A walk around Sale Fell
I’ve found a tree to sit under once again, with a beautiful view stretching out before me and the birds singing in the background. I find myself thinking about Nan Shepherd’s book, ‘The living mountain’. I just finished it for the second time. She seemed so carefree, as she talked about having had a dream as a child to climb the Cairngorms. As an adult she surpassed that dream because at first climbing was enjoyable for herself only, it engaged her senses fully and gave her a rush of excitement. But then as she got older, she really got to know the mountain itself and she came full circle in a way. In her last chapter she says very wisely: ‘It is a journey into Being; for as I penetrate more deeply into the mountain’s life, I penetrate also into my own.’ I very much relate to this in that through my own nature walks, I have come face to face with my authentic self, in a way that I have never known before.
The view from under my tree
As a child I always loved to hike. Whenever we went on family holidays we never went hiking enough for my liking. So it’s something I now need to do more of, if only to satisfy my inner child. I keep finding myself in a position where life takes over and I don’t feel in control. I should say I’ve allowed it to take over because the responsibility lies with me of course. I seem to have lost all trust in myself, I don’t believe I can make my own dreams happen so I try not to dream (or if I do dream, it’s very unrealistic). On the other hand, I have set things in motion so that if I work hard this year, I should reap the benefits and be able to get closer to my dream life. For me that really looks like slowing down, going on lots of walks, writing blog posts, working in conservation and privately as an aromatherapist and massage therapist. I very much love nature and the earth and want to learn how to take care of it, I always feel like I want to give something back to the earth. I also love helping others heal their nervous systems by connecting them to nature and their own bodies. To empower others to start healing themselves through self awareness, a connection to nature and a connection to their own bodies and their true selves really feels like a huge privilege.
I guess the process feels slow at times but I keep coming back to that it comes down to the day to day. The daily habits that slowly help change my thought processes and emotional state. An affirmation that came to me today was: ‘I have the ability within myself to create the life I want and dream of, and I trust myself to follow through.’
How am I getting on with these daily habits? Perhaps not as well as I would like. I’m sure in this blog I’ve talked about daily gratitude journalling, daily walks, doing a new thing every week, regular breathwork etc… I am finding myself quite consistently going for morning walks, journalling and doing breathwork guided sessions through Youtube. These things have stuck with me, even if not quite daily.
I know that to build inner trust I need to make daily promises to myself and hold myself to them. But I often avoid doing that for fear of it having the opposite effect when I don’t keep my promises. I have to start somewhere though, even if it’s maybe not one thing I hold myself to every day but rather, when I wake up in the morning I make myself a new promise for that day and work on keeping it.
Do you have anything you’re working on this year?
The view before I head into the woodland