Naturally Aware
Lesson Six: Take A Deep Breath
What did you learn during your week of trees and flowers?
● Did you notice any flowers or trees in your neighborhood for the first time? What attracted your attention? (Color, flowers, shape, size, etc.)
● Which is the tallest tree in your neighborhood? The oldest? The one with the greatest historical significance?
● How far away is the closest tree that bears edible fruit? What kind of tree is it? Approximately how old is it?
● Which flowers are you most likely to see blooming in your neighborhood right now? If it’s the dead of winter, which flower images can you see each day near you?
● Where is the closest shade tree to your workplace? Is it possible to sit beneath it comfortably and legally? Have you done so?
● When is the last time you picked a flower? Where was it? What was it?
● When is the last time you touched a tree? Where was it? What kind was it?
This week is your last lesson, but think of it as the beginning of your own natural mindfulness routine! You can incorporate your favorite triggers, your favorite way of noticing them, and your favorite ways to celebrate them every day.
This is where you get creative and enjoy the process of noticing your natural attraction to Nature!
This week, your trigger is air.
The air you inhale. The air you exhale. The air filled with smoke or the scent of flowers or the smell of chemicals. You will notice the smell of cologne, the smell of toothpaste, the smell of exhaust.
Because air is harder to see than the previous triggers, you will have a perfect opportunity to watch your response to the air around you.
What are you breathing in right now?
Where is the smell/scent coming from?
How does your emotional state change when you smell it?
Can you feel any wind? Where on your body do you feel it? (cheeks, hair, etc.)
Whenever you remember to do so, simply notice the fact that you are breathing, and pay attention to the sensation that comes from inhaling and exhaling.
Here are some questions to consider:
- What childhood memories do you have of wind?
- Have you ever been in a major windstorm? How did you feel during and after it?
- Think of something that made you want to take a deep breath for the sheer joy of it when you were a child. What did you smell?
- In what ways does your ability to breathe easily affect your mood? When you have a cold or allergy, how does it make you feel emotionally? When your sense of smell is blocked, what do you miss?
- Have you ever experienced altitude sickness or difficulty breathing in high elevations? Have you ever had a frightening experience underwater during which you were unable to catch a breath?
- In terms of your health, how concerned are you about your ability to breathe? Do you get out of breath easily? Are you a smoker? Do you worry about respiratory problems?
- When is the last time you were out of breath? What were you doing?
- What one trigger is most likely to remind you take a deep breath no matter what you’re doing? How might you incorporate this trigger into your daily routine more often?
I invite you to inhale deeply, watch your breath as you exhale, and see how you feel when you do so with greater attention.
This is the last lesson, but I hope you will continue to find creative ways to use Nature as a trigger for greater awareness!
Thank you so much for your time and attention. I sincerely hope this course has given you some insight into your own personal attention tendencies and offered a renewed connection to Nature and its gifts.
I invite you to take another free mindfulness course--with a buddy! Check out the options here.
I wish you a world of wonder.
Warmly,
Maya Frost
Real-World Mindfulness Training™
Quotes:
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Live each season as it passes, breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”
Henry David Thoreau
“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are bright, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”
Elizabeth Lawrence
“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle quality of air, that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
Robert Louise Stevenson
“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.”
Erich Fromm
“The air is full of ideas. They are knocking you in the head all the time. You only have to know what you want, then forget it, and go about your business. Suddenly, the idea will come through. It was there all the time.”
Henry Ford
“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
John F. Kennedy
“In an underdeveloped country, don’t drink the water. In a developed country, don’t breathe the air.” Jonathan Raban
“Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.” Gustav Mahler
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
Marcus Aurelius
“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”
Walt Whitman
“When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.”
Lord Byron
“We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”
Lee Iacocca
“Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.”
Alexander Pope
“Sculpture is made with two instruments and some supports and pretty air.”
Gertrude Stein
“O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.”
Christopher Marlowe
“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.”
Georges Bernanos
“All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”
Chief Seattle
“I just put my feet in the air and move them around.”
Fred Astaire
“We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it.”
Boris Yeltsin
“Proportions are what makes the old Greek temples classic in their beauty. They are like huge blocks, from which the air has been literally hewn out between the columns.”
Arne Jacobsen
“Maybe where there's clarity of air, there's clarity of thought.”
Chet Huntley
“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.
As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the
circumstances may be.
And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
Anne Frank
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore,
there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea,
and music in its roar;
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”
Lord Byron
Thank you again--so much--for your attention! ;-)
Hugs,
Maya
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