351 Holly Worton ~ Getting Help from Nature With Self-Care

Read the transcript here:

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 351; this is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode. Because we are still in lockdown in the UK as of time of recording and, honestly, I don’t know if that is going to change anytime soon, I am continuing the theme of how to get help from nature during these weird times that we are living in right now and today’s theme is going to be how to get help from nature with our self-care.

I’m very fortunate in that my life hasn’t changed very much since lockdown, I work from home normally, my husband and I both work from home normally, so things are pretty much as usual. Obviously some things have been cancelled and other things have been postponed but basically life is pretty much as usual. Obviously when I leave the house to buy food, I notice that things are very different, you have to keep your distance, and when I go out for a walk as well, social distancing. But basically things have been pretty much the same for me and I think also I was very fortunate in that I had my two weeks’ off, my camping trip in nature, right before this happened and that really helped me to reconnect with myself, reconnect with nature, in a very deep way, because I was spending lots of time outdoors for two full weeks and I think that got me into a great kind of headspace, mindset, for the lockdown.

So I have written a blog post about this lately and I will link to that in the show notes about what my experience was like and why I think that set me up to be in a good place during this time but I think there are still a lot of things we can do from lockdown, or quarantine, or whatever they are calling it where you live to take care of ourselves and to nurture ourselves. Getting help from nature with this, we don’t have to do this alone, and I know a lot of people are struggling, it honestly makes me feel a little bit guilty that I am not, but I know that is ridiculous and try to stop that feeling when I feel it. So what I am going to do is share what I know, share my experiences, to hopefully help you whether or not you are struggling, because it is important that we all get through this the best that we can. Self care I think is really important at this time because things are uncertain, we don’t know when lockdown is going to be raised. We don’t know what is going on, a lot of people have lost their jobs, they have been furloughed, these are very uncertain times.

So be sure to take care of yourself and increase your self-care during this time. I have been taking baths rather than showers so I can kind of linger with Epsom salts and a good book. I have been waking up earlier, I am still on that really nice schedule that I have come back from my camping trip with. I am starting work really early, finishing work earlier, going out for a walk or just reading a book at home, or really increasing the things that I know are nourishing to me and things that I consider to be good for my overall wellbeing.

So here are some ideas on how you can get help from nature with your self care. We talked a little bit about these things last week with Cara but I wanted to go more in depth into them. So at home, when you are inside, I know some people have issues with their immune system and can’t even go outside or choose not to go outside because it is risky for them to even go on a walk and come into contact with people. So if you are at home and you can’t go out, there are lots of things that you can do, you can tend to your house plants, take care of your pets, spend time with your pets, groom your cats, your dogs, or just spend time stroking your cats, they are very nice and fluffy, whatever pets you may have at home, spend more time with them. Sit in your bed and sit with your pets or read a book and sit with them, spending time with animals can be really calming, it can be good for anxiety and it can be good for helping us to feel better and it can be good for helping us to slow down the difficult feelings and thoughts we may be having. Pets are part of nature of course, I know when I talk about nature I tend to think about plants and trees but pets are also part of nature.

If you have crystals, maybe spend some time holding a crystal that you find attractive, even if you don’t believe in crystal healing it doesn’t matter, they are pretty things that can be nice to have around so maybe put some on your desk or put some where you can see them.

Look out your windows and I think this can be a fun or interesting exercise to go to each of your windows, look out each window and spend some time seeing what you can see: what trees can you see? What plants can you see? What flowers can you see? And really make an effort to kind of identify the greenery and other kinds of nature like what hills can you see, what animals can you see from each window? Because I think that can help us to bring a little bit of the outdoors indoors, through that connection, acknowledging all of the nature that we have around us that we might not notice.

My cats spend lots of time in the windows every day, kind of chirping at the birds and probably wishing that they could attack them. So our animals do this, but I think a lot of times we forget to focus on the nature outside of our homes that we can see through the windows.

So if you are a bath taking person you can add essential oils to a bath, they smell good, those are something that comes from nature.

Foods, eat natural foods, eat whole foods, I know natural means nothing, but eat whole foods, eat plants, eat animals, if you do, but eat real food. I know sometimes it can be tempting to comfort eat when we are stressed but I think eating whole foods, plants and animals can really be a great form of self care right now. Make sure that we are feeing ourselves with the foods that are really deeply nourishing to us. I have taken advantage of this lockdown, since I am not exercising as rigorously as I normally do, I have changed my fasting protocol and doing a different type of alternate day fasting so now, since I am fasting a little bit more than I usually do, I am extra conscious about what I eat, when I eat, and making sure that it is really good food. Usually I eat health foods but you know sometimes comfort foods slip in there. So I think it is important now to focus on what we feed ourselves in terms of food.

