Free time in nature

Last June, I left my job and took a month off to reflect, relax and spend time in nature. This was a major deal for me. I had been working or going to school for decades with no real break beyond recovery vacations. My wife and I decided that this would be good for me and our family to reset, and find my center. I had months to figure this out, as I waited for my decade-long primary care job to wind down. Trying to figure out what would be good for me, healthy, and fulfilling was no easy task. I decided on spending the month outdoors, in nature, and with little fanfare.

The pictures above were from my first leg of the journey, traveling through Mt St Helens National Monument, then Mt Rainier National Park, and North Cascades National Park. I camped, hiked a lot, and spent my time simply existing in nature. I revived! This was such a good and healthy decision. It set me up to then enter a time of stress starting a new job, and all the relationships, learning and newness that this entails. I was able to be relaxed, to shift, learn, and move forward despite being in my 50’s. I was also able to spend some quality time with my daughter who traveled with me.

Lesson learned: nature is amazing and brings healing to your soul. I need to walk through the woods, down the beach, or up on the mountain to energize my soul and reclaim the important things in life.

Part of my goal was to write more, take more pictures and then I decided that I would like to share my process to better health with anyone who had interest. Maybe I could help someone and maybe I could learn how to publish a web page and make it somewhat interesting.

Thus my first post is published…