Journaling, Meditation and Nature, OH MY!

One of my favorite things in the whole wide world is actually allowing myself to be.  JUST BE. No distractions.  We spend so much time rushing, rushing, rushing that we never really get to experience what we are doing in the present moment.  We never get to slow down to allow our brains the rest it needs for new ideas to come through.  There are three main things that I do whenever I can to achieve this state of just being.  They are: Journaling, Meditation and going for walks in nature.

These are the three things that allow my mind to be calm and free without judgment!  And that without judgment part is really key here!  I write in my journal whatever comes to my head and I don’t judge myself for what I said. The reason for this is that it allows me to be free, it allows anything to come to my mind to flow out of my mind.  Same with meditation – whatever comes into my mind I acknowledge and then focus back on breathing.  No time for judgment!  And walking in nature is just so peaceful.  My brain goes wherever it wants to go and it is usually filled with immense gratitude.  When you stop and you look at the huge trees and the little flowers and the random bugs – this whole ecosystem is just freaking amazing!  And I am just a little tiny part of it.  I want to tell you more about each of these things and why I think they are important.

The goal for me sharing this information with you, just like anything that I share with you, is that you might take a little piece of something to implement in your life.  Or at least consider it.  Not everything that resonates with me will resonate with you and that’s okay!  Just the consideration of what other people do is an interesting process that opens up the mind to other possibilities in the future.  For the longest time I heard people talk about meditation and I had no earthly idea what they were talking about.  It kept coming up and eventually I looked up what this meditation thing was and tried it.  So, maybe right now something I say here won’t resonate with you but just knowing about it can open doors way into your future!  We are all on our own epic journeys and we each are open to ideas at different times.  I always remind myself that not everyone is ready to hear my message. Not everyone is exactly where I am right now and 5 years ago I wasn’t where I am right now!  It is all part of the process!

Now that we got that reminder out of the way, let’s dive into the real meat!  Starting with journaling – this is my go to when I am feeling a lot of feelings.  I love to turn to my journal and just get it all out – anger, sadness, joy, excitement – whatever it is I let it flow.  The key here for me is to find a quiet time, preferably alone when I can do this.  While on vacation one time I walked to the beach early in the morning and just sat there and journaled – that was probably one of the best journaling sessions!!  Nature & journaling together is a powerhouse!  Anywho, find a quiet place where you have at least 30 minutes.  I like 30 minutes because I feel like after 10 or so minutes you might feel like you are done but if you just sit in the quiet, more things will start flowing.  Make sure you have distractions turned off or silenced, including that dang apple watch that wants to make sure you walk every hour.  You really need to be present with this activity and not focused on other things.  I use pen (or pencil) and paper because typing my feelings just feels weird to me!  And I like that I can take my special journaling notebook and tuck it away.  I don’t find that I need journal prompts when I am just sitting down to process my feelings.  I want to be free to write whatever comes to mind!  However, I think there is a time and a place to use journal prompts depending on what kind of situation you are going through.  For example, I have a coach that at certain times will challenge me to journal on something specific.  Maybe a specific emotion I am having or a specific event that occurred.  Either route you choose will work just fine!

Journaling is such a beautiful way to process your emotions.  Oftentimes, we just bottle up our feelings and I learned the hard way this is no way to live.  Bottling up our emotions can have lasting effects on our mental and physical health.  The good news is, once we start expressing our emotions we can release the things we have been bottling up and free up our mind to do other things.  I found when I wasn’t properly expressing emotions, I was really angry.  I just couldn’t shake it - it was like I was mad at the world.  Journaling has been one part of my process of expressing and being curious about my emotions.  Why do I think I am feeling this way?  How do I want to feel?  Questions like that have allowed me to move through some tough emotions.  Journaling our emotions instead of shoving them down and pretending they don’t exist is really a form of acceptance of ourself!  Acceptance for who we are as human beings.  Acceptance that we will experience a wide range of emotions throughout the course of our lives.  Acceptance that even when we feel a certain way we are still worthy of love and especially self-love.

