There is a trail I often walk near my house with a lovely river running nearby. When I walked on it yesterday, the water was a milk chocolate brown from sediment movement caused by rainfall the night before. It was interesting and different, the banks of the river shifting to contain the larger amount of water moving through.
This morning, I went on the same walk. The river had returned to its clear trickle, with stones and pebbles visible underneath. The water running over larger rocks wasn’t quite as loud as it had been the day before.
Emotions are like these changes in weather and the ripple effects that can happen. Emotions can feel large, maybe uncomfortable and we don’t like it, but they don’t last forever and things go back to baseline.
What if your baseline is not in a healthy flow though? What if you feel numb, like nothing is moving through? Or does it feel like there is a torrent of water? Does the stress you are under feel like a short change in the flow of your life, or does it feel like long-term pressure that has been wearing at your banks? If the baseline is an overflowing or underflowing river, things need to change.
There are things that can be done to change the pressure of the flow, either increasing the flow or decreasing it, depending on what is needed. This usually involves making a shift in our schedule or our routine. Sometimes, however, biology and the weather will affect our baseline no matter how we shift our routine, meaning that we also need to change the banks of the river to withhold the stress, like the rocks placed on the banks in the picture below.
Changing your banks to withstand your natural mental health challenges can include going to regular therapy, getting medication management, a regular spiritual practice, regularly checking in with friends and family, seeking to be in communities that lift you up, a pattern of exercise, and more. You can build banks to hold your emotional challenges, even on days when it rains.
Please reach out if you are interested in taking your mental health therapy outdoors! Email me at heidi@midatlanticnaturetherapy.org or call me at 240-224-3049 to set up a free 15-minute consultation.