[David Fontaine]

I’m going to re-use my response from the Nature Connected Leadership course to this same question (with a few additions) because I still find this to resonate deeply with me today.

For me, being nature connected is getting in touch with our true essence, our true self . And I define that as simply coming from a place of love and respect for others and the true nature of the world . To care about the well-being of everyone and everything in our world.
One of my favorite verses of the Tao answers the question of “what it means to be nature connected” perfectly:

“The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It flows to low places loathed by all men. Therefore it is like the Tao. Live in accordance with the nature of things. In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. Stand by your word. Govern with equity. Be timely in choosing the right moment. One who lives in accordance with nature does not go against the way of things. He moves in harmony with the present moment, always knowing the truth of just what to do.”

I think of nature as much more than the outdoors. Nature is everything. It is the natural state of everything that exists. So being nature connected is about being in tune with the natural flow of everything going on around you. It’s about participating in it without trying to hold it back, make it conform to our preferences or alter it in any way. Being nature connected is important to me because it’s when I feel most alive. It’s when I feel the most valuable to others and my community. Jon Young says that “people thrive when they are connected to themselves, to nature and to other people in ways that support and nurture well-being as well as survival needs.” I couldn’t agree with that more!

The Way of the Wilderness reading reminded me that one of my biggest challenges in staying nature connected is that I can sometimes find myself only connecting out in physical nature (on the water, in the woods or in my sit spot). When I return to my daily responsibilities I can sense the connection lacking at times.
Also, when I have really profound experiences in my wilderness experiences I struggle upon my return. Steven Harper talks about how people “return from the wilderness with a sense of loss or pain” and I have felt that after many huge moments in my life. It’s like there is this deep sadness after the experience is over.

[David Fontaine]

Hello All, I’m David from Nashville, TN. I’m taking this course as a kickstarter to the January coaching course. I’m also registered for the August Wilderness Quest with EBI. Looking forward to meeting you on the call tonight. I will be on for most of it but will need to jump off about 30 mins early.

[David Fontaine]

My next step is to continue relentlessly practicing the concepts from the leadership course. I need to continue to visualize and express my intention. This seems like it should be such an easy step but, since the class has been over, it doesn’t feel as easy to remain as engaged in the practice. I think this is why even though I have claimed my direction, which is to continue to the Coaching program, I have many days where doubt and uncertainty about that choice come in and wreak havoc on my progress and energy. Some days it’s like I forget I have the tools to work through it. I haven’t reached the point where utilizing the tools becomes normal habit. It’s still very much a “grab yourself by the collar and sit down and do it” type thing. But this is to be expected and it’s ok. The biggest of changes are the hardest to instill. The hardest part is trying to keep my mind reigned in. It tends to want to predict what is going to happen after the Coaching program but I haven’t even started the program yet, and won’t for several months! Haha. This is going to take some letting go and trust that I can have all of this unfold how I want it to if I can continue to put in the work, practice and intention setting for myself. I don’t need to worry about all of the little details right now.

[David Fontaine]

Liz, I am so excited to hear that you’ve decided to go to the summit! As a former champion of talking myself out of things that initially make me very excited, I can totally relate to your hesitancy to go. But these moments of conquering the doubt (financial and logistical issues) are so empowering and often the pictures we spun up in our heads about what something was going to cost or how we were going to pull it off were so irrational, or at least not as insurmountable as we expected. I think if we all were able to trust the following of that path that pulls at us the most, we’d doubt ourselves and hesitate a whole lot less often. I’m also very jealous because I enjoy Cheryl Strayed’s writing as well!

Lisa, reading your post reminds me a lot of a book I read at the right time last summer called The Surrender Experiment. It’s about surrendering to where life is pulling you and trusting that there is a reason for it. It sounds like you’ve been open to this concept and have seen how it can pay off. Kudos to you for listening to the calling!

