How to Overcome Fear

Article by Emily Wojcik - Updated November 2021. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!

I have a deep desire for keeping my emotional energy flowing. Fear is one emotion that stops everything dead in its tracks. When I let emotions sit, they (like food) can go undigested and become toxic to the health, wellness, and balance of my whole being.

Take a breath with me

1. Relax your jaw and facial muscles. Let your shoulders down. Surrender any other tension you may be feeling in your body.

2. Breathe into the newly relaxed space within you, gifting yourself with as much expansion as is comforting.

3. Surrender the mind into an effortless concentration as you absorb the following perspective.

This is a safe space for all who read:

There are moments in our lives that trigger us: our hearts sink into our guts (and our butts) when we learn about something that terrifies us or we find ourselves in a precarious situation.

The world stops for an eternal moment.

• Our emotions flare.

• Our physical bodies show tangible signs of disruption.

• Our minds race around in circles to find anything to hang on to-- any semblance of familiarity, comfort, justification or reasoning.

How do we manage ourselves when we are experiencing all of this?

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The Physiology of Fear

The autonomic nervous system (the part of the body that functions without conscious thought) is the aspect that responds to fear first. It sets off a series of chemical reactions throughout many parts of the brain and into the rest of the body.

Blood vessels constrict, heart rate and breathing increases, muscles contract, sweat beads.  

We may even feel our body wants to extricate the food we were in the middle of digesting. *cue reminiscent love for the previous meal </3

Since we are faced with varying degrees of stimuli, our bodies will have varying responses. Our subconscious beliefs, programming, and conditioning come to the surface. This can be what our bodies remember from previous experiences and/or how our parents and ancestors responded to fear.

Do you know how your body responds to fear?

You may be thinking: Emily, why would I want to know that? I don’t want to feel any fear ever.

It’s not the slightest bit fun. In fact, feeling fear in my body scares me just as much (if not more) than the trigger itself.

I have to agree… it’s not in my Pleasant Experiences Category either. But I am capable of feeling fear ripple through my mind, body, and emotions and that makes it a wonderfully viable aspect of me to observe and artfully master.

Okay, Emily, fabulous… how do we go about that? Below is the approach I take.

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Four Steps to Overcoming Fear

1. Tune into the Breath

There is extraordinary power in Presence. We can absolutely get wrapped up in and overwhelmed by the physical body’s response—that is ultimately what makes emotions such a real experience: the physical body responds to a cascade of chemical reactions and produces new sensations. Those sensations can absolutely be alarming and don’t necessarily make it easier to consciously process the situation.

By breathing deeply and slowly, you welcome your full focus to witness how the inhales and exhales feel. Pulling your awareness into the present moment allows busyness to subside, anxiety and worry to disappear. Physiologically, slow deep breathes share oxygen with every cell and slow the heart rate. You’re giving yourself permission to become centered, grounded, and rational when surrendering into that state.

2.  Drop into the body

Imagine your awareness dropping like a rock in a pond into the root of your pelvis. You can begin to breathe in more deeply into the body; really feeling your vessel. Fear challenges everything that we know about ourselves. It’s an extremely intimate experience. It is empowering beyond measure to witness and BE with yourself during your most vulnerable moments.

3. Drop any inner resistance by relaxing the mind

When we hit a limit of how much we think we can handle; we unconsciously tense our bodies. Here is a challenge to change behavior: allow stimuli, information, and emotions to flow through you without resistance. You step into your Higher Seat of Consciousness when you make the choice to observe yourself and experiences.  I learned about equanimity and neutrality when I sat in Vipassana for 10 days. I’ve personally found this to be highly beneficial for a deeper and more thorough understanding of myself and the situation at hand.

4. As it is safe to do so, sit with it

Light a yummy smelling candle, dim the lights, get a soft blanket—soothe your senses as a way to be gentle and kind to yourself. Mastering the fear response is not an easy human lesson. Remember how deeply you love yourself, and make this part as sensationally delicious as possible to ease your way. Hold safe space for your Self to feel every suppressed thought and physical sensation that has been building up pressure, friction, and conflict within you. You can gift yourself with this intentional space to feel and process emotions that are held in your field and your physical body.  Being purposeful with this process can hold the subconscious “Things to Process” door wide open. This is both an effective and efficient way to process and integrate emotional pain: going all in and feeling it fully.

