I have mentioned a few times that my daughter is neither naturally sporty, particularly active or indeed fearless. She is perhaps the opposite. So I was especially proud that she decided on the Saturday morning, as we dithered whether to have an hour in the water at Buzz Active Cuckmere, that this was indeed the ideal opportunity for her to go solo in a kayak for the first time.
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30 Days Wild: Freshwalks: Networking in the Outdoors
This filthy-wet month, I am trying to spend time outside in nature during my working day as part of the Wildlife Trusts 30 Days Wild. I cannot pretend it has been as easy as last year’s sun-drenched June when gently swaying flower meadows and deserted Norfolk beaches called out to me.
However, recently a client of mine drew my attention to an innovative and inspiring initiative getting business people into the outdoors, for Freshwalks. The benefits of which might surprise a few…
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30 Days Wild: Switch off with Nature
We are just a few days away from June and the start of 30 Days Wild; the Wildlife Trusts amazing initiative to get people outside, enjoying and appreciating nature.
This year, as part of 30 Days Wild I will be focussing on how nature can help alleviate the stresses and strains of work and how to get more of it into the working day.
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Do you want to live more adventurously?
The decision to change my life and live more adventurously was utterly instinctive, borne of exasperation, a last resort. I was burnt out, suffering from anxiety, depressed.
How I got to the point of changing the direction of my life was a couple of years of mental wrangling and torture, until I stumbled across some inspiration.
This month my excuse for not going out is...
Wow. It’s three weeks since my last blog post and I haven’t really spent any time outside. I would like to tell you that my knee woes have been the reason for this neglect.
However, that would only be part of the truth. I have been working more than I would like and I think I am nearing a point when I need to step back and delegate more in order to maintain a the kind of healthy balance I desire.
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Walking with self-doubt - a Guest post by Shona Macpherson
Over the last couple of years, I’ve felt an increasing pull – almost a seduction – to be alone outdoors in nature. Yet I’ve also felt huge doubt about my capabilities in that environment. Could I navigate well enough? Could I deal with unexpected circumstances? I felt a big grey vague shadow of ‘I’m not good enough’.
In live in the beauty that is Inverness, in the Scottish Highlands and I’ve a small but lovely outdoor community with whom I walk and cycle.
But there was something about being alone in the wild that got under my skin.
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The outdoors is guilt free pleasure
Doing nothing often brings on feelings of guilt. But it is essential to find a way to quiet your mind and doing nothing can be a the best way.
And, As it happens, going outdoors is the best kind of nothing… cos, you know, it’s not nothing.
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What if the outdoors is not the answer?
I struggle to enjoy myself. My anxiety turns my mind to thoughts of doom and my feelings of guilt prevent me from truly enjoying myself.
I am sure I am not alone. But, this doesn't happen in the outdoors. I don’t know why.
If it is something I am doing when I am paddling or walking or just sitting under a tree listening to the sounds of the forest I might be able to translate it to my every day life… but what if it isn’t? It definitely isn’t. Ah, there I go again.
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Are the Northern Lights the top bucket list item? I failed to see them when in Iceland.
Why Bucket Lists are bad
Many of us are striving to “be something or someone”. Perhaps you would like to legitimately call yourself an “adventurer” and you are naturally looking for big things to do to demonstrate this to your peers and yourself. Perhaps your expectations are lower but, as in any walk of life, it can easily become second nature to compare yourself with others, with what they do and how you perceive them through their online personas and the achievements you hear about.
We make lists of goals, achievements or experiences we would like to tick off but what if we could gain more from looking backwards?
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How Walking In Peru Saved My Mind - Janet Jones
My unhappiness reached such a low level, like many people, I began to feel I was ill with depression and I believed my only choice was to take antidepressant pills. Fortunately for me, I received a piece of direct mail that introduced me to the power of my mind and the importance of learning how to manage my thoughts. I was also introduced to the need for goals.
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Image courtesy of Adventure Uncovered
Mind Over Mountains with Alex Staniforth
For me time spent in the hills, mountains and generally in the honest embrace of nature is an unquantifiable tonic. It has helped me to re-balance my life and to look after my mental health in the last couple if years.
Brought to you by Adventure Uncovered and led by the remarkable Alex Staniforth, Mind Over Mountains is an event which focuses on the connection between mental wellbeing and hillwalking...
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A Moment Of Surrender - A Guest Post by Matt Allen
A storm had brewed through the night and was still releasing it’s menacing self on one memorable winter morning, it was 5am and dark outside. a comfortable pillow and a warm blanket tempted me to stay all snuggled up but a calling from the sea is a calling to which I can not say no.
I saddled up on my bike and made my way to the sea, the wind slowed me to almost a walking pace. I should have known at this point that danger was on the horizon, however a part of me knew I was going to dance with the thundering waves.
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How I deal with Fear (not Alex Honnold levels).
