I never used to see nature as healing. I would go about my days so consumed with the chatter of my mind, all my tasks of the day, all my self limiting beliefs, all my worries and fears. Along with thinking about all my daily tasks and anxious thoughts, I would imagine a future where I was somehow happier, more beautiful, in a different job, with a different car in hopes that my future was brighter than the numb and dull reality I was living in. I would do this all while walking right past the bright red tulips laid in front of a house with a honey bee collecting pollen, the red robin flying past me with its chirping sounds, and then peacefully scavenging the ground, and the beauty of the colours of the sky. What I didn’t know at the time, was that life wouldn’t start when I had all the things I thought I needed … happiness, peace and joy were all around me, when I chose to succumb to my senses and let it in. It took a number of years and continuation of incessant chatter within me before I ever came to this realisation, but slowly and surely, the tint of grey over my eyes gently shifted to one with brighter, more vibrant colours.

I never would’ve imagined that so much of my joy and peace would come from observing nature, and frankly speaking, if I was told this years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. How could it be that walking along a residential neighbourhood on my way to a bus stop could give me joy and happiness or peace? I was struggling in university falling behind, I was unsatisfied in my job, and I was in a period of deep loneliness and anxiety in my life. My happiness couldn’t possibly be from small moments like this, and if it was, then I’d doubt it to be true happiness at all!

We as a collective have lost this ability to truly see nature for what it is, the peace and tranquillity it brings and the healing essence it carries. We ignore all the beauty around us because we are consumed by our minds and the distractions in our daily life.

We live incredibly busy lives … from our constantly buzzing phones, to our financial concerns, to our need to find our self worth in the world around us. Not to mention our direct access to the news and all the violent horrors of the world, making us live in deeper fear, reminding us that this is a scary world, unable to relax and enjoy the moment. As if that wasn’t enough, our past trauma we each already carry within us, leaves us with deep seated anxiety and/or depression. It is understandably so difficult to make direct contact with the present moment. We must be compassionate with ourselves, because in the world we have grewn up in, our society, we were never told to observe the natural world.

We were fed the lie that our future will be happy and all our anxiousness and fear will dissipate if we only just buy this product, go to this school, have this career, be the best son or daughter, be better than those around us, as if all these things equate to the feeling that we are finally good enough. Society never told us that we are already okay exactly the way we are. That we can rest, and look around, and slow down and that it is just safe to simply exist in the world.

Nature tells us a different story then we have been told our whole lives. Nature is already complete and whole. A sunflower doesn’t strive to be a tulip or an evergreen tree, it simply does whats most natural and blooms beautifully as a sunflower. In the winter it does not think, “What is wrong with me? Why am I not beautifully bloomed right now?” Or “Why can’t I be a lilly instead?” A sunflower knows there is a time for deep rest and retreat, and there is a time to be in full bloom and that it is meant to be exactly as it is, in every stage of its life. This is the way of nature. It reminds us it is safe to slow down, and simply be. It is safe to rest. It is safe knowing that we are already beautiful in every season of life, regardless of spring or winter and that deep rest is necessary.

Beauty is in every day life. It is not just in certain moments, on a giant hilltop or at a tropical beach destination, or when we have that car, that body, that relationship. Beauty is everywhere, it is all around us. It is in every moment of contact with nature, no matter how vast or small. There is beauty in the flowers that have taken over a patch of grass, or as we call them in society “weeds,” laid close outside our workplace. There is beauty in the maple trees we see directly outside our window. There is beauty in the details of a single leaf or the moss laid against a tree trunk. Beauty not in the conventional sense of how society sees it to be, but a type of beauty that invites us in, immerses us completely, and reminds us that life is now … that there is more to life then our suffering, or the happiness we believe we will get sometime in the future. I wouldn’t even describe it as happiness, I would call it a true inner joy, a childlike peace. The kind of joy that reminds us we are all truly kids experiencing the beauty of this world as if for the first time, everytime we observe.

This is the healing quality of nature. It allows us to look, to frolic, to observe and come into our senses. To feel alive again like we once did in our adolescence, or alive like we have never experienced before.

Nature is healing to our inner child.

My life slowly got filled with awe and wonder. Something within me woke up, and you will begin to find this on your journey as well. It is a beautiful part of this journey towards finding peace and being less in my thoughts that I had never expected. It is truly an awakening. Awakening to a life, in which everything is new, and its beauty is preserved, not numb to the senses like before, but fully alive in presence. It takes us directly into inner peace, soothing us and letting us feel our innate worthiness.

I find that when I immerse myself completely in the beauty if nature, the things I should or shouldn’t have said, the ways I should or shouldn’t have acted all blur into the background of my mind. All the things I could’ve gotten done and all the people I must strive to be better than, none of this matters. Throughout my spiritual awakening journey, nature has become all the more compelling… all the more beautiful. It whispers to us, if we only take a moment to listen, to look. In this way, we align vibrationally to nature.

The healing qualities of nature can be uncovered when looking out a work window, seeing the contrast of the blue and white sky. Or admiring the colourful flowers or unique and alluring trees on the way to and from work.

Just the awareness of nature and direct observation is enough to help one feel recharged and present. To observe is to connect with something beyond the labels and judgements in our mind.

I invite you to take some moments to look around in nature with presence and full immersion. It doesn’t matter where you are in nature or what your mind might believe about this space. Put your thoughts aside and observe. Like a child, look, listen, be curious. At first you may see nothing, you may feel nothing, but with this new found intention … nature will begin to show you its true beauty.

“In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

I invite you to continue to do this every day of your life. Dare to look around, dare to quiet your mind and ignore its endless chatter. Your life is now, and your life is incredibly beautiful and your are innately worthy and whole. This world needs a mass awakening, to realign with our true nature … with the knowing that it doesn’t matter what car we drive or the clothes on our back, or the person we should be in the future, but all the beautiful moments that we completely lose ourselves in, and the true simplicity of joy and, maybe if we are really looking, love— not limited, and which we have utterly over complicated.

Here is a beautifully written poem by Mary Oliver called “A Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?