This four step practice is definitely character building. The emotions don’t decrease in intensity, but we can choose to be empowered to respond in new ways to our lived experiences. Once I was able to embrace the courage I needed to develop a deep sense of Trust with myself, I was able to grant myself full permission to process emotions in a satisfying and effortless flow.

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The Connection between Fear and Gut Health

Fear is such a powerful emotion that it interacts significantly with the physical body. One place that fear has the greatest impact is the digestive system. Depending on how strongly and how long fear is experienced, it can affect gut motility (the time it takes food to transit through the digestive system), the level at which food is digested, and how at ease you feel throughout digestion. Since being in a fearful state can degrade gut health, having poor digestion will leave you more vulnerable to experiencing fear. Prioritizing gut health with the FoodFast method while at the same time utilizing the meditation practice above will allow you to overcome fear triggers and responses that previously may have been crippling.

Overall, this is an amazing way to level up your your relationship with yourself and deepen into a successful gut health journey.

I love you

Be well,

Emily

How Athletes Benefit from Cannabinoids

Article by Stefan Burns - Updated January 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!

Cannabis and its cannabinoids like cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabidiol (THC) have been used for thousands of years recreationally, medicinally, and spiritually. Cannabinoids exert effects on the endocannabinoid system in the body, which changes conscious experience, enhances the mind-muscle connection, increases heart rate while reducing blood pressure, and downregulates pain receptors. Used responsibly, the combined physiological and psychological effects of cannabis make it an effective plant medicine which can be used for a variety of wellness purposes. For athletes, cannabinoids can be used to heal from injury faster, reduce pain, modulate satiety, and increase athletic performance.

Athletes benefit from CBD and THC in a variety of ways. CBD and THC are anti-inflammatory compounds that activate the endocannabinoid system, a bioelectric pathway which runs parallel with the nervous system throughout the body. Because of this unique pathway cannabinoids deliver anti-inflammatory and pain relieving effects to locations difficult to reach with other herbs or modern drugs. The anti-inflammatory and pain reducing effects of cannabis can be applied locally via creams and oils, or full body effects are possible with the use of tinctures, edibles, or dry vaporization. With the right dosing, combining local and full body application of cannabinoids has powerful therapeutic effects.

Table of Contents:

1. Use Cannabis to Heal from Injury

2. Use Cannabis to Increase Athletic Performance

3. Use Cannabis to Heal the Digestive System

4. Use Cannabis to Rest Better

5. How to Use Cannabis

6. Choosing the Right Cannabis

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Use Cannabis to Heal from Injury

The anti-inflammatory and pain reducing effects of cannabis is most useful for athletes when an injury is sustained. Cannabinoids help the body to heal better, and by reducing pain, restorative healing methods like muscle and joint flossing which regrow joint cartilage can be performed with less discomfort. Pain is the body’s way of bringing conscious attention to a problem that needs addressing, and in this manner it is helpful biofeedback as to what the problem is and how to fix it. When a muscle or joint injury is sustained, the fastest way to heal the affected area is to utilize a multi-faceted approach by eating an anti-inflammatory diet, utilizing heat therapy (via a sauna, bath, or heat wrap), and begin mobilizing the effected area slowly and safely. Mobilization is especially important as it increases blood flow to the site of injury, improves proper movement patterns (best done with the help of a professional), and broadens range of motion.

The degree of mobilization possible depends on the level of injury. Only a small amount of mobilization may be possible depending on the severity of the injury, for example just wiggling the toes after rolling an ankle may be all that is safely possible to start. Mobilization of an injured area done just to the edge of pain progressively and consistently will speed up the healing process and strengthen the weakened tissues. Utilizing cannabinoids, athletes can reduce pain signals to more appropriate levels while performing mobilization exercises and stretches, reducing stress and fatigue which increases the rate of healing. For optimal athletic performance, injury is to be avoided at all cost, and if an injury is sustained, then healing the injury as fast and completely as possible in order to get back to training and competition is of the utmost priority. Cannabis use can help prevent injury and if injury does occur, cannabis can speed up the healing process.

