YasGorji

While Living In A City…

“It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.” -David Attenborough

You may have heard about the positive effects that Nature-therapy or Ecotherapy have on us. These techniques or treatments use ‘nature’ to improve our mental or physical health.

Being in parks, forests and nature helps to calm our mind and soul and boost our emotional wellbeing.

But, How Not To Loose Connection With Nature While Having An Urban Life?

When we look back to the process of human evolution, we can see that, in the beginning, we all belonged to the nature, even when humans gathered and made tribes they were still in direct contact with the nature and nature played a big role in their life and health, this continued until the villages turned to cities, and the more the cities and the bigger the towns became, the less the nature we left behind. At some point of time we forgot that we humans have lived in nature, and with the expansion of human technologies, urban life became more and more popular and humans moved away from nature with the dream of success.

Now people have been used to the new era, where many people who live in a metropolitan area do not know nature as their grandparents knew and respected, like a ‘caring mother’ to their life, and they only know about the nature as much as they are told by their parents or school teachers, and when they grow up, they think the nature in only related to the animals near extinction, and the amazon jungles, and hear about news such as burning jungles during the summer and melting icebergs and air pollution during the winter time and usually in the news they will hear the importance of saving nature, from time to time because of their city life and their distance from the real nature.

How important is connecting with the real nature, in today’s life for us?

Nature Can Help Our Wellbeing!

Today, in many countries people have made the decision of thinking more about the importance of the nature in their life, using past experiences of the iron age, humans decided to return to the nature and use the help and support of the nature in establishing a healthier life.

And many countries have considered to take more care about nature as a universal awareness is growing more about this subject. For example In 2021, the state of Uttar Pradesh in India took part in an annual tree planting drive and planted 250 million saplings in a single day. With hopes to have a third of its total land area under forest cover by 2030. (Click here to read more at earth.org)

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Let’s Be In Harmony With The Nature!

Urban life is often associated with worries and problems for all humans. Maybe this life helps people to succeed in material gains, but sometimes no matter how expensive the cost or rent of the apartment we will in is, we do not feel bright and happy when we go back from work to that apartment and we feel it does not give us the inner peace, this cannot be denied that many of us have no choice but to live in where we live, but is it all we can have for a life? Someone once told me that in the city where they live, the housing is so competitive and expensive that their whole living space including their washroom is only a few square meters and while they feel so lucky that they do have the advantage of having a space that they can live in, they sometimes feel that they are living in a box and think about the meaning of their overall life when they feel all they do is just existing and not leaving a meaningful life!

But in these conditions, we still have choices, we can help our selves by changing our perspective, and we can decide to use the resources that we have access to them. By doing so, we can start to bring small changes to our lives and we can be more in-touch with nature as much as we can and at the same time look for ways to bring more meaning and sunshine to our live while we have individual success in the city life too.

Accepting the fact that humans need nature under any conditions will help us create a better future; In fact, one of the goal of every person for a healthier life should be to align more with the nature. Putting aside mental locks gives a new perspective to people and makes people grow and experience a life with more peace and calmness. The miracle that the nature will be for urban life has become an important subject and countries like Singapore are paying close attention to binding the urban life with more presence of nature in them.

The Advantages Of Connecting With Nature, Along With Living City Life:

Urban life has often gave people more access and progress in their jobs and it’s contribution to humans in developed or developing countries is to gain better individual material life, but in addition to this advantage, it has many disadvantages for humans only, and these issue are now becoming more alarming than ever. There have been many studies and researches and this has caused the attention back to the importance of human  connection with nature. For this reason, knowing the benefits of a dynamic relationship with nature can help us maintain this one sided beneficial relationship with nature for humans as humans usually can bring much less to the nature than they can gain from it.

One of the first advantages of human’s relationship with nature is to help them to let go of all the unnecessary thoughts and feelings.

Based on many ancient beliefs, nature is a healer and can directly affect the human spirit and it helps to remove the negative energy from our souls. Therefore, connection with it, will make people’s lives full of peace. The calmness of the human soul will have a direct effect of their mind will help humans to achieve better state of mind where it can even result on letting go of the un-necessary thoughts and emotions and be more in-touch with their inner self and true feelings, which can result and setting better life goals and choosing brighter paths.

Being in nature can improve the way you look at things by simply distracting your distress, there are many hidden and obvious powers in nature that come to our benefit when we align with them or with or without knowing use them while we are in nature, the healing power of the trees and water, the power of grounding or the dopamine that we get from simply being in nature all can help us.

As a result of this healing power, it will make you be in present and the past with a better view and think of the future with a more clear vision, the green will help your souls prosperity and this can have a very high impact on your personal development and that why it will be very important and useful to gain the right connection to the nature.

Being in nature makes us see some unexpected things and even get ideas from them; For example, seeing a birds nest can give an architect a new idea for design, or a behavior from an insect can give a teacher a new way for describing a subject, or just watching the sunshine or the breeze on the grass and trees can empty your mind for the calmness you need, or simply create space for a creative idea in your work field.