Speaking of self-love, another wonderful way to show yourself some love is in the form of meditation.  Meditation has been shown to have a ton of benefits including reducing stress and anxiety, increased self-awareness, attention span, quality of sleep and more!  And the most powerful thing of all is how connected our mind and body are. With such deep connection, meditation has the power to help us work through physical ailments. 

As I eluded to in the beginning of this article, I wasn’t really clear on what meditation was when I first heard about it.  What I learned is that it is just focusing on your body, particularly your breath and then as thoughts pop into your brain you just acknowledge their presence and go back to focusing on your breath.  Each thought that pops in gets acknowledged and then you turn your focus back onto your breath.  Many people believe that meditation is the absence of thoughts but that is impossible.  Meditation is just allowing your thoughts to come and go while staying focused on your physical body in the present moment.  When I first started out with meditation, I used Headspace.  It is an app with guided meditations which I highly recommend!  There is some free content and of course there is an upgraded version with more content.  I think this is a great place to start to learn about meditation and how it works.  You can also find tons of free meditations online and make sure you try out many different ones!  There are some different variations of meditation.  Sometimes you visualize light coming down through your body, sometimes you continually ask yourself a question to try to release something that seems to be stuck within you.  Definitely play around with what feels good to you including length of time in meditation.  I typically spend about 10 minutes but honestly, if I can only get 5 minutes I take it!  Any amount of time in meditation will be beneficial to you.

The last of my trifecta is walking in nature.  In general, just being in nature is the goal here, so even if you can’t or don’t walk, just being in nature will provide you with benefits.  According to an article by the American Psychological Association, “Spending time in nature is linked to both cognitive benefits and improvements in mood, mental health and emotional well-being.”

For me personally, something about being in nature fills me with gratitude.  Being filled with gratitude is a feeling of elation and joy for me!  You also get the benefits of moving your body if you are out on a walk.  Last year when I was in North Carolina, I woke up early just about every day and went for a walk or run on the beach.  I listened to the waves crash and watched crabs move around on the sand and then drop down into their little holes.  It’s just amazing what you can see and find in nature and the amount of gratitude, joy and peace that comes with it is a huge bonus!!  I would suggest that while you are outside on a walk, go without music or podcasts or other distractions.  Just allow your brain to flow and to observe.  It is so unusual nowadays for us to be without multiple distractions so this quiet time allows thoughts to come and go that might not otherwise surface because you are paying more attention to words flowing through your headphones.  It allows you to pay attention to what is going on around you. It is honestly very rare that we get these moments, don’t you agree?  A lot of times, my greatest thoughts come to me in the shower, simply because I don’t have any distractions!  Well, being on a walk outside is even better than that.  When we truly slow down and allow ourselves to be present in the moment we allow our brain to say “ahhh this is nice” and it allows the creative power of the brain to engage.  It allows the brain a safe place!  All day long it is looking out for you and trying to show you where to go next.  The absence of notifications and noise and whatever else just allows so much space.  It can be emotional, honestly.  So much can come up in these quiet times and it is wonderful and crucial for us to allow those things to flow out of us.

Why is it so important to allow ourselves quiet moments?  To allow ourselves to feel.  To allow our minds to rest.  To allow our brains to think.  To allow emotions to flow.  The list honestly could go on and on!  Here is the thing, most of us don’t have the time or make the time to do this daily.  My challenge to you is to find one day a week to fit in something on this list.  Maybe it's a walk in nature or 5 minutes of meditation or 30 minutes of journaling but do something.  I would also challenge you to try them all at some point!  The goal here is to allow you to have some space for your emotions, that spiritual side of ourselves that we rarely listen to.  Learning to tune in and listen to yourself can really open up doors for you down the road and it can protect you.  When you really know yourself and can tap into your intuition instead of ignoring it, you can find so much peace and joy and more!

I hope that one or maybe all of these will speak to you!  Enjoy <3

additional resources:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/12-benefits-of-meditation#12.-Accessible-anywhere

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/nurtured-nature#:~:text=Spending%20time%20in%20nature%20is,much%20time%20one%20spends%20outdoors.