Hey there,
Welcome to Authentic Living and thank you for joining me here in the woods.
I don't know about you,
But some days you just wake up with your nerves jangling and you just don't know what to do.
And you try to calm yourself down.
You try to think your way through things.
You try to calm your emotions and things like that.
And so on days like that,
I find that one of the only things that actually really helps and I'm really blessed with where I live is to remind myself that I am part of nature.
Because I've forgotten that I'm part of nature and I'm caught up in all sorts of machine-like ways of doing things.
And so,
You know,
We have this whole thing about reconnecting with nature or trying to get out in nature more,
But actually we forget that you can't connect with what you already are because you are that.
So we are nature.
Coming out into the forest and the river here,
I'm just gonna walk slowly.
Feel my feet against the floor,
Allow my system just to settle and I thought you might like to join me and see some of the sights of the forest and maybe we can have a bit of a chat as we go.
So I guess first things first.
When uh We arrive in nature and we arrive in this part of ourself.
That we have a good hat,
Of course,
That we have a jacket that suits us,
That we are a bit natty,
Because why not?
But actually the first thing I was saying to myself as I was walking along is I don't know about you,
But I often feel this kind of pushing pressure inside me.
I've got things to do,
Like I've got to make this video or I've got this work to do or I need to check these mails or whatever.
One of the beautiful things about here is that there's no phone reception whatsoever,
Which is absolutely fantastic.
So that's always an advantage.
But we can kind of drop back out of that feeling.
So the first thing we actually have to notice,
Is that feeling in ourselves.
And I want to invite you to notice that you can't kind of just pull back from it.
You have to allow Whatever awareness is in you at the moment,
And even that can be at the point of pain or the point of that sort of tension.
And then I noticed,
Or we noticed that that kind of tightness that gripping in us that almost like inner fist and Instead of trying to change it,
You allow your awareness just to meet it.
And feeling into my feet as I'm standing here talking to you.
I'm feeling the clothes against my skin.
And i feel that tension and i don't try to change it what i'm doing is i'm allowing my awareness to meet it and allowing then breath just to lengthen And just to drop out of that drama,
That drama that's writhing in the nerves in my brain,
That's kind of pushing into my emotional system,
That's resonating into the body.
And so feeling the body,
Feeling the feet against the floor,
Allowing awareness to see the mind and the feelings,
But then for awareness to illuminate that kind of space and almost like a kind of gentle touch.
You to remember your heart.
I'm kind of talking to myself here as I talk to you,
Of course,
As well.
Just remember the heart and allow your heart in this moment and allow your heart to be with nature.
Even if you're in a city and you've got like a tiny patch of grass,
You know,
Or just some blue sky through two skyscrapers,
Just let yourself be where you are and be with the nature.
And then I'm not trying to hold on to that in any way.
Just two people being in nature.
Being of nature.
Being of our hearts,
Being of our bodies.
And surrounded by trees and the life of the woods.
Just two people.
Just looking at each other.
And we come into being slowly.
Just allow that just to be a continuing process.
And the mind might flip out.
Emotions might take a little while.
And that's why it's good just to keep on walking for a bit.
So let's just carry on walking and then we'll stop again.
You've just got to,
Haven't you?
You know we've got to cross the stepping stones Now,
I'm just thinking to myself,
Really,
We should do a retreat in here,
You know.
And then I remember,
Actually,
Ages ago,
That I did a day retreat in here with a friend doing some shinrin-yoku,
Walking in the forest,
You know,
As a therapy and some meditation stuff and a bit of journaling and things.
And actually,
That shinrin-yoku vibe,
You know,
Of just letting nature kind of soak into you.
Their vibrations and their smells and there's the sound of the river and everything which is just You just begin to kind of,
You know,
Over an hour or so begin to kind of find your way back in.
But spending a whole day in here would just be,
You know,
Really something else,
Wouldn't it,
You know?
I have brought my emergency banana because it's almost banana time and I've got some peppermint tea so I need to do that.
I think a cup of tea while we have a little chat.
So,
Feeling your feet against the floor and being in your heart.
And just allowing your body to be here.
And we don't need to think of it as meditation.
There we go.
We don't need to think of it as doing something special or therapy or anything like that.
It's just we are natural.
And so being with what is natural.
Is just so important.
One thing that always begins to kind of dawn on me.
When I'm in the forest.
Is that I kind of,
You know,
Very often as you move through life,
We look at things through the names we've learnt them by.
We look at ourselves as if we're our names,
Which we are,
Of course.
But then it's very easy to kind of reduce ourselves down and reduce the world down to just thinking that if we know the name of something or a little descriptor of a thing,
Then we know what that thing is.
And,
You know,
As I sit with the trees.
If I kind of,
You know,
I always say,
What tree is this?
I might say this is an oak or a sycamore or a birch.
There's a lot of birch trees,
There's a lot of oak trees in here.
But actually,
If I ask,
Who is this?
Because all of this is life.
I'm life.
You're life.
The river is alive in a way.
The tree is definitely a life form.
And we can use the word tree,
Of course.
We're not going to kind of,
You know,
Lobotomize ourselves and pretend we don't know that we use the word tree.
But we allow our awareness to be with the tree.
And then suddenly I'm seeing the moss on the tree,
The bark of the tree.
I'm aware of the roots in the ground.
And I'm aware of the life moving through the tree,
But also the life moving through myself.
And then really it's life and life together,
You know.
So this is,
In a way,
Satsang.
Satsang with nature.
Satsang as nature.
Now I find myself just listening to the river.
And it can allow the sound of the river kind of be met in my consciousness so normally of course when we're out and about in the world just like we do with the naming of parts the naming of things the naming of ourselves the naming of each other this is good and this is bad and this is this and this is that You know,
If we come from a shallower mind,
We'll either not notice the river at all,
Or we might find it annoying.
Or we might think that we're supposed to say it's beautiful.
So we say this river is beautiful.
This tree is beautiful.
Isn't it beautiful here?
But we're always commenting.
But if we come back to that sense of naturalness in ourselves and allow our heart.
.
.
Then in a way,
The commenting seems to die away a bit.
And the sound of the birds,
The sound of the river,
Flows kind of directly into consciousness.
There's a little bird having a little sing along with us there.
And so life and life,
Consciousness and consciousness,
Being and being.
And the words kind of want to drop away somebody walking their dog here and even words like beautiful sort of fade away and instead we got Isness.
I like the word isness.
It's got.
.
.
It feels like it shouldn't work as a word.
And yet.
.
.
It's like the profundity of the moment,
You know?
Some would call it presence and some would call it.
.
.
Illumination,
Some would call it soul.
The words don't matter.
But it's good to rock and roll your soul,
Baby.
With hisness with true self,
With being with beings.
And of course trees are far easier than people.
In this world right now you know So yeah.
I've got the urge to hug some trees coming up as well because I am an old tree hugger.
And,
You know,
Never let.
.
.
The thoughts of what somebody else might think of you.
What you think others might think of you.
Never let that stop you hugging a tree.
Because.
.
.
The ground of your body and the aliveness of a tree and It's so steadying for the nervous system.
But of course,
That's not just why we're here.
We're here because we are here.
Well,
Thank you for sitting with me,
Walking with me,
Looking at the river with me.
Yeah,
Bless you.
Thank you so much.
Lots of love.
Go well.
Have a beautiful day.
