And it makes me feel good
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I am sure you will enjoy some of my following online treasures as well:
Welcome. Some tiny beads of inspiration and reflections about life.(By Hans Van Rostenberghe)******** Please visit the archive (on right of page) or browse per topic according to label (under archive)
And it makes me feel good
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I am sure you will enjoy some of my following online treasures as well:
In Japan, in the 1980s, Japanese doctors saw a lot of depression and high stress levels in their patients. They wondered if they get their patients back to nature, whether that would be helpful and they did research on the topic. Taking a "forest bath" was not only beneficial to the mental health of the patient but also physically the patients experienced lots of benefits in terms of blood pressure, heart rate and even blood sugar levels.
Forest bathing is not a hike for physical fitness or exploring the woods, it is merely spending time in nature, in the forest (or the park) and get your senses (at least 4 of them) to experience the calmness and serenity of nature. For sure visually is the easiest. Just taking the time to observe the beauty of a tree, the wonderful crown with the plentiful adorable leaves, the stem and the texture of the bark and the amazing roots. But then we can close our eyes and try to hear the sounds, the sounds from far away but also the sounds of the tree (the wind in the leaves, the birds in the crown,...) and feel the bark of the tree. Let the energy flow. Feel the air on our cheeks, in our hair. Taking a deep breath and feeling the air in our nose in our throat and in our chest. Taking in the smells of the tree, the smell of the woods, ... If we happen to find a chestnut, we can even taste the forest.
I love walks in the forest, I love walks on the beach. even before I read about the research of forest baths, I knew that walks in nature have powerful healing properties, especially for our soul, but also for our body, mind and heart.
If you have not tried a forest bath, please make some time for a walk in nature without other objective than to take in the beauty of it all. Not for fitness, not for exploration, just to enjoy the great pleasure of spending pure time in nature.
Our life is often made up of dips and peaks.
External circumstances vary and they may be not completely under our own control. But they can get so bad that we end up in a deep dip. I think that all of us are susceptible to some degree of dips. I do not use the term depression here, which is uncontrollable sadness, sometimes due to an organic brain problem, while during our deepest dips we may feel quite depressed.
A very strong characteristic of "dips" is that we do not enjoy the things we used to enjoy during other periods in our life. Amazing sunrises or sunsets may make your soul feel afloat during normal days. When we are in a dip, we notice the beauty but the beauty has trouble getting in, into our heart, into our soul. Have you experienced something like that? Things we love to do in normal days and bring us easily in a state of flow, may lose a lot of their appeal and we may hardly feel like even start doing them. Generally our energy levels may be low.
It is not easy to get out of a dip. But I think a reasonable start is to write down our feelings and become fully aware that we are in a dip. When we do that we start to remember that we have not always been like this and we may start to explore the reason or reasons why we feel like that. We blame it on a lack of energy or mild ailments that have occurred, but these may be a consequence rather than a cause of our dip. Let us search for the real, real cause(s) and they are often external factors that happened, that are not fully under our control.
These things may be not reversible or they may be. They may be a necessary thing in our life so we can move on to a next stage a next big thing, another door to be opened. We may not be able to see how we will get out of the problem(s) but out we will get. I think it is important that we do not keep trying to find joy in the things that brought us joy before, because the frustration of not getting the same joy as before may bring us down more. I really feel that the best thing to do, is to make it quiet within. We need some alone-time, on the beach, in the woods and think silently what is the best approach to our condition at this point. If you have faith, prayer may be truly useful. Not the prayer we say without thinking, but a prayer where we truly ask for guidance from our Creator, or guidance from the universe.
We may not understand why the bad situation occurred, but a sincere wish, prayer and desire for strength and a deep reflection in nature on what is the best way to build up our strength may be really helpful
If you are in dip right now, please pray for strength and make some time to reflect in nature.
If you are at a peak, right now, please write down about your aspirations, your motivation, your dreams, because if we do, these writings may be a good guide for us during a dip as well.
No matter what, I wish you strength and here comes a small poem of hope:
It is dark, no moon, no light
Just darkness, a starless sky
The wind blows, the waves break
A single firefly passes by
Soon the firefly is gone
Leaving me in the darkest of nights
The tiny fly made me anticipate
A sunrise with the finest of lights
Aufie Zophy