#22 - Mindfulness in Your Life Part 3 - Nature

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

nature, life, connect, noise, thought, mindfulness, seek, limiting, walk, space, benefits, mountains, love, hiking, connection, experiencing, journaling, objections, trees, feel

SPEAKERS

Trisha Barita

00:02

Hey there, I'm Trisha Barita. I'm a mother of twin girls, a wife, an entrepreneur, a psychology major, a lawyer, and a coach. With all these different roles in my life, in the past, I truly struggled with limiting beliefs in my ability to adequately juggle all these roles successfully, I often would be frustrated that time and again, I let my goals and dreams always take a backseat to everything else I was trying to do. And those dreams always seem to be on the horizon, just out of reach. Until I discovered tools and thought work to help me tackle and learn to balance all of it. Now, I don't let these titles define my limits. I define my balance in life, by how I choose to show up for myself every day. Am I perfect? Hell no far from it. But I do work every day to believe in myself, and to be present with whatever I experienced in this life, The Good, the Bad, and The really fucking ugly. to own my truth and own my thoughts. I created this podcast to talk about how that noise gets in the way of our goals as women. And now I help women and teach them tools to cut the overwhelm of noise in their life, preventing them from getting the balance they want. If you like this podcast and want to take my free course to get started on designing your balance, and saying fuck that noise, go to Trisha barita.com forward slash free course. Now let's get after it.

02:07

Hello, fabulous friends. So I am back with part three of my mindfulness in your life series. Now if you listen to part two, which was last week's episode, you heard me talk all about thought downloads. And part one, which was way back in episode five, I talked about journaling. But today well, I'm going to talk to you about seeking mindfulness by connecting with nature. In Episode One, I discussed different types of noise in our life, some of that being the noise in your head with your thoughts, some of it being the outside noise, the actual physical noise in your life and your everyday day, that day to day noise can you know kind of grind at you sometimes and you know, by going outside, by going to connect with nature, it can really create this calm for you. So why is that? Well, connecting with you know, nature is not some hippie guru made up nonsense that I just thought up we should talk about today. I mean, the American Psychology Association has featured tons of studies and published papers on the psychological benefits of humans connecting with nature. The bottom line is that it's recognized that spending time in nature has cognitive benefits. It has mental health benefits, improvements in mood and your overall emotional well being. This is recognized in you know, all different types of nature that you could be experiencing from whether you're going somewhere where you're like, super remote, not around anyone you know, versus going outside to be in an urban park, in the middle of a city. It's recognized in both blue spaces, aquatic environments, and, and green spaces.

03:56

So how do you take advantage of this? And how does this create more mindfulness? Well, I think you can do a couple of things to sort of, you know, make this something that you want to have in your life, this more connection with nature. So let me go over them. I got three of them for you here. Number one, you seek out opportunities to be in nature, because you're mindful that it matters. So this includes, you know, by yourself, with your family, significant others loved ones, you're actually trying to create these opportunities. You're not just like, oh, we just happen to go that we're going to go do this outside you actually look for those opportunities, so that you can have more of that in your life wherever you can have it. You know, we keep hearing over and over again that kids don't play outside anymore. Too much screen time. And there's so much drama and noise just around that issue. I mean, what I mean either way And it's not an uncommon conversation where we're talking about the limitation of screen time for kids and how to figure that out. But to me, what's really crazy, is, well, it's not just a freaking kid thing. I mean, when was the last time you played outside? For many of us, we're inside staring at a screen for work. And even if your job doesn't involve that, you've got a phone in your pocket or a watch on your hand with that screen, you know, should we be limiting our screen time and going outside to play to? I mean, why not. So I say more adults should tap into that fly a kite, throw a Frisbee, hit a baseball, Hide and Seek childhood love of the outdoors. And maybe all of our moods would be just a bit better. Alright, so seek those opportunities out. That's my number one.

