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APNC 1.1 (WI 2018)
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14 Replies
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hello
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I would first like to introduce myself, since I was not on the video chat. My name is Joshua and I live in Indianapolis, IN. I was inspired to join EBI because I was missing something in my life and needed to find an outlet that made me feel whole again. I earned my Bachelor of Social Work in 2010, with the assumptions and aspirations that I would be “helping” people. However, since graduation, I have not become licensed, and have not held a job that required my degree. Fast forward to today, I am a pharmacy technician and I feel like I have betrayed my calling. I was online, searching for something to get me back to my purpose. As if by fate, an ad for EBI came up on Facebook. After reading what EBI has to offer, I knew I would find a home here. I am pursuing the full NCC certification. My goal with certification is to serve people struggling with grief and depression.
Since joining EBI, I have reaffirmed by commitment to go outside and rediscover all that nature has to offer. In considering this week’s writing, I am reminded of my daughter, who will be 2 in May. She will frequently stand, looking out the door, and say “Daddy, outside?” and grab her jacket. I see an instant change in her when I tell her “OK, lets get shoes”. She loves just being outside. And for her, it doesn’t have to be something complicated or a long trip. Just being able to be in the fresh air, feel the sun, and hear the birds is enough for her. I look forward to being able to plan long hikes with her, but for now, she is happy to just walk around the apartment complex. My point in sharing her story is this: Nature Connection is everywhere and available in every moment. You don’t have to travel far or plan an excursion into the backcountry to experience the healing benefits of nature.
My biggest challenge to maintaining the connection has been myself, to be quite honest. I have struggled with depression, anxiety, and self-doubt. Sometimes what I need the most –a walk outside in nature, feels like too much work. With that being said, I can report that since finding and committing to EBI, and working with one of the coaches, I am doing better.
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Hi, Joshua. So nice to meet you! I hope I am doing this right. I too have struggled with “darkness”–something that seems to immediately melt away when I am out in nature. The challenge is getting yourself out the door! I am so happy that you have your daughter to inspire you and that what has started as “Daddy, outside?” will likely turn into family traditions and countless adventures.
Something that I have found very healing is to create a community around me that appreciates the outdoors as much as I do. Although often I am the one dragging them out, there are times when they do the dragging and I never regret it! I frequently make it my role to lead our group on adventures–mapping the routes, planning the meals and travel logistics and even deciding on our wake up time! I find it extremely satisfying to create a comfortable passage into the wilderness for those who might otherwise choose to catch a movie or play video games, if left to their own devices. In connecting with nature together, we strengthen our connection to each other.
I look forward to meeting you Friday 🙂
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I was raised on Orcas Island in Washington State. When we used to take the “red-eye” boat to the “mainland” to run errands in the neighboring cities, I was always full of questions. Life was so dramatically different in the city! On one city adventure, I remember asking my mom “Mom, why do so many crazy people come to the city?” to which she replied “Crazy people don’t come to the city; the city makes them crazy.” While this could be considered a silly anecdote from childhood, there is a reason that I remember it to this day. Since a very young age, I have felt a profound connection to nature. I may find myself lonely or anxious in an urban setting, but completely whole sitting on a rock alone in the middle of the woods, or running one of the many beautiful trails of the Pacific Northwest.
The natural world and its cycles serve as a grounding force, or point of reference for me. To me, being nature-connected is to carry with you—in all environments—an awareness of our connectedness with every living creature. It is the ability to be humble, to observe and enjoy the living things around us—whether it be moss pushing up through cracks in the sidewalk, or a grand redwood forest—and to recognize the impact of our actions as they ripple through all living things around us.
Being connected with nature is important to me because it allows me to seek out the calm and clarity that can be easily challenged by the demands of a fast-paced work environment, the chaos of the urban setting and the stresses of being over-connected via devices and social media. Reconnecting with nature is like pressing the reset button. Maintaining this connection throughout the workday is a challenge for me in the current industry in which I work. Where the speed of your work, whether you are dedicated enough to skip breaks and how late you stay in the office are all contributors to status, it is a delicate dance to take time to pause while still advancing professionally. It is a work in progress and I look forward to gathering tools and methods for maintaining the connection I feel while physically in nature in the competitive urban professional environment.
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I agree with your city anecdote. We forget about the connection that we have with all living things when we are in a city. At least for the most part. It is always so interesting when you are out on a trail and you can strike up a conversation with someone very easily. However, you try to do that with someone in the city and they might ignore you and keep walking. We have become so disconnected that sometimes we do not see another person in front of us. We pull out our phones to not have to interact with anyone else. I too like nature because of its calming effects and ability to see the connections more clearly than the fast-paced settings of a non-stop city.
