Mother Nature has been the most powerful healing source in my life, and in this article I am inspired to share my profound connections with Her and part of my healing journey.
To begin, it’s a miracle that I am alive today. I sunk into depression and nearly ended my life a decade after moving to Toronto in 1989. Even as I was coping with cultural and seasonal shocks, getting used to the western etiquette and working three jobs, my best grandma on the planet, my beloved surrogate mother who raised me died suddenly. I lost my job the same year, and my personal relationships were chaotic. New culture, new country, new life, and my whole world turned topsy turvy.
My doctor promptly sent me to a psychiatrist, who was quick to prescribe anti-depressants, but in just a few weeks they began to have side effects, making me want to end my life.
It seems like yesterday when I reflect back on a fall September evening in 1999. As I was sitting in my car stuck in the traffic lights near the intersection of Brimley and Eglinton in Toronto, a powerful flash of lightning split the skies followed by a monstrous thunder rolling over my car, and then… a heavy downpour.
In that very instant, out of the blue, tears began to stream down my face as though the floodgates had burst open. That was when I realized, it had been almost a decade since I had actually cried. In the vicious rat race of home to work and work to home, I had neither stopped to grieve for my grandma nor deal with my anxiety and stress. That heavy downpour, what I call Mother Nature’s expressions, struck a deep chord. It helped me release my pent up emotions.
That evening, instead of returning home I drove around aimlessly, and after a while discovered a wilderness park, where I sat in my car listening to the pitter patter rain drops until my stormy mind calmed down.
Looking back, I think I had subconsciously experienced the parallel realities between my inner world and the outer world. The skies opened up and the sun broke through after the down pour, just as I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders as my emotional clouds were lifted off after my teary downpour.
Ever since that poignant day I have been returning to the very same park daily to commune with the natural world, where I am able to heal my emotional wounds and experience inner peace and harmony. And in a matter of weeks I quit Prozac cold turkey.
Most people also love animals, and many of us feel a soulful connection with certain species. Mine happens to be Elephants. In fact, elephants were part of my cultural upbringing. However, after moving to Canada life took over and I neglected to nurture this special bond.
It was on a fateful December day in 2012 when my conservationist friend and I were driving to the Wyanad jungles in Kerala that he received a distress call about an elephant who had fallen into a trench. You can read the entire story here: Rescuing an Elephant in the Wilds of India. This was when I reconnected with my soul animals.
Ever since my June 2012 trip to India I have been returning to visit my elephants more frequently, and inspired to produce a documentary film about Kerala’s temple and festival elephants For the Love of Elephants. During my visits I have also been interacting with them and learning some life transforming lessons:
- Empathy
- Love
- Endurance
- Patience
- Humility
- Agility
- Nobility
- Tolerance
The amazing thing is, we possess these ELEPHANT attributes intrinsically. However, in our hectic pace of life we hardly tap into them. Life in the fast lane has left many of us with little time to even breathe properly, let alone spending time in the natural world or with animals that help connect with our deeper “Self”.
Actually Mother Nature and elephants are my Prozac!!
So how are you doing? Are you chronically stressed about the economy? Are you worried about your children’s future? Do you feel a sense of emptiness and separation from others, but unable to pinpoint exactly what’s causing the discomfort? Are you feeling deeply disturbed and overwhelmed by the state of our natural world and wildlife? How are you coping with your day to day stress and anxiety? How are you dealing with your emotions?
If you are avoiding your emotions, they will become bottled up and manifest as chronic stress, causing tension on your shoulders, neck and back, potentially leading to anxiety, and depression. In fact according to the World Health Organization (W.H.O),
By 2030 the amount of disability and life lost as a result of depression will be greater than that resulting from any other condition, including – including war, accidents, cancer, strokes and accidents.
But, this can be avoided by addressing the root causes of your stress and anxiety. I will share with you tested and tried ways to dissolving your stress and anxiety in the natural world based on my research in Ecopsychology, Systems and Brain sciences, more importantly I will be sharing my unique perspectives gathered from the natural world during a FREE tele seminar.
I invite you to participate Thursday October 23rd at 8:00pm Eastern time, 5:00 pm Pacific time when I will reveal Eight Best Kept secrets that I discovered. You can find details in this link: Awakening the ELEPHANT in You.
I sincerely hope you can join me and will be inspired to apply some of the practical steps not only in dissolving stress and anxiety, but also in creating peaceful co-existing with your sacred self and all sentient beings.
Disclaimer:
If you struggle with clinical depression/ anxiety it’s best to follow your medical practitioners advice while practicing some of my ideas. Rest assured, the only side effect to communing in the natural world could be profound inner peace and harmony.