When You smilin’
Gratitude and Connection with Nature.
I have been consciously engaged in personal and spiritual growth study and practices for over 15 years and still sometimes balk at the mention of either….usually when I’m experiencing low vibrational states of emotion related to stressful life transitions, stagnance or complacency. In these times my mental chatter around either subject sounded like, “I don’t have 20 to 30 minutes a day to dedicate to connecting with nature, I work 10 to 13 hour days”, “Gratitude lists are dumb and they don’t do shit for me”, “Nature is pretty, but really does nothing to change my current circumstances”, “Thinking of all the things I have to be grateful for shifts my mental space for like two minutes, then it’s right back to the grind, business as usual”.
This thinking led me to believe that all this talk of practicing gratitude and connecting with nature were ultimately bullshit…and sometimes that maybe something was just WRONG WITH ME.
Turns out: “Thinking” was the trouble. I was practicing “thinking” of the things I have to be grateful for and “thinking” about the benefits that I expected to receive from connecting with nature. “Thinking” about how my efforts were coming up short due to lack of time or any lasting effect on my mental state (on my thinking itself).
Eventually I THOUGHT, “What even IS gratitude anyway? And just what the hell does it mean to be ‘connected with nature’ ?”
The answer that resonated with me, or created a feeling of knowing and connection within me: GRATITUDE IS A WARM SENSE OF APPRECIATION. Finding this definition and defining “resonance” for myself helped me understand “connecting with nature”….is actually about finding / experiencing RESONANCE WITH NATURE. “Resonance occurs when the frequency of an initial object's external vibration matches the resonant frequency of a second object. As a result, the second object will vibrate or oscillate at a higher amplitude.” (study.com) This is really heady.
In Essence: Everything that exists is made up of particles of energy that vibrate at different rates. This absolutely includes thoughts, feelings, internal organs, the human body, nature herself, and all the parts therein: flowers, trees, streams, oceans, birds, wind…everything that IS. To match the vibration of something (resonate with) an idea, a word, a person, an emotion, a painting, a beloved pet, you need only to slow down, BE WITH, notice, breathe, let go of control and conception of the moment, open and receptive to whatever crosses your internal senses and responses to your environment and FEEL. This is what mystics call “sensing subtle energies”.
Incidentally the “subtle energy” produced by our thoughts and feelings is in reality, not so subtle. The energy generated by Mother Nature/ Gaia/ The Earth, our thoughts, and our feelings can all be measured! From The Heart Math Institute’s Science & Research Publishings: “The heart’s electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain. This field, measured in the form of an electrocardiogram (ECG), can be detected anywhere on the surface of the body. Furthermore, the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain and can be detected up to 3 feet away from the body, in all directions, using SQUID-based magnetometers” (link to article at the bottom of this post).
The influence of such fields of energy is well documented in science. A favorite example of mine is Dr. Masaru Emoto’s findings of how our words, thoughts, and feelings, both the gentle and the severe, actually influence and shape water molecules. Water, which makes up a significant portion of every living thing on the planet. The implications here are clear. (I highly recommend checking out Dr. Emoto’s book, “The Hidden Messages in Water”)
What does this mean? And Why does this even matter?
Firstly: FEELING is STRONGER and MORE IMPACTFUL than THOUGHT. Secondly: Our feelings and thoughts (even our words) not only influence our minds and bodies, they also influence our environment vice versa, we are influenced by feelings and thoughts of others as well as our physical environment. Consider that when you are outside in nature standing in the grass, surrounded by animal and plant life, sitting on the sand watching the ocean, on a bench admiring a bush or pot full of flowers (yes, this counts as “out in nature), even the very Earth you inhabit, are all made of energy and full of water. Just like you.
In Conclusion: When you offer any warm feeling (ie gratitude, unconditional love, appreciation) to nature, nature sends it’s own gratitude, unconditional love, appreciation right back to you. Both the giving and receiving of these warm feelings are added to your personal field of energy (Heart&Brain). They also have the power to influence of the world within you, including but not limited to the very water that makes many of your body’s systems work, while also impacting the world that surrounds you. This is connection with nature: feeling all that is being offered to your senses by nature and genuinely appreciating the grooves in the bark of the trees, the way that the squirrels bark and birds chirp and caw, feeling the sun and wind against your skin. Incidentally this is a fantastic way to practice both gratitude and tapping into a connection with nature. Doing this regularly for even a short time every day helps to cultivate peace, calm, joy and…you guessed it GRATITUDE for all that life brings your way. You may even find that you more naturally see, or begin looking for, the gifts in life’s difficult experiences.
So, as the iconic song, “When You’re Smiling” written in 1928 by the team of Mark Fisher, Larry Shay and Joe Goodwin and popularized by Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra in 1929 said it best..
“Oh when you smilin', when you smilin'
The whole world smiles with you
Yes when you laughin', when you laughin'
Yes the sun come shinin' through
But when you cryin' you bring on the rain
So stop your sighin' baby and be happy again
Yes and keep on smilin, keep on smilin'
And the whole world smiles with you”.
CALL TO ACTION: Go out in nature. Make an effort to do so for even 3 to 5 minutes every day. Open your senses, put a hand or finger on your heart for sympathetic connection, breathe slowly, fully and deeply as though the breath is being breathed through your heart itself. Feel appreciatiopn for the beauty facing you ( in a park, on a beach, in the woods, in the grass, staring at a sunset/rise, tree, flower, or bush next to the sidewalk on your street or in a parking lot), Breathe that into and out of your heart as well. Touch the nature in fornt of you with your other hand if you feel so called….And Smile. (Try it, I dare ya!)
https://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/energetic-communication/
