Deepening Your Relationship with the Natural World

There are three points that I enjoy sharing with families, with regard to how to bring Nature more deeply into their everyday lives.

1. Welcoming: How do you welcome the natural world into your daily life/into the lives of your children?
2. Attitude: Where is your attitude of gratitude, even for those moments/days that are less than optimal?
3. Fostering the inherent nature of the young child (and humans): Awe, Wonder, Imagination, Curiosity and Play.

Here is an activity you can play with—whether you are indoors or outdoors—to develop a deeper relationship with our Natural World. Time needed: 1 to 2 minutes.

While you are indoors, and right before you are about to go outdoors:

• Smell the air and notice what you notice.
• Touch anything that is close by and notice what you notice.
• Listen to the sounds around you and notice what you notice.
• Taste what you taste in your mouth right then and notice what you notice.
• Look around and see what you see.

Then take one step outside and do the exact same thing!

This is a great game to do for yourself and it is really fun to do with your young ones, up to your fully grown children! You might be quite surprised at what you notice and discover. And, you can do this at different times of day too!!! Have fun 🙂

I look forward to sharing more of these fun games and easy-to-implement foundational points in the monthly newsletters and blog posts to come.

(Photo by Apex from this article.)