy by channeling it constructively and positively into enjoyable projects. Align yourself with your destiny and set big intentions that drive and fulfil the vision of your more expansive higher self.

Keep on doing your inner work to manifest outer change:
– Release your own fears and doubts
– Integrate your own ego into your higher greater self
– Open your own heart and live more from your heart-space.

Continue to create light, good health, peace and joy in the world. Do so through thought-intention, visualisation and by being the light in the world.

Resources
Time Line Therapy™
Time Line Therapy™, facilitates gentle, yet powerful processes to enable you to heal wounds and release emotions of the past. Emotions of anger, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt keep us attached to the past and as we heal these emotions, we set ourselves free from the past; free to create a positive future and a happy life. Time Line Therapy™ is unique in its approach as it resolves issues remarkably fast without having to go into too much detail. Time Line Therapy™ is equally effective in overcoming limiting beliefs and building empowering beliefs and confidence. I can highly recommend Time Line Therapy™ for a complete clear-out of negative emotions and limiting beliefs. It’s transformational and rapidly speeds up your personal evolution. For more information click on this link: Time Line Therapy™.

Meditations
As a great self-help tool, you can listen to a Mindfulness Healing Meditation listed on the Meditation page. It is an inner journey that you can make for your own emotional healing as often as you want to release emotions and achieve lightness.

Natural Wellness Blog

The Natural Wellness Blog, inspired by Nature on Prescription and Food on Prescription can be accessed here for practical inspiration on pro-active health. This month we celebrate the great outdoors and it’s benefit for mental health.

Cosmic Overview and Current Energies

We’re birthing a new paradigm. What does September hold for you? Get a feel for the current climate energetically so you can flow with life, take a higher perspective and see things clearly … Read more for the bigger picture.

Courses
For all courses, visit the Events Calendar.

Further Reading
Power vs Force by David Hawkins
Lifting the Veils of Illusions by Narina Riskowitz

Newsletter

Sign up for our monthly newsletter and receive a wealth of self-help resources, tips and information on mental, emotional and physical well-being. Sign up for the monthly newsletter here to stay updated.