Reluctant and scared has often been my default position. I am sure I have this in common with most of humanity as I stick to my "comfort zones”. It has prevented me doing things I want to do, developing business ideas and telling people what I really think.
It shaped my educational and early career path (I say “path" but it was more like a circular track caused by an adventurous sheep that has never left a field) and it definitely prevented me from having a much richer and more interesting social life when I was young (yes I also mean with girls).
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Wilderness and Wellbeing - A Guest Post by Robert Nicholas
At 42 years old I find myself stuck in corporate life, chained to my desk for long hours in major cities around the UK. This makes my excursions into the great outdoors even more important, my medicine for the trappings of modern life and the frustrations of big business. I love nothing more than getting out running on the trails and Fells of Northern England, just me, my dog and nature. This is not the story of one individual event but more the repeated restorative powers my adventures exert on both my physical and mental health.
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Why do you want change? - A Guest Post by Sarah Lister
This question is an opportunity to pause and understand ourselves better, otherwise life sort of runs away and our dreams can get left behind. Instead of striving through life and gasping for change we can discover a path where we are connected and follow our intuition. I see it as a stepping stone towards clarity and motivation.
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Writing Competition Winners: Seanna Fallon - 3rd Prize
Society taught me that if I ever got attacked it would be late at night, I’d be walking alone down a dodgy street, I’d be wearing something revealing and I’d be intoxicated.
The first time it happened however, I was working in a coffee shop, wearing my frumpy apron, it was the middle of the morning and I’d only been drinking espresso, and I was attacked by a colleague when I was tidying the stock room.
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5 Amazing Things That happened This week
Routines maketh man. It's Two weeks in a row that I publish this post. does it make it a "thing"? Perhaps.
I do realise the potential for hyperbole - something which is becoming increasingly irritating to the modern online reader. I would warn people against entitling their articles in this way however I will stick with it because there will be "amazing things" in these posts. Can there be degrees of amazing? I think so.
1. Natural Health Service!
Fortunately I am well aware of the benefits of fresh air and exercise to help my mental health but it is nice to see it written in mainstream media and with increasing pressure for it be prescribed.
Here are two articles I have read this week extolling the medicinal values of nature and getting outside... and one I published a while ago.
- Natural health service: wildlife volunteers get mental health boost.
- What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise
- Reasons Why the Outdoors is Good for your Health
As a volunteer for The Wildlife Trusts I can heartily recommend it and I sincerely hope others will follow suit.
2. "Maybe it was because I was five feet tall, or I was a little blonde girl..."
“... but I remember that clearly — and it didn’t feel good”. This was the reaction when Caroline Gleich said she wanted to complete the “Chuting Gallery”, 90 extremely difficult and dangerous ski mountaineering lines across Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, from the cult backcountry guidebook; The Chuting Gallery.
"Follow Through" is the story of her amazing achievement, who inspired her, the losses along the way and listening to the right people.
3. Rucksack Magazine
I appreciate that this magazine has been around for a short while but it was this week that I "discovered" it. Here is a high quality "online journal and printed bi-annual magazine" which portrays the wild, and adventures, in a most stylish fashion. There are some amazing photos with a sort of haunting quality, even when looking at small details, that is reminiscent of the paintings of Daniel Crawshaw. I assume this I a policy of theirs... and I love it.
Check out rucksack Magazine here.
4. Feel Part of a Community with Twitter Chats
Occasionally I take part in a Twitter Chat; a conversation, usually based around a hashtag that takes place on Twitter at an hour appointed by the organiser. Anyone can organise it, anyone can take part. It is quite a nice way to chat with those who share a similar interest, for example I might do one for outdoor or travel bloggers, when I can. It is a nice way to learn a little and often just to talk shop - that favourite of British pastimes.
Anyway, this week I came across this great little article by @VicAdvisor listing Twitter Chats for travel bloggers and it looks like it could be a very useful resource to enable people to "join the conversation" and feel they are part of a community.
5. Forays in Foraging
Having collected sloes a few days before and then frozen them on Sunday night we started the process of making sloe gin.
"That isn't amazing", I hear you say. Bah... you're probably right, but this is pretty good: Some more boozy foraging ideas from Ordnance Survey, courtesy of @CraftInvaders.
Depression or Gratitude: How I Deal with Self-pity
But I dislike self-pity, I really, really hate it. And I think it is because deep down I know it is a fault I have always had in abundance. And one I have battled to eradicate in my own make-up for as long as I remember. But, like smoking and other dependencies, it is always there. Lurking. Self pity is always willing to prop you up like a crutch. Even when you are spent, self-pity always seems to have enough energy to enable you to spend time reflecting, reeling, recriminating, when you might be doing something positive. Self-pity is easy. Self-pity is shameful. It stops you drawing the curtains to reveal a spectacularly sunny day.
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