For many of us, going to nature after a hardship can be part of a healing processes, in nature we can see how easy and flowing everything is, we can see that sometimes we are making the process of life harder for us than we should and the human view of life that we have gained in our past is not always the right view, and by seeing how life goes on for every being and creature on the planet no matter of the circumstances, it makes it easier for us as a person to find and choose taking things easier, and choosing the goodness in life because life will go on either way, so its much better to let loose a bit and ride on the good vibes of life. And as the rivers and clouds pass by In nature, we can follow the learning of a better life and learn effective things from it.

Hope flows in nature! The seasons, the rain and sunshine and everything in nature shows us hope… Therefore, with the help of nature, we can overcome negative thoughts and feelings as well. Looking at the hope we can gain from the nature is a change for improvement. Nature is a friend whose presence is comforting for humans and will increase our hopefulness if we decide to use it to eliminate hopelessness by the things we see in nature, it all depends on your own point of view, someone may choose to see the sleeping winter trees as the trees who lost their livelihood and someone may choose to see the same trees in preparation for the new life of the spring, so choose your point of view carefully and trust the nature as it always brings the better to life, no matter how long it takes.

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But when we think about nature and the benefits that it can give us, we can think about an important question:

What If We Live In A City Or Town? And What If We Don’t Have Much Access To The Nature From Where We Live?

How to create a bridge between urban life and nature?

There are solutions that will help us to maintain or establish their connection to the nature.

Here, I will mention some of the effective ways to be more in-touch with the nature even if you live in a town:

The first thing is to have at least one plant in your room, even a cactus or a plant that needs little maintenance, or is strong enough to survive in an apartment, would be a good place to start.

Stepping out of your work or using few minutes in your break time for a bit of fresh air and sunshine during the day would be another good small step.

Now Let’s Go Further!

First look at your surroundings, know the parks you can have access to, find natural resources that are in a short distance from where you live, and even search for the gatherings and groups online, there are many activities that you can join.

You can create a plan for yourself to be in nature in your weekends, or if you want to go to long distances you can choose your holidays, you even can choose places that are within few hours from where you live and find out how you can access them. And if you are a starter, choose the nearest and easiest places natural destinations first, then educate yourself about the preparation and head to those destinations based on your plan, sometimes a destination can be a park in the nearby town, and sometimes there would be a lake or river depending where you live, what your physical conditions are, and what is your budget, time, and what kinds of preparations you need, and even if you see that you want to level up after a while, maybe you need to get some equipment too, (just prepare yourself.)

And don’t take it too difficult or complicated for yourself, you can start with the easiest and the most possible way, and you always can upgrade based on your interest and resources…

If you have a jobs that allows you to work from distance, you can take full advantage of it by doing your work in another location which brings you more close to the nature. And if you have a job where you can have your weekends off, you can choose some of your weekends for spending more time in nature.

If you have a very limited time and a tight budget you can always plan ahead for yourself, or at least spend a bit of time in the nearest place to your location, where you can have a bit of sunshine or sunset, some grass, or a park that has some grass and trees. You even can join to a nearby destination and start enjoying the time for some quality natural reconnection, you can help yourself with using calmness while you are there with techniques such as meditation and grounding.

For people with 5 working days, the weekends are often the best time to spend time in nature.

A day in nature can help you to release the pressure of the past weekdays and gain the calmness and relaxation for the coming week.  Also, this can help you gain more positive energy for the week or projects ahead.

Remember, it is ok if you don’t have enough time to go to nature every day, or if it is not possible for you to move to another location and live in a place where you can have an easy access to the nature. Many of us can’t. But you may start to reconnect to the nature in any way that you can, even if it is trying to growing a plant at home and enjoy it’s presence in your life. Or making a long term schedule for going to the nature once in every few months, or joining a group that has the same interests as you do.

If you love to help the nature or you have access and/or free time, you can use your passion and time to draw attention to the importance of the nature or even join the activities or activists in this field. For example, sometimes joining the campaigns that collect and remove the garbage from the nature may be what makes you happy and give you purpose and meaning, and sometimes you may be an ocean person and helping to educate others in this subject may be what connects you to the nature… Being part of these groups or participating in such activities does not need you to leave your city life, and if you have time and access to the internet, there are many related activities and groups that you can join. These kinds of activities, specially when they are related to the nature and the goodness of other beings, may give you an interesting feeling and cause, beside giving you the calmness and inner feeling of being a positive part of life, and more in touch with the nature, and eventually you will see the benefits and positive effects that it has on your inner peace and overall everyday life. As if you can be more in touch with the positive vibes of life and see the magic of being a part of a higher self, you will see it’s positive effects and an feel the unconditional love that comes back to you with it from the nature…

There are groups such as saving the forests and trees, saving the wild life, saving the turtles and cleaning the ocean and many more national and international groups that you can join for being a part of their activities about nature. You can always search and choose to join any of the groups that feels closer to your own choices, and participate or be active in any of the activities that has a good cause and gives you good vibes for taking positive steps for the nature and mother earth, by any way that is possible and suitable for you.

–Read this article to know more bout ‘mindfulness exercises’.

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