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Thank you so much for your kind words, Lyria! I am lucky to have a child who is already interested in being outdoors. She is certainly one of my inspirations for choosing to pursue EBI.
In reading your description of the crazy people of the city, I am reminded of the semester my wife spent in Washington DC. Whenever I would go to visit her, I too was met with the feeling that the city has a way of changing you, and not for the better. The city was loud and busy. You need the calm and grounding effects of being in nature. I am also reminded of the opposite effect. Whenever I am out hiking, I’ll get the friendly wave, or head nod from other hikers. Nature facilitated that human connection, one that wasn’t found in the city.
As it compares to your hectic professional life, I wonder if you are able to keep any plants in your office, or have the opportunity to listen to any nature soundtracks while working, to help maintain that connection?
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I grew up in a small town in Idaho, and always thought about moving out and going to see bigger and better things. After I obtained a Bachelor of Science in Psychology I packed up and moved to New York City two days after graduation. Once there I realized how disconnected I felt from everything in my life. I became a flight attendant and continued my journey looking for connection traveling from city to city; country to country. It wasn’t until I picked up yoga, meditation, and a rekindled love for nature that I started to feel the lost connection. I would just go sit somewhere in the woods, or at a beach and forget about my problems. I felt the wholeness of being present and the wisdom of what each moment presented to me.
Nature-Connection since then has been about connecting to everything in the moment I am in. The presence of being in nature, and having it provide you with a feeling of connection. The connection to your deeper self, to the community as well other living things, and to nature itself. It was the connection to everyone, and everything. It is also having the gratitude of being in the beauty that you are in. I also have started to realize that without nature, there is no me. It provides the food we eat, the air we breath, and the water we drink. Nature gives life to all living things. We are apart of nature, and by taking care of it we are taking care of our self.
The hardest part about keeping that connection comes from being around things that cause us to forget the connection, and instead focus on the separation. We have destroyed so much of nature for things; from resources to land to the oceans. We push the narrative of stripping down the planet for all the resources on it, and don’t think about how this might affect us. We are constantly caught in a narrative of an us vs them mentality. Whether it is political affiliation, financial inequality, or any number of other separation ideals. Nature helps me realize that everything is connected to everything else, and that means I am always trying to be aware of how I am affecting the world that I am in. -
Nature-Connection, I believe, can be reduced to “connection” as pointed out, in the lesson. I am a Wellness Coordinator (currently working in an aging-in-place community) and I try to include aspects of nature in all that I do, to keep people actively engaged in their wellness experiences. For instance, I use trees or seasonal cycles as focus for guided meditation sessions, yoga reflections, and earthly purpose, and as guidance in generating and using energy in Tai Chi. I help invite nature indoors, by maintaining an environment rich in plantlife, visits by domestic animals and aviaries, and “sunlight cleansing” opportunities when days offer up sunshine through windows (for my residents in the care center setting).
Personally, I am fortunate to be able to walk to and from work when the weather is permittable, and I enjoy absorbing nature, all along the way. I look forward to weekends when I can take longer walks, outside, and engage in interactions with domestic animals and also observe the activities of the birds, squirrels, and deer and plants that surround our neighborhood. My most emotionally- powerful moment, this year, seemed to be while walking, in the early morning, and watching the lunar eclipse. I don’t believe I can ever dis-connect, at this point in my life, from Nature awareness, as it has always been a part of my life, in the good times, and the not-so-good times. I know that a walk outside, a joyful feeling of hearing the birds sing in the morning, and watching the gentle and peaceful fall of snow, can never be replaced by any device.
I am fortunate to be able to bring what I love to my work, but I am not certain that outcomes for what I do are as measurable (black and white) as they need to be, for the respect of my therapy peers, nor my fitness peers. I am not sure that I can stay true to my “calling” of helping others, and also remaining true to myself, as a connected individual. Recently, I have been considering a major shift in career, back to coaching, and leaning more toward artistic experiences for my clients, whether it be journalling, drawing, painting or body-movement, that is influenced by nature experiences and individual interpretation. I am still working out details on this, but NC coaching seems to be a route I need to include.
