Why Walk & Talk? Why is Nature so important to me? And why do I want to share this with my clients?

Simply put, if we use nature as a metaphor for our lives, we can learn so much and find so much comfort. Using nature as a mirror for our own lives, means knowing that nothing ever stays the same; sometimes we need to raze our lives to the ground in order to grow back stronger; the same view changes rapidly but that doesn’t mean that the foundations aren’t still there…. The list of metaphors is endless.

Take yesterday. I was walking Bootsie when I turned up a well-trodden path only to find that it has completely grown over. I walked that path not 10 days ago and it was still passable. Yesterday you’d struggle to see a path if you didn’t know it was there. Even Bootsie turned to look at me in confusion.

Okay, so sometimes we hit an overgrown path and there is no way around it. So what do we do? Get a stick and beat the path back? We know it’s there, so why not just trample the overgrown undergrowth?

Do we turn around and go back the way we came? We know that’s passable and we’ve done it before so there is a security in that. But! I was about three quarters of my way into the walk, so would turning around mean that I have to do the whole walk again but backwards?

We might even give up, sit down and wait for something to happen to change the situation. That could be a long wait…

In this case, it was possible to walk over a bit of unmarked forest and reach a different path. So that’s what we did. We still got to where we had planned, it just took a little longer. And in doing so, we created a new path between the old and new.

And so it is with life. Sometimes we’ve got a solid plan. It’s one we’ve executed many times, but suddenly there’s an obstacle in the way. Maybe the car breaks down on the way to work or someone is ill so plans need to change or even get cancelled.

Whatever the reason, how we interact with the obstacle can make a big difference to the outcome. Our experience and resilience can also inform how we chose to move forward. Do we panic and turn around and go home? Or do we beat it with a stick and force the situation?

Sometimes just being open to the possibility of another way can lead to the same end. And sometimes, going out of our comfort zone to try the alternative can lead us to places that we never knew existed. We may even create new opportunities in doing so.

This can be scary. But you know, what? When you face something scary, we also call that bravery. We can all summon the strength to be brave and change our mindset when things don’t go to plan. We can forge new paths and discover things that we didn’t even know about ourselves and the wider world.

And that’s just one of the reasons why I love to use nature as a metaphor for life. There is always something around the corner that is different to how it was yesterday. The question is, are we brave enough to welcome the challenge and meet a different version of ourselves?