A Return to Nature
This week was certainly unique. Times like this can cause my anxiety to spark, but I consider how nature might be a calming solution.
It’s safe to say this has been a pretty stressful week.
As someone who gets anxious, I struggled with the inundation of news that came this week. The sheer amount of uncertainty that was introduced caused my head to race with thoughts.
I had (unfounded) visions of everything I know collapsing.
There’s a lot of ongoing construction near my apartment, and I imagined things getting so bad that the construction couldn’t finish. These skyscrapers and unfinished buildings would be left like the skeletons of decaying giants, a physical manifestation of a world about which I worried.
In these moments, my thoughts swirl and collect mass like a snowball rolling downhill, no matter how practical they are. Oftentimes, they’re not very.
Normally, I’m not one to constantly re-fresh news websites, but that’s what I found myself doing. Nothing good would come of it, but it felt like something I could do. Some trick of my mind to exert a fake kind of control over a chaotic world.
What can I even begin to do in moments like these?
Well, I decided to go for a walk.
It wasn’t the most life changing decision I’ve ever made, but it helped me refocus. Breathe.
It wasn’t the first time walking has helped me out. I once read about how the three Ms (movement, music, and meditation) are a good place to smart when you aren’t feeling right.
Sometimes I will listen to music. Other times, a podcast or audiobook is more fitting. Even sometimes I won’t listen to anything aside from the world around me.
This walk didn’t fix everything for me immediately, but it did give me an idea.
I thought about how nature might be a good sanctuary in times like this.
Things feel crazy in our manmade world right now, but nature is always itself. There’s no way nature should be – it just is.
A fallen tree isn’t some sort of failure. Maybe it fell because it grew old, and a strong wind knocked it over. Regardless, it doesn’t stop becoming a part of nature. It’s just there in a new form.
Likewise, the bends in a river aren’t part of some long-term plan. They’re just there because – bit by bit – time eroded this path for the water. There isn’t a more ideal path to follow.
These ideas were comforting to me this week.
When the road ahead looks uncertain, I try to remind myself that we’re all just a part of nature. I can’t change all the circumstances around me overnight, but I can accept the way they are and do the best I can going forward.
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