One of the things I found interesting about our Nature Awareness Exercises (assignment) was the concept of “wide angle vision”. Since I work a small portion of my day doing 1:1 visits with residents who have dementia in a care setting, one of the stages of the disease involves NOT being able to see outside a set view—not far beyond themselves. The idea of intently looking past myself, or directing others to do so (in a coaching experience) seems so important for overall mental health. Perhaps this type of thinking is what one of the students was speaking about, in the call: I believe it was called the “diminutive effect”. When I also think about how our society, as a whole, seems to be constantly tuning into a smaller-world base (cellphones, technology-based information, etc), it makes me really start to understand how the “shift” in our connections can create our own destiny. We have the choice to send our children out to play, or to go outside and breathe fresh air and observe nature (wide angle vision) or we can tune out all that is around us with earbuds, loud televisions, cellphones, and small-living. Either way, our minds respond, and it becomes our new reality, so that when something in nature shifts (the concentric rings), we really don’t know how to handle it (I’m thinking about natural disasters, here), and see it as something that happens TO us, instead of knowing it is happening to all, and how we react can create our own outcome. We need to redevelop the 6th sense, and stop ignoring its existence, I think, is what I’m “gathering” in my own thoughts about it all. Our minds need it, individually, and as a society/inhabitants on this planet.
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Hey everyone! My name is Lauren and I currently live in San Diego. I grew up in New England and always had the mountains, lakes and rivers surrounding me. I have a degree in Outdoor Leadership and Education, and worked for Outward Bound and some small non-profit wilderness therapy schools. Over the years, my life changed and I slowly started finding jobs in the restaurant industry in order to have a flexible schedule and make quick money. I’m currently a bar manager, and have been struggling with feeling like I’m not doing much for people in a ‘positive’ way, (nor myself). Finding EBI online was incredibly exciting! I couldn’t believe that this program existed because Nature Connected Life Coaching is exactly what I feel I was meant to do.
Nature Connection to me, is that feeling I get, when I take some time out of my hectic schedule and busy city life, to slow down, breathe, reflect on my life, and calm my mind. There is this intense energy I feel when I get out to go for a hike or go for an early morning surf session (where I mostly sit on my board and feel the waves roll in and watch the dolphins swim by). This past October I took a solo trip to Oregon, where I hiked and camped all over the state. It was something I had wanted to do for years, and it was the best thing I have done for myself in a long time. Not only did I see beautiful scenery the entire time, but I felt like I was able to reset my whole life. I knew that I had to make some changes and get myself out of this monotonous rut that I have found myself in. The healing for myself that I took away from that trip was much needed. I really want to guide people to see and feel what I did, while immersed in nature, even if it’s for a short time.
Something that I struggle with in maintaining this nature connection, is allotting time for myself. It’s very easy for me to get wrapped up in the craziness of daily life and commitments to others, when really I need and can, make time for myself.
I am incredibly excited to meet all of you and share our knowledge and experiences! I think it’s very interesting to hear about your backgrounds and ways you plan to use this training/certification in the future. I can’t make the class tonight, but look forward to the next one.-
Hi, Lauren. So nice to meet you! You so accurately articulated what inspired me to get involved with EBI. When I am in nature, or observing what nature sneaks through the cracks in the city, I am in a state of absolute bliss and clarity. I was lucky to have been raised on an island with nature all around. This taught me a deep appreciation, which I think many lack or have lost. The lessons we learn while observing nature and natural process are unique tools that can be applied to any industry. I find it difficult to “package” this passion of mine, so that the value can be seen by others in various professions–not just fellow hiker and trail-runner friends! What is exciting is that there is ever-growing academic work that supports the argument that nature connection improves immune function and general health. I just started reading Your Brain on Nature, which I highly recommend.
See you next month!
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Lauren: it sounds like you and I were sort of in the same boat, taking jobs that provide, but don’t fulfill. Like you, I found EBI at just the right time in my life. It has been exciting discovering all of the new opportunities my life could take now that I have found a new path.
Carrie: Wild Rejuvenation sounds really interesting! Good luck with the development of the business. Where in Indiana are you originally from?
In reading everyone’s responses on here, I think it is really telling how we have come from different professions, different states, different life experiences, and are of different ages, yet we have all felt the pull of nature calling us to let go and be outside. It is truly what connects us all.
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Hi, my name is Carrie Seitz and I live in Hailey, ID. My connection to nature has been a driving force in my life. As a child growing up in Indiana, I spent summers in cut off tough skin jeans and tank tops with a swiss army knife in my pocket running through the woods, climbing trees, and catching frogs. My tomboy-nature enabled me to connect as a child through osmosis. The more time I spent outdoors, the more freedom I experienced. It is this feeling that I have continued to seek my entire adult life.
When I moved out west(Colorado) after college, I felt like I had finally come home. These were my people, my land! I never looked back at the cornfields and basketball courts and constricting life views.