Today, I know that my vision revolves around my continued personal growth and my own personal connection to nature. Nature has been my life and sometimes my life source for as long as I can remember back into my childhood. I’ve always appreciated it in my own way, honored, respected it and urged others to do the same as we enjoyed it together. I was initially steered toward EBI because of an advertisement for the coaching program. I saw this and instantly thought “this is perfect for me! I want to be a coach!” And everybody I told about it agreed that there could not be a better fit. Since that time and the weeks I’ve spent in this leadership course, I’ve dialed back the scope a little bit and truly feel that pursuing the course will be equally as beneficial to me personally, whether I end up becoming a coach afterward or not. I’ve honestly been very surprised to see that there is a whole side of nature connection I hadn’t even tapped into before now and it makes me very excited to go deeper. I want to let my experience in the coaching course play out as it should and end up in whatever direction it pulls me in as it progresses. This feels right, down to the soul level. Every day that I go out and practice my sit spot routine and do my partswork activities I am blown away by how much it evolves. I share my experiences with anyone who will listen. Something that gets me this engaged is what is calling me forward. Watching the bricks all fall into place in order for me to pursue this is what calls me forward. I’m learning. I’m learning about something I actually give a whole lot of shits about. And I’m having fun doing it!

[David Fontaine]

First of all I would love to thank all of you for your continued honesty and openness in these discussions. We’re certainly dealing with some very deep and personal areas here and hearing about your experiences not only keeps me going with my efforts but it helps me to be a little easier on myself when I feel like I am lagging. I’ve always prided myself on becoming an expert in anything I get involved in and it seems I forget that one does not begin anything as an expert. I too have had some avoidance of the practices for this session and it seems to be centered around me feeling like I’m not doing it right more than it is about facing the results. I’ve sat down a few times and as I try to let the practice unfold I’m left staring at all of my parts on pieces of paper not feeling anything really, let alone knowing how to map them. This kind of experience leaves me a little unmotivated to try again but I’ve been plugging away. I did have one good mandala snapshot day, so that’s a start. Sheri, totally feeling ya here and I know you will find a way to navigate the fears. Whenever I’m facing fear I ask myself what I fear more….the things I’m claiming are scaring me? or not being able to grow because of them? Tamara, it’s so great to hear your coaching is going so well! It sounds like you’ve had some major breakthroughs. This motivates me to pursue the coaching that is being offered. Part of me has been hesitant to start with a coach right now because maybe my doubting self will find ways to tell me how I won’t be able to become a coach. But I have way more parts that are excited and curious what takes place in a session and what my future life might look like as a coach. It’s almost like they’re saying to me “we want to see what we’re going to be doing the rest of our life!”

My sit spot routines with a focus on sensory awareness and baseline were going incredibly well until a couple weeks ago. Nashville has been absolutely socked in with pouring rain almost every day. As I sit and write this, I’m realizing I’ve let a part of me dictate that the conditions must meet some kind of expectations in order for me to go out there. I guess I have my empty chair session plan for tonight, haha! All in all though I have been trying to apply sensory awareness to different parts of my day, not just sit spot and I have noticed a maturing there.

I’m struggling a bit to comprehend observing someone else’s council. I don’t necessarily know what the person’s vision is or who is in their council. Has anyone else tried this or had luck with it? I would love some enlightenment on this!

[David Fontaine]

The past week or two I have been focusing on placing intentions into my mind for things I am wanting to change or improve in my life. I have been doing this by first writing the intentions down and then once every day I’m reading these to myself in an effort to build the mental pathways. (example: “I want to start each day with gratitude.” I try to recite these in conjunction with partswork. If any parts have a voice around any of these intentions, I want to know so I can try to resolve it or support it. The partswork is not coming easily to me, but I’ve been jumping into it as much as possible. Along with the intentions, I have outlined action(s) around each of them that will help me move forward. When we learned about Stages of Change it immediately put some things perspective for me and I could sense myself labeling a stage for everything I have been trying to work on. I realized that I usually get derailed at the Action stage because I have been expecting the action to remedy the situation. My challenge has always been remembering to do it consistently and relentlessly. And this fully explains why I have not been completely successful at adopting new ways for myself. Now knowing that it takes time for the brain to build new networking for a changed behavior and, that relapses happen at this stage, makes so much sense to me. So in an effort to support my actions, I am making sure there are visual or some other form of reminders to do the actions. I need to be willing to do whatever it takes to build the actions as habits that become part of my daily life.