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Use Cannabis to Increase Athletic Performance

Because of how cannabinoids are transported and used throughout the body, cannabinoids increase the ability to perceive hyper-localized muscular contractions and proper movement patterns. For bodybuilders, being able to feel a muscle is known as the mind-muscle connection, and bodybuilders utilize enhanced muscular sensory awareness to better target certain muscle groups for selective growth to achieve better aesthetic symmetry. For athletes in other sports, the mind-muscle connection can be used to better connect with movement patterns important for that sport. This could be a golf swing or the throw of a ball. Proper mechanics will improve power output while reducing energy usage by increasing movement efficiency. Because cannabis enhances kinesthetic awareness, it can be used to better feel and therefore learn higher quality movement patterns.

Cannabis for many people also improves endurance. Lower blood pressure and a faster heart rate increases time to exhaustion and can allow an athlete to push beyond limits normally encountered. Another reason cannabis can increase endurance is due to its psychoactive properties. Cannabis high in THC changes brainwave patterns to make it easier to enter into a flow state. It is being able to enter into a flow state that separates the best athletes from their peers who may become distracted or anxious in the same situation. Cannabis can help an athlete learn how to enter into a flow state easier and how to maintain it for longer, and with practice this can be done naturally without the use of cannabis.

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Use Cannabis to Heal the Digestive System

Due to the stress of training and competition, and the need for ample fuel, it is common for athletes to suffer from gut problems like leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and food intolerances. Gut health problems are especially prevalent among weightlifters. Gut inflammation is one of the primary symptoms of a dis-eased gut, and the anti-inflammatory effects of cannabis can be used to ease gut inflammation. The digestive system is a high blood flow group of organs, and when dry-vaporized or consumed via a tincture or an edible, cannabinoids exert some of their anti-inflammatory effects on the digestive system directly before circulating throughout the rest of the body. Oils and creams can also be applied to the skin of the stomach and navel area. Cannabis usage calms an inflamed gut and eases stress on the digestive system, allowing food to digest more regularly and completely. If suffering from gut health problems, combining cannabis and the FoodFast Method is an effective way to heal the gut and begin digesting food better, thereby improving overall wellness and athletic performance.

Cannabis can also be used to modulate appetite. For some athletes, eating more food may aid in building muscle and increasing strength, while for other athletes reducing appetite may help with cutting body fat and leaning out. Many people report an increase in hunger when using cannabis high in THC, though individual effect will vary. For cutting calories, the cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) is an effective appetite suppressant, reducing hunger and increasing satiety. THCV is a rare cannabinoid found only in certain strains of cannabis, Durban Poison being the most common high THCV strain, containing up to 1% or more of the unique appetite-suppressing cannabinoid.

In the context of athletic performance where layering on small 1-3% performance increases can make the difference between first and last place, athletes who use cannabis to take more direct control over their gut health and appetite are afforded an extra edge.

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Use Cannabis to Rest Better

Equally as important as training is resting. Without adequate rest and recovery, adaptations to the training stimulus will be impaired and more effort will have been expended for less effect than possible. If a training session was too stressful on the body, or an injury occurs, cannabinoids can be used to help the body self-regulate down into a less stressful parasympathetic state. While in a parasympathetic state the body rests and digests, assimilating new nutrients into the connective structures of the body, healing inflamed tissues, and performing cellular autophagy. When in a parasympathetic state long enough, cortisol lowers to healthy baselines which is necessary for proper hormone health and to avoid adrenal fatigue, a problem common to athletes who push themselves to the edge.

High CBD to THC cannabis strains or products promote relaxation and calm the body and mind down. For many people cannabis improves their sleep dramatically, and this is the most important parasympathetic state the body enters into on a daily basis. Improving sleep is the best way to enhance recovery and therefore one of the best ways to improve athletic performance. Tinctures, edibles, and topicals are the best way to use cannabis to enhance rest and recovery.

Note - Peak athletic performance can disrupt hormone health heavily, and any way an athlete can maintain a healthy hormonal system using safe practices is to be encouraged. Cannabis usage can lower testosterone levels if used in excess.

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How to Use Cannabis

There are many different ways to use cannabinoids and they all have differences in effect. Oral consumption will be the broadest in effect, have the longest duration, but will take up to an hour to begin feeling relief. When consuming cannabis orally it is very important to dose properly, as too many cannabinoids ingested especially of the THC variety can be very potent in their psychoactive effects. It is best to start with a small dosage (1-5 mg) and if zero to little effect is felt, consume more only after an hour or more has passed. Individual tolerance will determine how many milligrams of CBD and/or THC are required for medicinal effect, so start small until you know your individual limits.

