“Have you ever forest bathed?” It was an odd question from a clairvoyant, I felt.
My brows furrowed as I both tried to understand the question and answer it. If my palm wasn’t still in her hands, I would have recoiled to ask more.
Instead, I just shook my head. I didn’t know if an outdoor hike counted or whether it was a specific ceremony or something more to which she referred.
“Being in nature would be really good for you right now,” she said. “It will unlock aspects of your creativity to help your life flow.”
“Who has time to sit in the forest?” I thought to myself.
“And to spark creativity? For what?”
I sat taller in my chair, cleared my throat and tried to energetically roll my eyes to signal to her the need for more helpful, practical insight, which I would not get.
After the session, I reflected on our conversation, including the invitation to be in nature and expand my creativity. While belting up in my car to return to normal life, I reflected on what she said. As my foot pressed down on my accelerator, I sped off with this idea planted in my mind but without knowing how to grow it…until a week later.
At my local yoga center, as I was waited in the hallway to fill up a water bottle before a class, I passed the time by reading the colorful bulletin board, filled with neon yellow, green and pink sticky notes and advertisements of upcoming programs and retreats.
And that’s when I saw it:
FOREST BATHING RETREAT, WEDNESDAY NIGHT AT 6:30PM. TREE HUGGING INCLUDED!
I smirked and took in the message. “Fine. I’ll look into it.”
Leaning in to the forest bathing experience
After doing some research later, I learned a little more about forest bathing. Derived from the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoki, the term means “taking in the atmosphere.” It emerged in that country in the 1980s as an antidote to the modern hustle of Japanese life in a form of eco therapy, as National Geographic describes more.
It isn’t about exercising outdoors but instead is the act of using our senses to connect in nature. It is a practice in presence: To see, feel, smell and hear nature in its essence as the goal and not a byproduct of a hike or a run.
Its intent is to be in commune with nature. As this Time Magazine article shares, there are numerous benefits to shinrin-yoki and tree hugging expands this connection with nature. Zen Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, has a tree hugging meditation that if done with mindfulness can bring healing and contentment. Learn more about it here.
Time in nature, particularly in the forest, has positive benefit to our stress levels, health and even productivity, according to Harvard Business Review. It is said to make us happier, too.
But it was her specific mention of the practice as a gateway to unlocking my creativity that made me curious. As a type A personality, I consider myself analytical and logical more than creative. But upon further introspection, I wondered how true that was.
“Creativity is a force inside every person that, when unleashed, transforms our lives and delivers vitality to everything we do.” Chase Jarvis
As a late-in-life writer, someone with early musical training and a person who enjoys creating delightful combinations in my wardrobe, home and even earring choices – I am probably more creative than I give myself credit for. That’s likely the case for you, too. Given the ties of creativity to personal growth and work productivity, I started to think about how I could explore it more.
Yet I wondered, was it too late to become more creative?
Is it too late to become more creative in midlife?
No, according to the experts. Julia Cameron, the author of the creativity bible, The Artist’s Way says that, in fact, midlife is the perfect time to cultivate this, she writes in a follow up book. For the self-reflective, creativity is considered a path to self discovery. That’s because, in midlife, we have more of an understanding of who we are and can learn to enjoy avenues where we are a beginning again. It takes courage to become a novice again, she believes.
So, how can we tap into our creativity, maybe for the first time?
It could be through a dance class or music lesson. You could do a 2 hour forest bathing experience, liked I did, where we hugged trees and spent our time noticing what’s there, ignoring our step counters or the need to follow trails.
Cameron says there are 4 ways, in particular:
As a testament to the creativity inspired in nature – it was during my forest bathing experience that I gained inspiration for this blog post. While it was a struggle to ignore my phone and relax, I did find that there was something quietly powerful in my experience that I could not achieve on my neighborhood walk. Overall, I left my time in nature feeling calmed and proud of the risk I took to do something new.
This sparked in me a thought: perhaps it isn’t creativity that is the goal, but a testing of the bounds of who we think we are and creatively expanding it – one tree hug, dance class or art lesson at a time.