[David Fontaine]

In the words of Adriana, I am living in alignment with vision “because I am here”. I couldn’t agree more. Signing up for this course was a huge step for me in showing some of the less confident parts of myself that I mean business with my vision. I’ve had many conversations with people in the past about what I would like to do with my life if I could do anything and it was always consistent. I wanted a nature centered career that would aid in raising the quality of life for myself and others. The last time I had this conversation, my friend asked “what keeps you from pursuing this path?” To which I replied, “I get bogged down and defeated by not knowing where to start”. The following day, an advertisement for EBI showed up in my social media. A few days later, I was enrolled in Nature Connected Leadership and having conversations with Michael and Daniel about my intention to enroll in Nature Connected Coaching as well. Looking back with the knowledge I have now, I can see that I’ve had a major competing commitment keeping me from my vision and that was the comfort, predictability and the high paying salary of my job that I’ve since resigned from. In the time since my resignation I spent 2 months traveling the American West in a 100% nature based trip in my truck, towing a teardrop camper trailer. I brought a library of spiritual, transcendental, and inspiring books with me that literally helped me re-evaluate some of my beliefs about myself and my life. When I got back I was pumped about the experiences I had but also I was done with nature for a little while, haha. I’ve been volunteering my time in my community full-time with various organizations dealing with anything from hunger and homelessness to home hospice services. The idea to take my trip and dedicate my time to volunteering were both things that came to me from the most pure place when I left my job. And they align with exactly the things that my soul needs. “Nature based” and “raising the quality of life for myself and others”. This combined with the concepts I’m now learning from the course give me a lot of hope for my future. I’ve diligently spent time in my sit spot practicing them, even if I don’t fully comprehend some of them yet.

I definitely need to shift my mind from a place of doubt and uncertainty to a place of trust. I can sense a lot of inner turmoil going on about my capacity to really understand and execute some of the concepts I’m learning. This chatter sometimes leads to a lack of focus when trying to practice and apply them. I need to develop my mandala and work on really identifying my parts so I can start facilitating the dialog between whoever is disagreeing. I’ve been in the course about a week now and I think I have had restless nights every night! As annoying as that is, I am laughing about it because I can sense that it is the product of some powerful changes taking place and my ego holding on for dear life to my old ways and my old life. I also need to be more forgiving as I’ve loaded my brain with 3 sessions worth of material in a week, haha! I’m looking forward to these 2 weeks of getting to really dive deeper with it and not worry about being behind.

[David Fontaine]

This is awesome, Kimberly! What a great and challenging opportunity for this practice! I, too get over-stimulated being around family so I honor your braving that for a whole week, haha! I love these observations that you’ve made while engaging with family at the same time! Being able to take in some of the familiarities from a fresh view and perspective must be a really cool experience!

[David Fontaine]

Rhonda, this is one I’ve struggled with a lot, too. I first learned of the exercise in the leadership course last winter and found myself shying away from incorporating it daily because I didn’t feel like it was productive for me. Thanks for speaking up and I hope maybe Michael and/or Daniel can dig into this deeper for us!

[David Fontaine]

Hi Erinn! These are such great thoughts to consider, whether anyone else has or is using our spots for the same purposes we use them. Perhaps that’s why we never truly feel alone while we’re out there, even though we are physically alone in the moment. I like to imagine another’s past healing washing over me and easing me of my troubles while in my spots. I take literally everything to nature to either let it go or ask for guidance. Surely another soul has done the same before us, asking for guidance from a younger forest than the one you stand in today. I think that thought alone can bring comfort and connection.