Dry vaporization of cannabis flower provides instant relief and has a moderate body effect, though more condensed in the torso and head as the cannabinoids are absorbed into the bloodstream by the lungs. With dry vaporization the effect is shorter in duration than with oral consumption and therefore more easily dosed. I use and recommend dry vaporizers from Healthy Rips.

Healthy Rips sells many different handheld dry vaporizers which are very efficient in volatilizing cannabinoids, and all of their vaporizers are fairly priced. My personal favorite vaporizer is the Fury Edge. The smaller Fury 2 is also a nice product and more affordable.

Fury Edge features:

• 2300 mAh Battery, adjustable session timer between 3-7 minutes

• Temperature range of 280°- 430°F

• Chamber capacity 0.175g to 0.205g

Cannabis lotions and creams are absorbed transdermally and can provide localized relief. it can take up to thirty minutes to begin feeling the effects though the onset is usually rapid. CBD creams are fairly common and inexpensive, and while there are cannabis creams, lotions, and oils that contain THC, they can be hard to dose properly and are expensive. When combining cannabis topicals with other methods of consumption, it is my recommendation to only use CBD topicals in order to avoid dosing too much THC. CBD is the cannabinoid most responsible for pain and inflammation relief, and for this reason CBD topicals can be very helpful for any athlete looking to enhance performance via the reasons listed above.

Note - Smoking of flower is to be avoided as smoke contains many carcinogens and temperatures above combustion destroy cannabinoids. Oral consumption, topical application, and dry vaporization are healthier options for using cannabis and preserve more cannabinoids in the process.

The wellness effects of cannabis are best felt when a small amount of THC is used alongside CBD, and to minimize the psychoactive effects of cannabis and for best therapeutic effect, a ratio of 1:1 to 4:1 is ideal (CBD:THC).

The most powerful way to use cannabis is to combine them all for localized and full body effect. Depending on the dosage the effect can be quite strong so be well prepared with a place you can stretch and rest with no looming responsibilities and use your best judgement. The amounts given are generalized and should be adjusted according to your individual tolerance and body type.

Full Body Cannabis Healing and Pain Relief Protocol:

1. Ingest a 5mg CBD or 1:1 tincture edible.

2. Thirty minutes later apply 100% CBD cream to any painful or injured trouble areas as well as on the bottom of the feet and along the spine (areas of high nerve density). Any remainder on the hands rub in.

3. Thirty minutes after topical application dry vaporize CBD and/or THC flower as much as necessary for medical relief and relaxation. Dry vaporizing 0.1 - 0.2 grams is typically enough when combined with the edible and creams.

Note - This cannabis protocol is made more effective when combined with grounding. Grounding is a method of resetting the charge of your bioelectrical system to that of the Earth, which has healing and anti-inflammatory effects.

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Choosing the Right Cannabis

When choosing cannabis flower or a product to use, you must consider the energetics the plant experienced during its growth. Was the cannabis grown indoors or outdoors? With pesticides or without pesticides. Were fertilizers used? Was the plant told it was loved? The life a cannabis plant experienced influences the effect the cannabis will have on your body. This is true with all foods and substances, and for a plant with mild psychedelic properties like cannabis, these considerations are especially important. Cannabis grown biodynamically is the best option, with the second best option being organically grown cannabis. When buying cannabis flower or products confirm that zero pesticides were used as pesticide residue if ingested or vaporized can be dangerous.

Cannabis is an incredible plant medicine which has many wellness uses for regular people and athletes alike. Please use cannabis responsibly and not until brain structure is fully developed (>25 years old). Please consult with a holistic wellness practitioner before using cannabis.

Share your experiences using cannabis for rest, healing, or athletic endeavors in the comments below.

Disclosure: Healthy Rips affiliate links are in this article, from which I receive a commission. The purchase price remains the same if you use the affiliate link, and the commission is used to grow Wild Free Organic. Thanks for your support.

Abstinence for Emotional Maturity

Article by Stefan Burns - Updated November 2021. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!

