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| Natural Acts
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Embattled at work, besieged at home and everywhere the relentless over-stimulation of a technology that never shuts down? Faced with all this, you dream about – what? More time at the mall?
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| Chances are when you close your eyes, it’s the seashore you envision, quiet offshore breezes and rolling surf the only sound for miles around. Maybe you long for a fragrant pasture
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and the anarchy of wild flowers. It might not be an idle yearning. Your cravings for a natural fix may reflect an ancient continuum of values existing at the core of the human psyche.
Ecopsychology, a term coined in 1979 by renowned academic Theodore Roszac, is a hybrid of ecology and psychology based on the idea of a binding relationship between the natural world and the human psyche.
“Biologically and psychologically humanity is part of nature. Dire problems arise because people in contemporary society live extremely nature-separated lives…” says Dr. Michael Cohen, an ecopsychologist, founder of Project Natural Connect and a special consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. “We create short-term pacifiers for our nature-disconnection by creating indoor substitutes for nature and by becoming ‘winners.’ Our substitutes cause additional problems because we become dependent on them while their shortcomings pollute and destroy natural systems around and within us.”
Dr. Cohen, who has a Distinguished Citizen of the World Award, is the author of many books including The Web of Life Imperative and Reconnecting with Nature (available on Amazon.com). He has developed and teaches a practical organic application of ecopsychology called “Organic Psychology.”
In broad terms, ecopsychology synthesizes disciplines in an effort to reconcile the discrepancies between our natural selves — reanimating our child’s joy in the direct experience of nature — and the modern urban psyche, which it identifies as destructive and artificial.
Research lends support to his theory, suggesting, for example, that city dwellers are more likely to suffer from depression than their country cousins.
“Contemporary society rewards us for spending over 95 per cent of our time indoors and 99 per cent of our thinking disconnected from nature and its rewards,” says Dr. Cohen. “We applaud our young people for spending 24,000 hours of their developmental years being educated indoors where they learn to expertly think and relate through abstract words, stories and technologies that demean or conquer natural systems. We produce adults whose senses are dulled and whose thinking is disconnected from nature…Like a benighted cancer we overrun, pollute and destroy natural systems in people and places, all the while knowing these systems are life and that they support our life.”
To Heal the World You Must First Heal Yourself:
“In a nature-disconnected society, enjoyable, natural life comes to the consciousness that seeks it,” says Dr. Cohen.
- Discover the wonders of your own backyard year round.
- Go into the woods; walk along the seashore. Involve your senses. Feel the sun on your face, the sand at your feet. Listen to birds. Enjoy the beauty of nature’s palette. Breathe deeply. “When we make safe sensory contact with attractions in Nature, they trigger our brain to release Dopamine, which triggers good feelings,” says Dr. Cohen.
- Touch what you see. Pick up a stone. Feel its strength and put it back where you found it. It will teach you to enjoy what you do not possess.
- Take outdoor trips. Coping with natural obstacles enhances self-image and confidence.
- Cherish animals. Garden or decorate with plants.
- Meditate using Wordsworth and Thoreau as inspiration.
It was Thoreau, after all, who said that what we call wilderness is a civilization other than our own.
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