05:54

Number two, you can use nature in all of its capacity, and recognize the objections you may have, that are limiting you from connecting with nature. One of those big ones would be that say, Hey, you know, you connect with nature when you're exercising. But say there's a limitation that why can't you use nature also connect with nature, by when you're journaling, or meditating, or spending time with your family, playing with your kids or running around with your, you know, your furball, puppy dogs, you know, there's other ways to get these benefits. And that's super clear from the studies related to this. So I think, some valid objections that can kind of come up with this, and I think, valid meaning it totally makes sense why people are thinking these things. I've thought these things, you know, objections on why that prevent me to maybe connect with nature, I mean, I think depending on where you live, connecting with nature may be super easy to do, and is already maybe a major part of your life. I've met people that live in Colorado, and like they're out hiking on the daily or maybe even other people that are especially close to like mountains or major hiker hiking areas.

07:10

Or if you you know, live in the mountains and, and it's ski season, and you're out there, you know, skiing, or snowboarding or whatever. Another major piece of connecting with nature would be doing something like that. And of course, you know, access to that. I certainly don't have a mountain with a bunch of snow outside my back door. So you know, the access is a major thing, as well, as you know, depending on where you live, it just may feel more challenging for all a part of the year on how to connect with nature. So, but maybe exercise isn't the only way, right, so maybe. And also maybe because of where you live, you know, you live in a city surrounded by tons of people. And nature is a bit harder to get to than right out your front door. Or could be was a weather issue. If you have five feet of snow outside, then maybe you don't feel like or can't have that morning walk that you enjoy so much. I mean, I get it, when it's 100 degrees or more in Houston, Texas and August, me, like many of my fellow Texans, aren't usually seeking to take a lunchtime walk around the block. But, you know, what? Have you really rethink those thoughts about why you aren't taking a moment to connect with nature anyway? And is there a different way you could do it? Is there something you hadn't thought of? Is there something you haven't tried? Is there a different time of day? Is there a different you know, way for you to do it, maybe not, you know, physically running or walking, but you you know, you lean into something else. It's not even necessarily the length of time you connect with nature, or how you connect with nature. It's that you do connect with nature to get that benefit. So for example, say the weather doesn't allow for the run walk outdoors you love because of some major snowy weather, or maybe like a meet a big good rain, you know? Yeah, I agree. You may prefer to find other means for your workout. Not maybe you don't like running in the snow, you know, or in the pouring rain. But what about the connection with nature that you're missing then when you do that? Is it possible that you could do something like at least get that appreciation of nature to get some of that benefit, which will still give you that connection? Can you curl up by a window with your journal and a hot tea and just let yourself be present with you know the rainstorm? Or can you build that snowman? Or can you go jump in puddles with your kiddos like in my case in the hot weather, fun in the sprinkler with the kids is is a good one or early morning walk to take that edge off the heat here because you know, it can still give you that connection nature and I still Wanna get the fundamentals of wanting to get that, you know, outside walk in that I love so much. So. Okay, so that's number two, right? So, use nature in all of its capacity, don't limit it just to, hey, this is what I use nature for. That's what I say, explore it, put yourself in these boundaries of these areas think, is there other things I can do to connect with nature with myself with others that I love, alright. And third, take a moment when you are experiencing nature, to recognize and appreciate how truly magnificent and powerful and unpredictable she is. So my dad, he's an, a big lover of nature. He's a environmental or he's retired out, but he was environmental engineer. And so I mean, if, if you went for a walk with my dad, and they're and especially if the like, the leaves are falling, or anything, their leaves on the ground, he would pick up a leaf, and we would have a very lengthy discussion about what tree this came from, and then we would look for the tree and then you may pick up another leaf, he did like trees. I mean, he does love trees a lot. And so. So I from from a very young age, I've always looked at nature differently, because it's a really big deal to one of my parents, right. So