Existence has a dual nature. Happiness and pleasure can quickly turn into suffering and pain, and vice versa. Yin and Yang. Like a pendulum, the further it swings into either side, the further it will swing to the other side. Many people live for the happy and pleasing moments, and do their best to ignore the hard times, but these volatile swings in existence can be greatly subdued by practicing abstinence.

Abstinence is the practice of restraining yourself from indulging in wanted or enjoyable bodily pleasures. Most commonly this refers to abstinence from alcohol, sex, masturbation, drugs, food, technology…any activity that can release neurotransmitters like dopamine and naturally produced opioids. Abstinence is self enforced and requires discipline, and that’s the reason it is so difficult for so many people to practice abstinence.

Find balance within the duality of Yin and Yang in order to transcend beyond it to the next stage of consciousness

Practicing abstinence to the extreme can also be unhealthy, but in our current consumer driven society focused on pleasure, money, and fame, abstinence is a powerful tool that can be used to build emotional stability while freeing oneself from the volatile swings of pleasure and suffering that define many peoples lives.

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Abstinence Requires Discipline

The first thought many people have when abstinence is mentioned is that it is a lifetime decision. There is this all or nothing mindset which is common, rock-stars and celebrities often taking the all and everything approach (often to fatal consequences) and many religious groups and organizations preach complete abstinence from sex or alcohol, you name it.

Discipline is not an everlasting resource, and for the regular individual who doesn’t suffer from mental illness or have addictive tendencies, then taking a lifetime vow of abstinence for most things is not needed and can be counter productive. Certain drugs like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines are poison no matter the dose, and should be avoided completely. Other recreational drugs like caffeine, alcohol, and cannabis have reported health benefits with limited use, and with moderation can integrate with a healthy lifestyle. Moderation is a ambiguous term though, and often this is abused.

“Many activities done in excess are often rationalized under the umbrella of moderation”

Abstinence for different periods of time is the best way to truly discover your definition of moderation for a pleasurable substance or activity. Using cannabis as an example, for some individuals, cannabis usage every weekend might be totally fine and not impact their life in any negative way. For others, they might find that if they use cannabis more than once in a blue moon the psychoactive effects of THC negatively affects their mood and increases their anxiety. The same can be said for alcohol, masturbation, and even caffeine.

Self diagnosis of how a chemical, food, or activity makes you feel and how it affects your health is impossible to achieve when it is currently being used in excess of moderation. Only with a period of complete abstinence where the pleasurable variable is removed does it become clear the impact that variable had, and what might be a better moderation limit to follow.

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How to Practice Abstinence

For an emotionally unstable individual, a lifetime vow of abstinence from what is afflicting them might temporarily see positive results, but if that vow is broken, then a binge session is likely to ensue. The psychology of this is very important. No one knows the future, and for the best chance of lasting success, it is better to be fully educated on the subject and understand all the consequences while still living in the moment, being fully aware. Come to acceptance with the pleasure seeker inside of you, and learn how to coexist with both aspects of your personality in a way that is optimally healthy. The pleasure seeker that craves alcohol, sex, nicotine, or unhealthy foods can be appeased in other ways. Time spent in nature, exercise, meditation, and other wellness activities produce dopamine as well and will nourish your soul in a healthy way.

Practicing abstinence goes hand in hand with practicing mindfulness. Abstinence requires discipline, and it also improves discipline and strengthens your willpower. If your maturity is low, a very long period of abstinence might be out of the books just yet, but this can be trained and improved just like anything in life.

A Day of Abstinence

24 hours is a short amount of time, but depending on what you’re newly abstaining from, it can seem like forever. A good example of 24 hour abstinence would be a 24 hour fast. Fasting is a state of not eating food where you only drink water, and if you’ve never skipped a day of eating, you might be surprised at the initial difficulty of it. Without a period of abstinence from food, it can be difficult to learn to control food cravings. A food craving is when you’re starving for one type of food, lets say Italian, but you’re not really hungry for something else, such as Mexican. Normal hunger alerts you to eat what you need, calorie, macronutrient, or micronutrient wise.

After a 24 hour fast, usually from dinner to dinner, you’ll be amazed by how you feel, how fasting improved your digestion, and how the absence of food caused many swings in energy and emotion. The energy swings which might or might not occur depend on your individual metabolism and how efficiently you can burn fat. With practice these dampen and disappear. The emotional swings have a connection to your microbiome, which in the absence of food might have released neurotransmitters causing cravings. The microbiome is a collection of 100 trillion microorganisms which live outside your body in the digestive system, outnumbering your cells 10 to 1. Gaining control over the microbiome is one of the fundamental steps needed towards gaining control over your health and wellness, and a period of food abstinence for 24 hours can help tremendously with this.