Plant spirits, and this is something you can do from home, even if you haven’t had the training. So last year I did a shamanic plant-spirit-healing-apprenticeship. So I was working on using Shamanic journeying and calling in the spirits of plants for healing. But as you have seen if you have read my book, If Trees Could Talk, Life Lessons From the Wisdom of the Woods, a lot of the stories from the trees in that book were about calling on the spirits of the trees for help. So even if you are at home, if you have done the exercise where you look out your window and you see the nature, and you see the things, maybe you have a favourite tree that you can see out in your garden, or outside your fence. Call in that tree for help. One of the things that one of the trees in my book said was that we can give our worries to the trees, we can give our stress to the trees, we can give our anxiety to the trees and the trees will take those negative feelings and transmute that energy into something neutral. So if you are feeling down, if you are feeling depressed, if you are feeling anxious, ask a tree for help, give it a try, even if you think you can’t talk to trees, even if you don’t believe in this, it is worth a try, you know. So sit in a quiet place in your home, or stand in the window where you can see the tree, you don’t have to, and just speak to the tree either out loud or in your mind and ask the tree for help. Tell the tree specifically what you would like help with, if they can take your sad feelings, your depression, your anxiety: please take these feelings from me and transmute them into something neutral and please help me to connect with joy, or happiness, or love, or whatever it is that you would like to be feeling more of now. I think this is a good time to experiment with calling on the plant spirits and the tree spirits for help. And this doesn’t have to be trees, maybe you can call on a plant in your garden, maybe you have a favourite plant or flower or shrub or something in your garden, or outside your house, call on that plant and ask if it can help you. So those are a lot of things you can do at home to get help from nature with your self-care.

In your garden, spend some time outdoors and I think gardening can really be a form of self-care, it really helps me kind of slow down, and calm down, and it is very relaxing. So go out into the garden and do some weeding, do some other gardening, and tend to your compost, something I need to do, I haven’t watered it in ages, it is probably all dried out, tidy things up and do a little bit of yard work, whatever feels good. That can be really, really, calming and it can give you something to focus on and I really find that getting my hands dirty in the soil is really grounding and it just really makes me completely change my perspective when I am feeling stressed or anxious. So garden work, light garden work, you don’t need to remodel your entire garden, so whatever is right for you, getting out in the garden, maybe repot some house plants, I don’t know, but getting your hands dirty can be a really lovely way of getting help from nature with self-care, because it grounds you and calms you down and it can be really deeply relaxing. So just do stuff in your garden. Sit and read a book in your garden. If you have a big enough garden set up a tent outdoors. My garden is not, unfortunately, conducive to that but I have seen lots of people going camping in their garden and I think that is such a great idea. If I had the proper place I would have my tent set up there and I would be out there all the time, I would probably be sleeping out there sometimes. Especially if you have kids that can be a fun way to spend some time outdoors, even if you don’t have kids it can be a fun way to spend time outdoors, you can set up a tent and read inside it or just relax and have your self-care outdoors in your garden.

So getting out of your house and out of your garden. Here in the UK we are allowed one form of exercise outdoors a day, so for me that has been walking but you can walk, ride your bike, run, whatever. The only thing that you need to keep in mind is that you need to keep your distance from others, aim for quiet trails away from towns or villages, and use that as a way to reconnect with nature, get some exercise and just rest and refreshen your mind. The other day I was really, really, focussed at work, getting lots of stuff done and I kind of got to a point where I was burnt out, so I just finished what I was doing and I went outdoors and I went on a walk and it was just so lovely. And I noticed so many details that I often don’t notice, because it had been the first time leaving the house in days, I noticed things that I hadn’t necessarily noticed before. So when you go outdoors, when you go on a walk, pay attention to the details, look at what flowers are blooming. Maybe you don’t know what all the names of the plants are but you could get a book, or not, it doesn’t matter, but notice what flowers are blooming, those yellow things, those blue things, those purple things, those white things, whatever, but notice them. But notice as you go on your walk what types of habitats these different plants grow in, these different plants and flowers and notice how often you see them, maybe you seem some violets at the start of your walk and then you see them about half way through, pay attention for how many times you see the same flowers, because that helps you to get to know them and helps you to notice them in the future.

