Nature has the power to nourish and heal, and in difficult times we need the sanctuary of the outdoors more than ever before. Wigwam® Holidays launched At Home, Outdoors – a web video series to help us reconnect with our roots in nature. Each episode tells an ordinary story showcasing an extraordinary reconnection with nature.
The first episode, Nature Therapy, features Carmen Rendell, who used walking in nature to escape her corporate life, regain her freedom of choice, and find her home in the outdoors.
Addicted to the grind
It can be so easy to throw ourselves into our work and become a bit of a workaholic instead of addressing the emotional and psychological issues that we are dealing with – consistently ignoring these can lead us on a slippery slope to anxiety and depression.
Sometimes we need to pull the rope cord, eject from our current lifestyle, and embark on a soul-searching quest. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to learn to trust life and yourself and find that state of inner peace.
However, the more honest we can be with ourselves about what we want, the more loving and peaceful we become, and we can find true integrity and balance in our lives.
Disconnected from the outside
Carmen’s path over the last 20 years has taken her from a corporate environment to working individually with people as a walking therapist in Richmond Park, London.
During her business career, she always felt like a square peg in a round hole and knew there was something else for her, but just didn’t know how to get there or what it was.
“I’d be wearing my heels and stumble on into this office space, and it just felt very unnatural and very fake. I would put on a different persona almost as soon as I stepped into that corporate space. It was a role I played, it didn’t feel like the real me.
My sense is that we’re part of nature and that actually we should be much more connected with nature than going into these sterile environments that disconnect us from the outside.”
Nature as therapy
Carmen now helps people work through life’s struggles and big questions in the best office there is – the great outdoors. As a child, Carmen was really quiet and happy in nature. Even as a baby, her mum would put her under the tree and leave her there for hours, and she would just be sleeping away. So there was obviously something there, and it was a case of embarking on that journey to find her way back to that Carmen.
“Walking is always an amazing reminder for me that I have freedom of choice.”
Walking can be used as a kind of outdoor meditation; it allows us the opportunity to drop into a much quieter space, escape the busyness in our heads, and improve our creativity and overall wellbeing, both mentally and physically. It can be as little as 10 minutes or 2 hours – it’s just a beautiful way to return to our natural self.
How do we relate to each other? How do we relate to nature? How do we relate to our friends, families, and most importantly, how do we relate to ourselves?
Compassion for our imperfections
Actively seek compassion for yourself with all of your imperfections. You are imperfectly perfect.
Nature can be one of our best inspirations; we are nature and are not separate from nature. Just looking around at the trees, you can’t find one single tree that’s alike. They’re all gnarly and twisted, and some are straight, and some are bendy, but they are all beautiful.
Gratitude and appreciation are an incredible tonic for lifting our spirits and for changing focus. When we’re in a state of fear, we get tunnel vision and stop seeing all the possibilities that are around us.
If you feel completely hopeless, get out into nature and sit in the quiet. Turn the TV off, and turn the media off. We are able to move beyond anxiety and depression if we’re able to come back to the peace and calmness within us.
The more we understand why we are the way we are, then the more at peace we can be, the more joyful we can be, the better relationships we can have with others, and the better relationship we can have with ourselves. Find nourishing, kind and compassionate people and find that kindness and compassion for yourself.
Finding a flow
Think about when you’re driving your car; you’ve got your accelerator, your clutch and your brake, and it’s a very fine adjustment required to change course. Consider the shower – hot and cold water; the right amount of both will reach that ideal temperature.
There is a fine balance between comfort and effort in order to find flow. Flow is to have that level of tension where you want something, there is desire, and you feel comfortable enough to navigate it.
You have to take the first step, and then the next step is shown to you and so on and so forth – the steps unfold. Sometimes we can’t even see a light at the end of that tunnel. We just have to trust that we’ve just got to keep moving forward – it’s just going from one foot to the next – and trusting that the flow will come.
Vulnerability as strength
A lot of the time in our society, it feels like we are not allowed to be sensitive. We have to act strong and show a stiff upper lip. When you realize that vulnerability is strength, you begin to appreciate it.
Vulnerability is honesty, and honesty takes bravery. So it actually takes a lot more strength and courage to be vulnerable than it does to be big and strong and angry and tough on the outside when actually inside perhaps you don’t feel like that at all.
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