How Nature Can Help You Grieve
It’s 3AM.
You still haven’t slept.
Whenever you close your eyes all you can see is the face of your loved one who is no longer here.
When you’re up and going about your day, the smallest of things remind you of them. Perhaps it’s grabbing for their favorite tea they used to drink, a song on the radio, or a phrase that someone said that is exactly what your loved one used to say.
These reminders and any memory of your loss arise an aching in your heart, you begin to cry, waves of sadness coming over you, and you maybe feel a lump in your throat.
Grief’s Impact
Grieving elicits somatic (physical) sensations, it affects our mind as we become preoccupied, causes us to behave differently, and feel a wide range of emotions – sometimes various ones at the same time that wouldn’t normally go together.
The act of mourning literally affects every part of our being. Grief is natural. It’s a natural response for when we’re confronted with the loss of something or someone we formed attachments to. How much we grieve depends on the depth of the attachment. All of the physical, emotional, spiritual, behavioral, and psychological reactions we have when we are mourning, are our ways of adapting to the loss.
How we effectively mourn or adapt to our loss depends on the intention and time placed on active grieving. When we’re in nature, we are given many tools for effectively mourning. I’ll explain more below.
Grief and Nature
It might seem almost instinctual to place grief and nature together. As I previously mentioned with how innate it is to grieve and mourn, nature has always held a monumental place in our healing process, whether we’ve been attuned to it or not.
By simply witnessing the changes of the seasons, we see that death is a part of life’s cycle. As fall and winter come, the leaves begin to wither and die, as well as a lot of vegetation when the cold weather hits. Hawks and other predatory animals must take life from another to sustain theirs and their offspring. Death occurs daily in the natural world.
You might say to yourself, “But these deaths are necessary. In the spring new leaves and crops will grow. Predators hunt to keep themselves and their kin alive.” Thus, death in these contexts have been given meaning.
To healthily grieve and mourn our losses, we must give meaning as well. We must understand our loss and how it changes circumstances – both for the bad, as well as the good.
Nature Holds Space
In counseling as well as other healing environments, there’s talk about holding space. Essentially this means allowing the wounded to have a place where they can do the work for healing. Nature provides this through its inherent non-judgment, quietness and solitude, and plenty of room to engage in the behaviors traditional to mourning.
You want to yell? Go ahead and yell.
Do you feel the tension and anger in your body? Go ahead and stomp on the dirt paths, and maybe hurl some stones into a nearby river or stream.
Need to calm down your nervous system? The best air to do deep breathing exercises can be found among a forest of trees.
When you’re out in nature, it demands nothing more from you than to be exactly who you are at the present moment.
Nature Promotes Emotional and Mental Health
Natural spaces have already been known to alleviate symptoms related to depression, anxiety, and stress. Many of these symptoms are likely to be experienced when you’re mourning. The feelings of despair associated with depression, the uncertainty related to anxiety, and the stress of the loss in general can all be reduced or softened by just being outdoors in nature.
To add an increased benefit, put your phone away and any other technology that might take away from you being fully immersed in your natural surroundings. Powerful grief work requires you to minimize distractions so you can fully engage with the pain as well as the memories of your loss. Having full engagement will help you begin to make meaning of what’s happened and give better clarity to the circumstances of the loss that will aid in your understanding of what to do next.
You’ll also become more aware of what your mind and spirit are telling you to do for continued healing. For example, as you’re walking along a trail you might come across a large stone slab that looks like a table or altar. Perhaps it reminds you of the religious or spiritual traditions that comfort you, and you begin to think about bringing in ceremony or ritual into your active mourning. Perhaps you decided to gather elements around you that might represent what you are trying to convey.
You might gather stones to represent your undying love or commitment to the memory of your loss. Or maybe you put together water and dirt, mixing them together to illustrate the transformation of your grief pain to continued love and moving forward as a new person. You might feel inspired to sing or pray in honor of your loss and tune in to how the animals react to your presence. You might feel the wind picking up during certain moments of your ceremony and come to an understanding of what that means for you. Whatever it is you decide, your intention and sincerity will aid you in healing.
A Final Word
No matter how deeply you choose to engage or interact with nature for active mourning, you are sure to find noticeable benefits. While grieving is ultimately your journey, you don’t have to take that journey alone. You can bring a friend, someone who has shared in your loss, or even a counselor such as myself!
Lastly, remember there’s no specific distance on a trail that will say you’ve trekked enough. That’s for you to determine, and the same goes for your healing. Grieving takes time, and it’s okay if you need to have moments where you take a break, just like you might find a rock to sit on when you’re weary from a hike. Listen and trust in yourself to know what’s right. May the trails lead you to where you need to be!
