Outdoor healing with a sportsman

As a sportsman one thing I find so interesting about this trend of using the outdoors for healing, Is just how fast it’s catching on. If you don’t believe me, let me remind you that you are reading an article about that very subject right now.

At it’s very core are practices that I have been doing for years. Yet for myself, much like many others in the outdoor space are guilty of over looking. Just how useful the skills we use on every adventure are so useful in everyday life. These are tools we gained along the way of honing our craft.

Skills such has breath work. It’s one of the most important skills you must master. In doing any form of shooting where it’s with a firearm or a bow. It is one of the very first fundamentals to learn. That’s because steadiness comes with a calm smooth breath pattern.

In the course of daily life one common hurdle we often find ourselves facing is anxiety. When those dreaded panic attacks leave us feeling shaky and unsteady. We can tap in the shooting space. By drawing on the breath control we built by spending all those hours at the range. We are able to sooth those uneasy feelings brought on by anxiety.

We also hear so much about this idea of being mindfully precent in the moment. One of the largest challenges our world brings with it is this cluster of emotions and stress. All of which can cause us to disconnect. One of our natural instincts is to remove ourselves from stressful or dangerous situations. If your finding yourself thinking to much about that statement. Then think about it this way. It kept our ancestors alive and dose the same for you.

The hiccup comes into play because somewhere along the way our world evolved, but the warning system stayed the same. For some of us those instincts are more intense than others. Maybe for you those emotions came with you into this world. For others they were born from some traumatic experience. Ether way we all have them for the same purpose. Which means we got to master them, or at least learn to control them.

Which is where that deeper understanding of nature comes into play. Since anytime you head into wilderness your a disturbing force. Which triggers those same instincts in every creature that surrounds you. It causes them to stop what they are doing to run and hide. Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds like a response to a panic attack. The need to run and hide in order to protect.

Of course this doesn’t last long. Once the threat has passed its back to the tasks they dropped in order to find safety. A trip into the wildness isn’t about going from point A to point B as fast as you can though. Every outdoor sport be it hunting, fishing, bird watching, or whatever the goal is not just see, but interact with something.

Which means you have pick a spot and tap into nature. There’s a little four word statement that we live by in the wildness, “stillness is the key”.

While it’s not the only but every creature on earth’s first line of defense is their eyes sign. When foreign movement is noticed it triggers the flight or fight defense. More than than not avoidance becomes the same of the game. As a result the more you move, the less you see.

In many other walks of life the stillness you seek is often referred to as meditation. Which is an act of self calming and soothing. It’s the gateway into connection. Which is single handed the root that feeds the tree of healing.

It also employs those skills of breath control we discussed earlier. The connection with Mother Earth really is a cycle. That feeds off each skill you pick up along the journey. Within that spear grows the safety net in which you can find that inter peace your searching for.