We Outside!!.......A Black Girl's Story of Healing in Nature

My first time truly connecting with nature in 2018 in the Rocky Mountains for the 2018 GirlTrek Stress Protest

Now that it’s summer and we are all vaccinated and boosted (hopefully), we are ‘OUTSIDE’. I know that this declaration for being outdoors is with the intentions of lit summer nights, parties, vacations and baecations….but we can also sneak in a little purposeful healing into the festivities.

Clearly a “Healing Girl (or Boy) Summer” would include other activities outside of the norms. But I still find joy in yelling ‘we outside’ from time to time. Yes, I’m excited to travel and explore again, but I also have an interesting connection to nature. Nature was the very thing that shaped my own healing journey.

For some reason, I have a tendency to have major life shifts all at once. And during one of the toughest seasons of my life thus far, it was nature that allowed me to fully work my way through. Before this realization, I had other plans.

I’ll go ahead and call a spade a spade, healing and perfectionism mix together as well as oil and water. But, I totally thought I could do both. Juggling the chaos of grief, job loss, divorce and an extended battle with writer’s block (hence no blog posts), I came up with a “healing action plan” or so I thought.

I purchased all of the self-help books, podcasts, scheduled therapy sessions and was ‘prepared’ to Excel spreadsheet my way into the next chapter of my life. I was fully motivated to Elizabeth Gilbert….’Eat Pray Love’ my way to peace. But between motherhood and my bank account, the best I was going to do was ‘Snack Think Like’. (At least my heart was in the right place, lol).

So here I am, devouring books, podcasts, quotes and getting absolutely nowhere on my ‘linear path’ to healing. It wasn’t until one fateful day, when I was at my wits end, that I grabbed my keys, dying phone (not recommended by the way) and headed out the door to walk on a trail near me. I’m not new to the outdoors, I have experience hiking, camping and more, but it wasn’t included in my ‘healing action plan’.

I’m not sure how I pulled off a smile during this walk, but at least my GirlTrek Stress Protest shirt is cute!

Needless to say that day, I walked an hour. It was slow, uncomfortably quiet (since I was used to so much noise), emotional, but fulfilling. It wasn’t a pretty sight (me, not the trail, it was beautiful). I didn’t look like those stock photos (you know the ones with the person on the mountain with their arms out?), I was in an old pair of sweats, wrinkle shirt and baseball cap. But something very powerful happened that day and would soon be the catalyst for my healing journey. Going into the literal wilderness allowed me to work through my own personal turmoil. I took a lot away from that journey and these are just three of the lessons I learned along the way.

1. When going into nature, I quickly experienced a shift in my perspective. I was reminded of just how small me and my bag of problems were in relation to the world around me. No, the problems don’t go away and might not hurt any less, but the shift in view made overcoming those battles not as daunting. The shift in perspective allowed me to feel a sense gratitude for the literal beauty around me and in my life.

2. There is a level of peace and quiet that you can only get when you are in the midst of nature. Walking or hiking alone, without music blaring from my phone left me with my thoughts. At first I’ll admit this was a bit overwhelming. But after a few outings, I began to appreciate the time to just BE. I was forced to sort through emotions and thoughts that I tried to drown with noise. And as a chronically busy woman, this proved to have an impact on my healing journey that I never expected. It showed me that the solution to a number of my problems was within me.

3. I’m sure by now it’s no secret that I was a bit of a control freak. However, when hiking at a national park, you can’t control much around you. In fact, you have to relinquish control and go with the flow to get through much of it. It was here that I learned to let go of my need to control the outcomes or what I believed was the proper timing with healing. Letting go of control allowed me to gain peace and re-energize for more important tasks.

So if you are dealing with a creative rut, grief and other challenges in life try to give yourself some grace. And if you are anything like me and suffer with perfectionism and have maxed out on other ways to give you heart and mind some rest, grab your sneakers, spf and go commune with nature. You might just find the path out of your own personal wilderness in the wilderness.

I will be ending my summer season here, at Estes Park for the next Stress Protest with GirlTrek!