“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” ~Māori Proverb
Imagine a graph showing the number of hours the average person spends out of doors today compared with 50 years ago. Imagine another graph showing how many people suffer from depression, stress, and anxiety compared to 50 years ago.
I’m confident that there would be a direct correlation between the two graphs; as one has declined the other has risen.
As we’ve turned our backs on nature we’ve lost our natural source of happiness. By turning our faces back toward the sun we find lasting happiness and more.
My life has led me into nature, away from it and back into the heart of nature again. Now I know there are simple ways we can all reconnect with nature whether we live in the city, the woods, or somewhere in between.
I grew up on the west coast of Scotland between Atlantic waves and rolling hills. The tiny hamlet where I spent the first 17 years of my life had a population of 17 people, and we were 60 miles from the closest cinema or swimming pool.
The primary school population peaked one year when we had 12 pupils gathered from a 10 mile radius. Aged 5–12 we were taught in one classroom by one teacher. They shut the school the year after I went to high school because there was only one pupil left.
I couldn’t wait to swap wild countryside for a different kind of wild. As I grew up, I craved boys, bright lights, big city, excitement, and culture, so I gravitated to London.
On a daily basis my senses were assailed by the buzz of city life.
I stared wide-eyed at advertising posters pasted on the underground and hordes of people who bustled past me in an eclectic mix of style, race, and age. I absorbed myself in the pulsing heart of the vibrant city and forgot about the countryside I’d left behind. (more…)