The Power of Nature

I grew up on a small farm, which allowed me to be outdoors a lot. A relationship with nature was just an ordinary part of my life. And an empowering one at that. One of my greatest moments in the Spring was when we would first begin to work the fields, opening up the earth. The smell of freshly opened Earth to this day still fills me with a strong feeling of connection with nature.

At times I wonder how the "artificial" environments we create affect our overall health and sense of connection with our most basic home - the Earth and the nature that it is. Concrete, asphalt, artificial foods, and so on create - in a sense - a barrier between us and nature.

I read just this morning of the healing power of nature. Stories of people who have overcome depression, anxiety, and other ailments simply by going out and being in nature for a period of time. We often forget that we are an expression of nature. Our bodies come from the earth, and I know that there has to be an impact when create barriers between ourselves and nature.

One of the best ways to improve our health and well-being is to be among nature more often. To take a walk in a park, to have lunch outdoors when possible, to go camping, to hike in the mountains, to swim in a lake, to take a leisurely walk through the woods mindful of all that is around you, to gaze at the stars and contemplate your existense.

I invite you back into nature. To see it again with fresh eyes. We are a part of nature. It nurtures us as we nurture it. How is your relationship with nature? How would it change your life if you were to improve that relationship?

Thanks for stopping by!

Embracing ALL of Life

It seems to be quite common these days. People who advocate the rejection of the negative and the total support of the positive. In fact, I read some interesting material this weekend on the web about a minister of one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America today. His critics were criticizing him for being too positive. For watering down Christianity by focusing only on the positive aspects of life and of God.

This got me thinking about how easy it is to reject the negative aspects of life. To attempt to push them aside. Avoid them. Run from them. Call them evil, and attempt to "act" our way out of them.

And yet, in my experience, that rejection of the negative is one of our greatest problems - both personally and collectively. In other words, when we reject or rebel against negative emotions, negative experiences, negative people, or negative events in the world, we are actually rejecting a huge part of our lives. We are rejecting the very emotions, people, and situations, that are there to teach us. That challenge us. That invite us to wake up to more of our greatness. And that invite us to new levels of growth.

Putting aside the fact that we wouldn't know the positive, the joyful, the pleasurable without its opposite, it is important for us to recognize the tremendous value of the unpleasant aspects of life. We suffer and stress through those moments primarily because we resist them. We don't want anything to do with them. And yet, they are the gateways to a greater experience. To more profound growth. To a larger experience of life.

When we accept both the "positive" and "negative" aspects of life, we can then embrace ALL of life. Then, life stops being one battle after another, and becomes one moment of instruction and learning after another. I have yet to experience a pain - rather physical, mental, emtional, or spiritual - that is not attempting to communicate something profound to me. When I reject it - call it bad or evil - I reject the message that it has for me. In a sense, I empower it to continue by resisting it.

So where am I headed with all of this? Embrace life. All of it. It is not an enemy. We learn our greatest lessons in life through the challenging moments. And when we accept them, embrace them, and listen to them, we will learn even more.

I challenge you today, this moment, to begin to embrace all of life. Allow Life to flow through you more naturally. See the unpleasant and painful aspects of life not as something bad, but as a way that Life communicates with you. See it as Life's way of loving you, of waking you up, and inviting you into a greater expression of the fullness of who you are.