Mindfulness and nature connection - like yoga - offer embodied ways for us to stay well, heal and grow. All three practices can nourish, build resilience, ground us in our values and enable us and our communities to flourish. They offer similar, mutually reinforcing benefits - recovery and sustenance for our own well being while training us to treat ourselves and others and the natural world with kindness and respect.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness can help people of all ages develop physical and mental resilience, supporting us to navigate the complexities of our fast changing world and life’s up and downs.
Mindfulness means deepening our ability to pay kindly attention to what’s going on in and around us. It strengthens our capacities for moment by moment awareness, curiosity and kindness. From here arises more choice as to how we respond to life’s ups and downs.
It involves taking time to notice how we are and become intimate with ourselves, each other and our environment, as we move in the body through the world. With practice it becomes a natural way of seeing, thinking and being.
Mindfulness practices such as meditation, body scans, pausing to notice, reflection and sensory attunement offer ways of becoming more fully alive. They can lead to more emotional stability and peace of mind; more gratitude and joy.
Mindfulness - like yoga - is a holistic mind-body training and is increasingly viewed as good medicine. Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy and Mindfulness Based Stressed Reduction, for example, are both prescribed by the NHS.
“The workshop was really calming and relaxing and gave me a chance to experience nature from a very different, very interesting dimension".
- Murshed, Bow
Nature Connection
Nature can calm and sooth, inspire and amaze and sometimes scare us. It’s everywhere, whether we notice it or not. We’re part of it, though we may not always be aware of this. Our bodily ecology and human nature is part of a much larger, shared ecosystem.
Appreciating and feeling connected to the natural world is more important than ever in an age of increasing urbanization, digitization and ecological disconnect. Nature-based practice can give rise to many of the well being benefits of yoga and mindfulness while deepening our awareness of and care for the natural world in particular.
Activities and events don’t always have to be outdoors, however there are additional benefits to being in fresh air and green spaces. The active ingredients in a dose of nature for each of us may vary though recent research shows we need at least 2 hours a week in green spaces to reap the well being rewards.
My approach draws on mindfulness, deep ecology, biophilia, ecotherapy, nature education, neuroscience and participatory training and facilitation. A workshop or event is likely to involve solo, paired and group activities for growing our connection with our natural environment.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
- Chief Seattle
Mindfulness and
nature connection work
Reconnect, Newham
A series of 2.5 hour workshops beginning with gentle mindful movement, breathing exercises and mindfulness meditation indoors; transitioning to solo, paired and small group work outdoors, culminating in whole group sharing of experience.
Participants included referrals from local social prescribers as well as members of the public from across London. Most participants were new to mindfulness and some were working with multiple health conditions, including mobility issues, depression, cancer and chronic pain.
Summer in the City: Well Being for Women, Play for Children
Walking tours of local green spaces with a community lunch for refugee women and their children to enjoy outdoor activities in urban nature during the school holidays. Adults and youngsters learnt about local food growing, plants, trees and wildlife while sharing tips on horticulture from their different cultures and countries.
This project was grant funded by The Lord Mayor’s Office and organised in partnership with Praxis and Globe Community Project (GCP).
Capital Growth: Yoga for Gardeners
A workshop designed to support volunteers in community gardens and food growing spaces, while encouraging members of the public to get stuck in..
Sessions included gentle yoga for easing the parts of the body most used in gardening, mindful meditation practice, nature connection activities and whole group sharing.
Participants ranged from people who had never done yoga or mindfulness practice to some with more experience.
Sustain
Fifteen minute mindful movement warm up outdoors to kick off the annual multi-stakeholder AGM event.
Following a series of presentations, I then ran a one hour mindful nature appreciation workshop as one of a choice of four options for participants to enjoy. The whole event took place outdoors on a city farm.
Spitalfields City Farm
Yuletide Yoga in the Yurt fundraiser for the farm, combined with outdoors mindfulness and nature appreciation in pairs and small groups.
A 2.5 hour Sunday morning well being session just before Christmas, complete with warming wood burner and freshly picked herbal tea.
Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses
Outdoor mindful yoga on the decking under the mulberry tree for local residents and volunteers.
Beautiful sights, sounds and scents support the yoga practice so sessions in this award winning community garden are always very popular. The BPCG yoga programme runs from April to the end of September.
“'Sally is a fantastic teacher who deeply connects with her students both on and off the mat. I love joining her sessions to deepen my mindfulness practice”.
— Carolin, Bethnal Green