STOP AND SMELL THE PINE NEEDLES
I filled my water bottle, pulled out my dusty hiking boots and wooly socks, and packed the snacks. It was a Tuesday morning and I was getting ready for a much-needed bath. A forest bath.
I’ve only recently learned about the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” A good friend of mine told me about it while we were on a long walk through Discovery Park in Seattle. She explained that shinrin-yoku meant taking in the forest with all of your senses, which can have a calming and restorative effect on your energy and outlook. It doesn’t incorporate exercise like hiking, but is focused on just being in the forest and savoring its sights, sounds and smells.
This new concept took me back to my visit to Japan last year, where my husband and I spent an afternoon in the Rikugien Gardens in northern Tokyo. The gardens were created in 1702 by Japan’s fifth shogun and were designed to depict scenes from six classical poems. I don’t have enough historical context to fully understand and explain the significance of this design. What I can share is the sense of reverence I felt for the garden’s neatly ordered arrangements, fully showcasing its beautiful, mature pines, maples, and weeping cherry trees. The trees were beautiful, but also held a sense of wisdom and fragility. Once we had walked through the gardens, I felt a strong need to sit down among the trees. I convinced my husband to try meditation for the first time, and we sat side by side on a stone bench, taking in the scents and sounds around us. It is one of my favorite experiences from that trip, and I left with a sense of wellbeing that was much harder to cultivate amidst the frenetic activity in rest of the city. The gardens were a wonderful place of reflection and restoration, and I hope to see them again someday.
I have always loved hiking. I grew up just 20 minutes away from some beautiful hikes in the western area
of the Cascade Range, made famous by the 90’s tv show Twin Peaks. I feel comfortable in my own skin when I’m hiking in the woods, my powerful legs carrying me up and up and up to something beautiful and perspective changing. Since COVID-19 and shelter in place, I’ve relied heavily on weekly hikes in the woods to balance me out and improve my mental clarity. We’ve been dragging our kids along every Sunday for the five miles they seem to be mostly capable of now. Even if it’s carried out with much whining, dawdling and snacking. No matter how slow going or agonizing they may be, I think the hikes help all of us maintain perspective that there’s a world beyond the walls of our own home and daily squabbles. That with time, things will shift and change.
On this Tuesday, my husband and I had taken the day off and were heading out to day hike Oyster Dome near Bellingham, WA. The kids were off camping with Grandpa, and this was a precious opportunity to hike with a bit more peace, a bit less snacking and attitudes. The day was warm and as I entered the woods, my shoulders dropped away from my ears. My legs warmed up and my limbs loosened. I breathed in one of my favorite smells; the scent of toasting pine needles on the forest floor, mellowed by the sun and cultivating a faintly nutty quality. I wish I could bottle that smell and take it home. My slow, steady breathing set a rhythm for my mind to clear. Not exactly forest bathing, but a warmup.
We reached the top and were rewarded with views of the sound. So beautiful, that I wondered how they were real and how I was so fortunate as to be standing there to see them. Then we sat and took a forest bath. We watched the animals. Is that a squirrel or chipmunk? Have you ever seen a woodpecker with that coloring before? We sat on the boulders, warming our legs. We looked out over the horizon. Which island is that? Don’t those farmlands flood, being so close to the water? We took in the sounds of the birds twittering and the breeze moving through the trees. At some point these sensory inputs fell away and there were only my thoughts. Why do I feel so much better outside? Is that hard wired, or learned? Does everyone feel that way? If I feel so much better outside, why do I spend so much time inside? How can I use being outside more intentionally to manage my stress?
As we came down the mountain, I thought about my aching knees. Darnit, why can’t I have 25-year-old knees forever. But more importantly, I also thought about the times lately where instead of stewing in my own frustrations, I had walked out onto my back deck and put myself on a time out. Doing nothing, looking at nothing, just sitting. Well, maybe sitting and listening to the chickens. And smelling the chickens. We have quite a colony of them in the neighborhood and they are a vocal, pungent bunch. After five minutes, I felt better. Maybe not all better, but the sense of frustration had dissipated. I could carry on with less emotional charge and more openness. I had taken a quick bath outside amongst the trees, and I felt clean and renewed.
How much time do you spend outside? What does it do for you? If you were able to clear stress and frustration more quickly, what would you have more time and space to achieve? A coach can be a great partner to help
you identify what’s getting in your way, what you really want to achieve, and how to get after it! Contact me to learn more about what coaching can do for you.