For most of my life, until the past 5 years or so, I let the weather determine my outdoor activities. Not being a skier in Vermont while I was growing up, I would hole up inside for the winter. Even when I left Vermont later in life, I found myself in this same pattern for many years. As I started contemplating on it more and more, I would just ask questions of myself…..”why is it you can’t kayak in the winter?”, “what is really going to happen to me if I go for a hike in the snow or cold weather?”, “why is the rain keeping me out of my sit spot this morning?”. I never had one good answer to justify any of it. It always came down to old habits and the fact that I bought into my own BS excuses for not getting out of my comfort zone. The past few years I’ve had some of the most amazing experiences in conditions that used to keep me inside. You are totally on the right track though, proper gear makes all the difference….but also leaves no more room for excuses 🙂

Thanks for sharing!

[David Fontaine]

I love your examples of what makes you feel nature connected, Kimberly! I find it’s always the simplest of moments that we feel the most raw experiences of nature connection. It’s rarely in a big business meeting, sitting in traffic on the way home, or discussing politics with an opinionated person. It’s over your morning coffee as you observe the day come to life outside, before the influences of the day’s activities have had a chance to influence your mood and disposition. It’s out on that path you chose to slowly walk instead of run today. And I find it most prevalent when I am actively engaged in self care that I feel the strongest connection to nature. My challenge for myself is to accomplish nature connection in the moments it is hardest for me to access it. It can be so easy to get yanked out of harmony with nature by external influences. I’m great in my sit spot and when I intentionally set time to connect, but what about the rest of the day?

[David Fontaine]

Hi Amanda! Thanks for sharing your perspectives! It definitely gets the wheels turning a bit. Having moved away from my home state long ago I have found my relationship with my parents has weakened and, yes, we talk about the weather a lot now, haha! This sometimes bothers me because I always seek deep relationships with those around me and struggle with “shallow” conversation. It was only in the past year or so that I came to accept this and allow the relationships to ebb and flow in their own way. I was never a fan of the “should” statements that would arise in my mind around this….”I should be closer with my parents”, “I should have a larger friend circle”. I think the epitome of nature is constant change and evolution of all things in it. Some things evolve faster than others and we all have our own stories to live out but, we all remain connected by the same link. I find there is something to be honored and appreciated by even the slightest of encounters with other people and other parts of nature.

[David Fontaine]

Hi Ben! This has been my experience as well in every single life-changing point in my life. When the idea or dream reached its tipping point and I was fully focused and committed to it, every person and every resource I needed just started arriving for me. There is no way to explain this other than complete alignment! Happy for you!

[David Fontaine]

Hi Ash! As a true believer in the idea that “everything I need is on it’s way” or divine timing, I love that you have found peace in backing off from action. I sometimes catch myself feeling moments when I feel like I should really be doing something to support my vision and that can lead to uninspired tasks that aren’t truly helping the cause. They almost come from ego the saying “look what I did today. See? This is proof I care about my passion”. But the work wasn’t heart or soul centered and can take me down paths that feel way off base with my vision when looking back at them. I try to pay more attention to the ideas or inspired moments that come seemingly from “nowhere” that excite me and get me fully engaged. My vision can’t be built around a feeling of obligation to contribute.

[David Fontaine]

Hi Tamara! I can certainly relate to what you said about other people’s reaction to your vision. While I am finding a lot of support in my circle, there are also people who don’t get it. And that’s ok. I don’t need them to get it, this is my story to live and nobody else’s. And this is your story. At the end of the day, nothing can truly be wrong about the intentions we’re setting for our lives right now. We’re centered in bringing light to the nature we enjoy so much and wanting to share that with as many people as possible. You have a network of folks here in this class who will get just as passionate about your goals as you are, lean on us when you need to! Sometimes the universe has a way of asking us if we’re really sure about our chosen path and, at times, it may make it really difficult and sometimes undesirable to us. But if we can weather that gut check and stay committed, I truly believe harmony will come.