Lately, I have been feeling incredibly homesick. Growing up in Texas, I never realized how the culture was an integral part of who I am as an individual. When we are young, there can be periods of our lives that imitate darkness that is unspeakable (literally, it goes beyond the English language).
Sometimes, those memories have ways of covering the truth about our experiences. What I’ve learned about life is – majority wise, we will fall in and out of periods that are rough like a bristle patch or smooth and steady like a well-ironed trail.
There is something truly wild about Texas. You can smell it in the air. The grass is thick and sticks to the edge of your shins and the air is damp and full of moisture. The nights feel full of mystery and of unexplored territories.
In the evening, when you’re out on the patio sipping sweet tea, you find yourself fanning your face just to get the mosquitos to stop biting you. And it is no lie that everything is bigger – varmints that is. The spiders are bigger, the lizards hang at the edge of the door and the wildlife is rowdy and unruly. The flowers grow where they please and they do not ask for forgiveness.
All of this time – I was never able to see the magic of life in my home state.
The wild of Texas is the perfect place to utilize your resources for battling with patterns of fearful thinking. Being in nature is an easy way to practice the R.A.I.N. meditation.
When battling with patterns of fearful thinking through dismantling doubt and anxiety, remembering a simple R.A.I.N. meditation can be a resource of peace, happiness, and harmony. The meditation originally coined by a psychologist, Tara Brach, allows the individual to self-soothe and find peace when confronted with feelings of overwhelm or discomfort.
The R.A.I.N acronym stands for the following:
R: Recognize What’s Going On
A: Allow the Experience to be There, Just as it is
I: Investigate with Kindness
N: Natural Awareness, which Comes From Not Identifying With the Experience
For me, when I am in nature, there is nothing to fear because I am so grateful to be alive with the beauty and majesty of the great outdoors. When we’re outside there is an eternal essence of self-support from something so much larger than us. It is easy to practice self-compassion when we’re surrounded by the grace of the wild.
