Getting Outdoors

Throughout the other blogs I posted, "the outdoors" was regularly mentioned.

Over the last number of years I have came to realise that being outdoors had a huge role to play in the improvement of my mental health. I often used to listen to people preach this, but when your mind is in a healthy state, comments like that have no meaning to you.

I remember a time when I was working as a tour guide. I was having lunch with a fellow tour guide. He proceeded to tell me that some years back he collapsed, after some time he was resuscitated. The medics had told him that his body had completely shut down for a period of a couple of minutes. I was really drawn into this story, and I had told myself that I was going to try and appreciate my life a little more. It really touched me. When the lunch had finished and I walked out of the restaurant, I bumped into another colleague. We started chatting about sport and other topics. Later on, as I reflected on my day, I realised I had completely forgot about the conversation I had with my colleague at lunch. It took me a total of twenty seconds after leaving him to get distracted. My point being that, it is only him that can take anything away from his experience, as it happened to him. We cannot take other peoples experiences and apply them to our own lives, well not for any period of time anyhow. 

It may have took me thirty something years to truly appreciate the power of nature, and the benefits it can provide you with. 

Social Media

I thought in my adult life that being a private person was the best way to go. Not letting many people in, keeping myself to myself. Maybe to a certain degree this was right, but it could have been one of the real downfalls of me when I encountered my own problems over the last few years. Looking back and taking from what I have learned in the past, I will always strive to find a balance now between that private person & the guy who will share a blog with the world about his personal life. But if I can find the correct balance, like most things in life, they will weigh themselves up.

Social media was a turning point for me, in 2021, when I started sharing my photography with other like minded people. It soon became clear to me that there was a world of people out there, that could not "escape" to the outdoors, or, the hills & mountains. It was one of my followers  @ME_AndMy_Island  that really opened up my eyes to this. She is one of many people struggling with a virus called ME I soon realised the tireless work that she was putting in to raise awareness for the illness. So I felt inspired and compelled to continue bringing a glimpse of the outdoors to these people. Not only people with this illness, but to anyone that struggled to get out in Nature.

Your mind and body will always need the nutrients that the outdoors provides. Whether it is just to reduce stress in general, fight anxiety or battle depression. Making that effort to get outdoors, even if it is only for a short while, will play a role in your healing. It doesn't have to be in the countryside, or on a beautiful beach. Even exploring or getting lost in your local town or city.

That is the beauty of nature, it can help us get lost, it can help us forget the everyday challenges we have in our lives.

Col