Fast forward to the present. I turn 50 in 3 months and have spent most of my adult life working in the out of doors or for a cause connected to the preservation of nature. But I have never facilitated deeper work experiences in nature. At least not directly labeled as such. Most of my work has been about technical skills or naturalist “facts”.
I am currently involved in a Ayurvedic health coaching program. Ayurveda is an ancient medical system in India that uses nature’s rhythms as a guide for optimal health.
My vision is to merge my 2 areas of interest: Ayurveda and Nature Connected Coaching and start my own business called Wild Rejuvenation. I see this as essential to my life long process of creating balance in my life while helping others access their true nature. It feels like a calling.
My challenge will be balancing freedom and responsibility while raising my son in this high tech society that is tempting like candy to a 13 year old brain. -
Hello, my name is Christy and I live in Portland, Oregon. I have always lived in Oregon and nature has been a place of retreat, renewal and adventure for me for as long as I can remember. In particular, mountains, rivers, lakes, stars and trees draw my attention and bring comfort and reflection. Professionally I am an organizational development and learning consultant and executive coach. I’m here in this course as a way of adding nature-based knowledge and awareness to my practice, as well as to learn more about those who are using nature-based approaches in coaching. I am currently working on a PhD with inquiry into applying nature based exercises in executive coaching. As knowledge and tools grow in my repertoire, I hope also to personally reflect and discover ways in which I can deepen my sense of connection.
In module one, key take-aways have been:
• “Nature-based” practices are about expansion of awareness and the deepening dimensions of connection–with self, others, the environment.
• One way in which nature can be healing and wisdom-building is that the external landscape seems to offer a metaphorical mapping of our internal landscapes.
• Throughout the materials of this module there is also the idea that nature is sentient and worthy of respect, awe and conscientious engagement.
Some of the challenges I face in maintaining my connection with nature are the perceived demands of work, which typically takes place in synthetic environments with lots of technology. Commuting, meetings, email, smart phones, ready-made food and the insulating structures of modern architecture all pull attention to more confined, restrictive places. Where I live the wetter, darker, cooler seasons mean I have tended to drive more often than ride my bike to work these past six months, further limiting the moments and glimpses I have of nature interactivity. I appreciate that in some of the reading a few ways to bring nature connection into domestic realms were shared:
• Gardening
• Meditations
• Movement practices
I have been doing more of these practices, as well as tuning my Pandora stream to music that weaves in nature sounds like bird song, waves, rain, and crackling fire.
I look forward to this journey and to learning from all of you.
Cheers,
Christy -
Hi everyone,
I’m not sure if anyone will read this still as the current course is already at the 2nd lesson of the 2nd module but I’m catching up and would like to go through all the steps to complete the course.My name is Katrien and I’m from Belgium, for more than five years now living on a farm in Spain with my partner and her children. I’m 33 and work in many fields: agriculture, carpentry, retreat and vision quest guidance, nature connection camps for kids, sweatlodges and I started as a soundhealer and dj recently. Our farm is a center where many people come to connect with nature, themselves and others. We’ve organized workshops, retreats, festivals, local exchange markets, community events etc. My partner does (ayurvedic) coaching, yoga, meditation and massages. Very amazing quiet place on the countryside.
But ! even when almost all my work is somehow related to nature and a lot of it I do outdoors, my big challenge is to take time for myself to just go off and be in nature without doing. There’s an amazing mountain range just at 20 minutes drive from our land yet I find myself yearning to go there more often than I do.
For me nature connection, is to Be. To become one, to dissolve the borders between ‘me’ and ‘nature’. Where clarity arises, inspiration flows, joy or bliss or gratitude naturally arise, meeting animals, trees, streams and communicating with them.
Since I was a kid I was attracted magnetically to nature, trees, plants, animals and could find solace from the crazy human world which for long I didn’t understand. Then I studied psychology and slowly started understanding a little more, but most I learned travelling. After my studies I went to Sardinia, an island next to Italy, where I worked with a friend picking grapes. After the harvest I sticked around a bit longer and had no real thing to do, so I went everyday from morning to dawn into the mountains on my own. This was where I discovered the healing and guiding powers of nature very clearly and also knew this was what I wanted to do in my life:: create spaces for other people to experience this !!!! It was amazing, like a vision that became so clear. All the things I saw then, I’m doing now.
Another big challenge for me is develop my skills in the field because I’m in so many fields and my attention is divided. I know I have plenty of capacities but feel I really need to broaden my skills and experience in the coaching of people individually and in groups. This is why I decided to follow the course and I’m very happy to read all of your stories, and be inspired by them.
If anyone feels like contacting me personally, feel welcome, I’d love to share and connect.