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The death of a pet can be a very stressful and painful experience when you have had a strong and loving bond with you pet.
Not only is your constant and loving companion gone; your emotions and thoughts are a mess: overwhelming you and very likely keeping you from getting decent sleep. That deep state of grief you are in after pet loss can be hard to handle, and you’re longing for even just a little peace of mind.
There are many ways of healing, and one of them is as simple as letting nature heal you.
Try one day to spend some time in nature, whether is is your own garden, a park, or a wild nature area you have access to.
However, when you go out in nature with the intention to heal, you approach it with a greater awareness and mindfulness than you probably would have done normally.
Meditation in nature
Choose a time that’s good for you – early morning is usually a good time. You can for example start with a short meditation.
Sit on a chair or lie on a blanket and first feel your body; become fully present in your body and take a few deep breaths, then breathe completely naturally with no effort. Go on to listening to all the sounds around you in all directions. Practice just listening without judging – listen to all the sounds, so that it all becomes a kind of music – which you are listening to from the place of stillness. No sound is “better” than another, so if a car comes by, don’t let the traffic become ‘noise’ to you. The sound of the car is part of the “music”.
Stillness
After a little while, you are probably more still and calm. Relax the small muscles around your eyes and your facial muscles. Open your eyes and look at what is around you. Don’t tense, Just look; don’t label anything. Notice the stillness that surrounds a tree or a flower.When you really look at anything in nature – trees, plants, flowers, stones, animals – you get a feeling that they are who they are. They have a stillness, a “beingness” that most of us humans have lost.
It is so easy to lose sense of who you are and of your connection with all beings. That is the ‘normal’ way of living.
Healing
When you take time to connect with that stillness and beingness of nature, you will begin to let go of the stress and imbalance within yourself and reconnect with your own inner stillness and beingness.Being in nature with an open mind and heart can be a way of returning home to YOU.
Healing help is always available. Healing happens when you connect to all and find your place in and among all creation; when you stop seeing yourself as separate.
Action Step
Go out in nature and sit quietly for a while – even if just 10 minutes – let your body calm down by itself and take in your surroundings, with seeing, smelling, listening, feeling – all at once without judging.Take a deep breath and feel the air going into your body, giving you life. Say a blessing and a thank you to your body, which works so hard night and day to keep you alive, to the air and the water which nourishes you, the food you eat.
End the practice and start your day with a feeling of and a few words of gratitude. And notice what a difference it makes in your day.
If you like the Eckhart Tolle quotes on this page, you will love his book, “Stillness Speaks”. It is a wonderful little book full of wisdom and inspiration that you will return to again and again.