11:25

just a huge thing for him. And he actually really loves National Geographics. And as for since as long as I can remember, collected them, so there was always like a bookshelf in my house with like, a row of more of the of all these National Geographics, which, which, if you've ever seen them have this, like, bright yellow spine, so it's like, a row of yellow spines and books, you know, this, like, publication that they had. And so anyway, they were never really kept an order. So like different, different dates and stuff. So you could just different dates, different editions as when they were published, and he wasn't really like a big deal on them having to be in order. So it was pretty cool. Because you could open one up, you know, and it would be full of these, like incredible photography, and stories. And you would be like, transported across the world to like different cultures and, and natural discoveries, right. They're just, it's just a really, really cool thing for a kid when you're trying to, you know, learn more, I guess, get experience like what is outside, you know, what's outside the state of Texas. Anyhow, it's pretty, and I think maybe right under 10, and I was looking at one of them. And it was about the eruption of Mount St. Helens. And in the images were so dramatic. So when Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18 1980, I think they said she blew with the force of 24 megatons of thermal energy, like 1600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 229 square miles of land or destroyed the blast, I think went to like 12 miles out the pictures were trees, just flattened. And interesting, incredibly crazy. pictures to see. There's just sort of occurred in nature. I mean, I'm already talking to my dad about that just how powerful nature is. And it was, it's one of my first memories really, like kind of seeing something like that the loss of wildlife trees, human life, and just understanding the magnitude of it. You know, it almost makes you really feel small. And it can feel exciting, and scary, all wrapped up together. Of course, since that time, I've obviously seen so many other ways Nietzsche expressed his power, but also its beauty. So I think tapping into that respect for its power, but love for its simple beauty. I think it's almost hard not to be mindful when you're present in that moment. But isn't that what makes it so special when you do connect with nature? I do think it can be a space for you to reconnect with your thoughts in a way that's sort of so unique. It's hard to replace, which I think is why you probably would like to consider having it part of your regular life if you don't currently. I talk about finding a space for you to focus on your mindfulness journaling meditation, in a space at home. I discussed that before, and these podcast episodes and my free class that I offer but when the opportunity presents, presents itself, Have you have you really explored how you can get outside to do that too? I mean, you don't have to be journaling on a rock on the side of a mountain. Or doing yoga on the beach in the Bahamas. Okay to to really take advantage of the connection with nature and the mindfulness that can naturally bring to you. I mean, what do you have right now at your disposal that you could do now or not in nature podcasts. So the reason I thought this topic was significant that we're gonna have to do an episode is that sometimes you need to seek out a change to get that fresh perspective, to get out of that rut for a minute, so you can hear your thoughts, so you can get that

15:31

feel good feeling that kind of thing nature gives you. Truth be told, I'm not out there hiking the mountains, at least not yet. I won't, I'm not going to rule it out either. Right now, I love a cozy outside space. So a while back, I envision a space with like a spice garden and a little table for family dinners, and maybe my morning coffee and conducive to journaling outside when the weather is good for me. And after several years of trying to find the right space in different parts of that space has been I created a small space for that. And, you know, right now since the weather, it's becoming more and more beautiful here. As we enter the fall i i spent you know, some time out there just yesterday and this like gorgeous little butterfly landed on one of one of my spice plants and I captured a video of it actually throw it up on Instagram this week. But it was a it's just one of those moments that you remember how special and then delegate and Ronan nature can be. It's like the opposite of that huge, powerful, you know, National Geographic pictures of the destroyed land and everything. It's just it was so beautiful. This little like butterfly, I don't even know why let me like, film I got pretty close. I was praising him flyway. But, you know, I truly feel that, you know, sending the studies aside or whatever the statistics are about how this can benefit you. I think there's just a basic reason the nature can be compelling. I mean, whether that be the mountains for you, the ocean, lakes, rivers, the desert, feel the flowers, you know, whatever speaks to you. Or maybe you're like me, and you manage, just create a small space of nature for you to enjoy. And it's the one thing across this world that's vastly powerful and delicate, and reminds me to be mindful of how all life is like that. That's where you can truly feel the mindfulness of how special every moment is, with your loved ones and with yourself. Which is why I say, don't wait till Sunday. Start living the life you want today. And to be reminded of that, go outside today, if you can, and take a moment to reconnect with nature, whether that's a jog, or walk or just breathe in a little mindfulness. With that connection in nature. Just soak it in and feel the weight of its beauty to remind you that life shouldn't be taken for granted. And by the way, mindfulness gym, you take it for granted either. It doesn't just happen to you, okay? It's something that if you really want it, you got to seek it out and lean into it. And I'll leave you with that. Now go get after it. You got this

18:24

Hey, thanks for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, and are a woman ready to say fuck that noise, so you can start designing the balance in your life. Go take my free course to get started at Trisha barita.com forward slash free course. Now Have an awesome day and I'll see you next week.