Nature Meditation
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Introduction: The Meditation Paradox
The most stressed people often believe they're too busy to meditate. Sound familiar?
For 20 years, I tried to meditate indoors. Each attempt felt like wrestling with my own mind. I thought I needed superhuman willpower to force my thoughts into submission.
Everything changed when I discovered meditation's ancient secret: it was never meant to happen indoors.
Buddha found enlightenment under a tree. The earliest meditation texts describe practitioners sitting beneath trees. This wasn't coincidence—it was wisdom our modern world has forgotten.
When we meditate in nature, we're not just practicing a technique. We're returning to what our genetic blueprint is designed for. The forest is completely accepting of you as you are. There's nothing to live up to, no performance required.
Your healing journey begins with a single step outside.
Breaking the Meditation Catch-22
The catch-22 of meditation is that those who can benefit from meditating the most often have the busiest minds, and it's their busy minds that create a barrier to meditating.
One way to short-circuit this barrier is through nature meditation.
Because we've evolved to live in nature, when we are in a natural environment, our brain automatically shifts its focus to that environment. It does this to keep us safe, but for us, it feels like an open connection with the natural environment.
For example, when we're in the forest, it's almost as if we can feel the forest.
I first tried out meditation in 1988 but it was only in 1bout 2010 that I learned I could meditate when I was alone in nature.
The Nature Solution
Nature offers a unique pathway through this barrier. When life becomes overwhelming, artificial environments can feel suffocating. But many of us already realise that stepping outside changes everything. The simple act of being in nature can shift our mental state before we even begin meditating.
Your stressed mind isn't broken—it just needs the right environment to heal.
Meditation's Ancient Roots in Nature
Meditation has always been an outdoor practice. The Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras, both written 2,400 years ago, describe meditators seated beneath trees. Buddha apparently found enlightenment after meditating in the roots of the Bodhi tree.
This wasn't a coincidence—it was wisdom. Ancient practitioners understood something we seem to have forgotten: Meditation is enhanced in a natural environment.
We've moved meditation indoors for convenience, and in doing so, we are missing something transformative. The experience of meditating in nature is fundamentally different from indoor practice. It's expansive rather than contained, connected rather than isolated.
Personally, meditating in nature enables me to have both deep and insightful meditations, as well as highly connective meditations when I open my awareness to the environment.
There is a sense of basking in nature. We can be surrounded by trees and in a sound bath of birdsong. Nature meditation offers a healing and nurturing experience.
Your ancestors knew what your body still remembers—that healing happens best in natural settings.
The Science of Panoramic Vision
Looking into the distance reduces stress. Scientific studies by Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist specialising in vision, have proven that this simple act calms the nervous system.
When you look at horizons, clouds, or distant hills, you're sending a safety signal to your brain. In evolutionary terms, being able to see into the distance means you're in open country and not in immediate danger.
Ever wonder why penthouses cost more? Or why river of sea views command premium prices? Seeing into the distance is our instinctive recognition of the calming power of a panoramic view. We will pay more for what our nervous system craves.
Try It Out!
Next time you feel stressed, step outside and look into the distance. View the horizon if you can, or a distant treeline or rooftops. Notice how your breathing changes and your body responds. This is a nurturing practice.
Happy Cloud Watching!
The Difference Between Walking and Meditating
Walking in nature feels good, but it's not the same as nature meditation. Without intentional practice, your mind can spend an entire walk ruminating about problems, replaying conversations, or planning tomorrow's tasks.
Meditation is mental training. The goal isn't just to feel better temporarily—it's to develop skills that transform how you relate to your thoughts and emotions.
The primary skill is the skill of regaining your focus. Gentle repetition is how we learn everything, and it is how we train the mind to regain our focus.
This is known as Focused Attention Meditation.
Nature Meditation: Making the Shift
Whether you're walking or sitting in nature, notice your breath to bring your attention to the present moment. Then notice the breeze, the sounds, the smells, and the feeling of your body, whether it's sunshine or coolness. When your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to the breath and your immersion in the experience of the present moment.
If you are walking, you can focus on the sensation of your feet on the ground, open your awareness to the environment, or focus on the breath. You can also move between all these experiences.
As you do this, the experience of nature, whether it is a park, gardens, or somewhere away from the modern world, will help you recover your focus from the inner narrative or mental movies.
The forest doesn't care about your to-do list. To step into nature is to step into presence.
Nature's Healing Pattern
When we meditate in nature, a healing pattern emerges. I experience this as a three-step journey of acknowledging, accepting, and releasing.
Acknowledge:
Name what you're feeling. Fear, anxiety, grief, anger—whatever is present gets a label. This isn't about judgment; it's about recognition.
Accept:
Acceptance isn't some mental hoop-jumping where you brainwash yourself into believing it's okay to feel bad. Acceptance is allowing yourself to feel however you feel in the present moment. When we do this in nature, we allow nature into our experience through the sense of being in nature. This process helps us to gently release whatever emotional baggage we're carrying.
Important:
Treat this step with care. There are no Silver Bullets for difficult emotions. And remember that the end result of your nature meditation should always be that you feel either neutral or better. And if it doesn't, either come back to it at a better time or find another practice.
Release:
When we stop avoiding our emotions, they naturally begin to move through us. Nature absorbs our stress, creating space for healing.
Nature Meditation: Why Nature Helps
The forest is completely accepting of you just as you are. There's nothing to live up to, no performance required. This unconditional acceptance creates the safety we need to heal.
Hunters in a Farmer's World: Your Genetic Blueprint for Nature Connection
Despite living in cities and modern environments, you have evolved to live in small, deeply connected groups in nature. Your brain, nervous system, and sensory apparatus are finely tuned instruments built for a natural environment - what we refer to as a 'wilderness'.
When you meditate in nature, you're not just practising a technique—you're returning to your natural habitat. Your body remembers this connection even when your mind has forgotten.
Nature Meditation: The Healing Cycle
My healing journey created a powerful cycle: nature helped me process my emotions, which broke down barriers between myself and the natural world, deepening my connection to others and accelerating my healing.
I've watched this pattern repeat with many people. As healing unfolds, isolation transforms into connection. People join groups, form relationships, and connect with others.
Your capacity for connection is not lost—it's just waiting to be rediscovered.
Take Action Now: Disconnect to Reconnect
Switch off your devices and go out to sit in a park, a garden, or go for a walk and let the natural environment in. Allow yourself to feel it. We are privileged in the UK to have the most parklike, orderly and accessible countryside in the world. We can make a lot more of it.
Experiencing nature as a feeling is a way to safely reconnect with our feelings, our emotions and our bodies. The modern world disconnects us. It creates emotions that it feeds us as a constant stream to gain and capture our attention.
🌳🚶♀️✈️
It's time for Aeroplane mode and a walk in the park!
Meditating Beneath a Tree
Find a tree that draws you. There is a kind of Feng Shui of trees where some trees just seem more welcoming and safe. You can wander until you find the right tree.
The Practice:
Sit with your back against the tree. Feel its stability supporting you. Notice the life around you—birds, insects, rustling leaves. Your tree has weathered countless storms and seasons. Often, the moss forms what is basically a seat between the roots. Some trees are made for meditating beneath.
As thoughts and emotions arise, allow the tree to absorb them. Remember how connected we are to trees. The tree breaths in what we breathe out, and we breathe out what the trees breathe in. We are deeply connected. You are sharing your energy with trees simply by breathing. When you meditate beneath one, that connection grows; allow it into your experience.
Nature meditation beneath a tree can be transformational. Don't underestimate it.
Let me know how your tree and nature meditation goes and connect on social media using the links below.
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