Pay attention to what animals are out, do you see squirrels or foxes? What about farm animals? Are the lambs out, have they started lambing yet? Are there new lambs? Are there no lambs? How has nature changed since you were last out? What is blooming now that wasn’t blooming before, what is starting to finish its bloom? Look at all the things that you see details of all the things that you see as you walk. Touch the trees as you go by, and again, you can ask the trees as you are walking to take your stress, to take your anxiety, to take your depression. Obviously talking about depression and mental health if you are on medication continue that, I am not saying that trees should be a substitute for this, do whatever mental health care you normally do and in addition ask the trees to take away your stress, your anxiety, your sadness, whatever it is that you want to get rid of. And ask them to help you open up to what it is that you want to receive. And like I said pay attention to the details and look at the colours, I was on a walk yesterday and I happened to look off to the side and there was a little trail going down into the woods, the trees were there but just beyond the trees there were these green plants, I don’t even remember what they were, they might have been dog’s mercury, but they were really, really, bright, so the way the light was shining on the plants from the other side of the little wood, they looked electric green, it was so beautiful. I just loved how the greenery was so lit up underneath the trees, it was just really lovely, so look at all the different colours. Look at how the sunlight plays on the trail beneath the trees, the clouds, what do the clouds look like? What do the trees look like? Are they deciduous trees that have gone naked for the winter or are they leafing out yet? Which trees have leaves, which trees have buds, which trees never lost their leaves? Pay attention to the details of the trees and the plants around you, that can be really calming.

And as I was walking and as I was noticing all these details, there was a point where I was walking down this trail and there was a fence, and someone had woven a kind of chain of little yellow flowers into the fence, it was just really lovely, I was reminded of this coping technique for anxiety that I have read about before, where you pay attention or you notice five things that you can see around you: so I can see that yew tree, I can see those daffodils, I can see those violets, I can see the clouds, I can see that farmhouse down there. So those are five things I saw on my last walk. Then acknowledge four things that you can touch around you, so you can touch a tree, you can touch the gravel, the dirt of the trail, you can touch a plant, a bush, that is next to the trail, you can touch the petals of the flowers. Acknowledge three things that you can hear: you can hear cars on a faraway road, maybe you can hear birds, maybe you can hear the squirrels running up and down the trees. Acknowledge two things that you can smell. A lot of time it is hard to distinguish smells when we are out on a walk. You can get up and close to things so get down on the ground and lift up a handful of leaves and soil and smell it, maybe get close to some flowers and see if you can smell them or just smell a tree trunk, but get closer to nature so that you can smell it. Then finally acknowledge one thing that you can taste, if you have brought some water with you, you can taste that or some other drink, if you have brought some tea in a flask, you can taste that, or just see if you can taste anything on the air. I probably don’t recommend licking any plants unless you know for sure they are not toxic, but I can tell you that violets for example, which are blooming right now, are not toxic and those are edible, so you can pluck up a violet and eat that and acknowledge the taste of it.

So I know this is a coping technique for anxiety, but even if you are not feeling anxiety, I think this is a really great way to connect with nature and you know a lot of people are getting criticised for going out into nature and sitting, because you are supposed to be having exercise. So people were asked to leave the beach when they were sitting on the beach, so I am hesitant to to say: sit next to a tree and relax, because you are supposed to be only going out for exercise, so maybe don’t do those things. But as you are walking on your exercise walk you can do a lot of things to connect with nature and I think this can be really, really, helpful in terms of our own personal self care. I did a podcast episode a while back about self-care and I am going to link to that in the show notes, let’s see if I can find this here, yes episode 313, how to practice self care even when you think you are too busy, so those are some things you could do as well to get some ideas for self care. But I really, really recommend that you try something new, try getting help from nature with self care; and do not underestimate the power of calling on the plant spirits for help, so whether it is a house plant at home, or a plant in your garden, or something you see when you are out on a walk: ask the plant spirits for help. And if you don’t believe in that that’s fine do some of the other practical things I have mentioned, you don’t need to get weird with the plant spirits. But I think connecting with nature can really make a big difference in how we take care of ourselves during these times of COVID-19, and just the weird times that we are living in now which are full of uncertainties and lots of difficulties.

So I hope you found this useful, this is going to be a shorter episode than usual, but I would like to encourage you to get outdoors and get help from nature, or even get help from nature in your house, but call on nature both practically and spiritually to get the help that you need to care for yourself during these times. And, I have been getting lots of messages from people, I got a message from a friend the other day who had read my book who was saying: thank you so much for writing this book, I never knew I could talk to the trees and now I do. She had been talking to a tree in her garden and it gave her a message that was really helpful to her. I got another email from another friend, same thing, it has really deepened her connection and her relationship with trees as a result of reading that book. So I really think that when we open up and connect to nature it can help us in so many ways. So, I would like to invite you once again, to please connect with nature in these these times, and please practice self-care. And feel free to get in touch and let me know how you are doing, I have had several people who have subscribed to my email list respond to my emails in the last couple of weeks and I have asked people: please let me know how you are doing, I would love to hear from you and it has been great to hear from people. So whether you are feeling good, whether you are not feeling good, whatever, feel free to drop me a line and let me know how you are doing, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at: [email protected] or find me online and get in touch there.

And thank you so much for listening, if you enjoy this episode please subscribe if you haven’t already, and if you have any ideas for future episodes, please let me know, I would love to hear from you. Remember to visit: https://hollyworton.com/351 for the show notes on this episode, thank you so much.