A Week of Abstinence

Many organizations recommend not drinking more than 14 alcoholic drinks per week, as amounts greater than that begin to tip over into the definition of alcoholism. 14 drinks over a week is two per day, and this is already a state of excess alcoholic drinking. Over time, having 1-2 alcoholic drinks everyday will change your brain structure and have lasting effects. The depressing effects of alcohol are from ethanol, and ethanol once consumed requires immediate processing and filtration by the body. The many enzymes required to metabolize ethanol into energy, water, and carbon dioxide are primarily stored in the liver, and because of this alcohol usage stresses the liver.

Drugs are used to achieve unique states of consciousness. Meditation is a better method of achieving this.

Many prescription drugs and common over the counter drugs like NSAIDS are hard on the liver, and daily alcohol usage paired with daily pill usage can stress the liver into a state of disease. 14 alcoholic drinks a week might be considered moderation by some groups, but depending on your health circumstances, it can be in gross excess.

A week of abstaining from alcohol is easy to achieve even with limited discipline and willpower and over the course of seven days a lot of physical, mental, and emotional observations can be made as to the positive and negative effects of regular alcohol consumption. You might find that an alcoholic beverage now and then helps you to relax and enter into a “rest and digest” parasympathetic state easier, but frequent alcohol usage impairs your digestion, sours your daily mood, and lets emotions of frustration and anger surface.

A Month of Abstinence

Porn addiction is a serious problem affecting millions of people worldwide, and it goes hand in hand with excessive masturbation. Viewing porn and the bodily pleasures of sex and masturbation release large amounts of dopamine and endogenous (naturally produced) opioids in the brain. When done infrequently, the effects of this chemical cascade on the brain is transient, and lasting changes to the structure of the brain are unlikely. When porn, sex, and masturbation are done frequently, brain structure can change through neuroplasticity, neurotransmitter receptors can become desensitized, and lasting behavioral changes can occur.

Abstaining from porn, sex, and masturbation for a month can reset these systems to a large degree, and thirty days of careful mental, physical, and emotional observations can dramatically increase your understanding of yourself and how the hedonistic pleasures impact all aspects of your life.

A Year of Abstinence

365 days is a very long period of time, but in the context of average lifespan, it is still a small percentage. What you eat is fundamental to who you are, as Socrates said “You are what you eat”, and a year of abstinence from certain foods can transform the rest of your life.

Common foods which can be abstained from for a year to gain deeper understanding on how they affect all aspects of your life include meat, sugar, heavily processed foods, desserts, soda and sugary drinks, bread, and more. Abstaining from meat reduces your impact on the planet and reduces your death toll. You might discover how by replacing meat with fruits and vegetables improves your digestion, stabilizes your energy levels, and increases your inner happiness. Cutting out all processed foods and added sugars for a year could transform your physique through fat loss, improve your cardiovascular health, stabilize your emotions, and so much more.

While food isn’t as acutely strong as drugs or sex, food is something needed to survive, and because it is consumed everyday multiple times, it’s effects positive or negative, can manifest very strongly over time. Choosing the foods you eat consciously and carefully is very important as it relates to your overall health and wellness.

A Lifetime of Abstinence

A lifetime of abstinence might seem like a tall order, but with certain things it is a must. Dangerous drugs like heroin, cocaine, and meth should never be consumed. These drugs are very powerful in their effect, and if you haven’t used them before, then there is no draw to use them again. Usage opens Pandora’s Box. The more addictive the chemical, the greatly the lifetime risk of using it once again once used before. Nicotine from cigarettes is also highly addictive, providing a very fast head rush, and as a one-off isn’t likely to be addictive, but after just a few regular uses the reward seeking part of the brain grows addicted to nicotine. The long term mental and physical health effects from these drugs and more are well documented and have ruined the lives of millions of users and have greatly affected their friends and family.

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Building Emotional Maturity

Periods of abstinence, whether short or long, can teach valuable lessons that can impact all areas of life. Emotional maturity is another way to phrase self-realization, and when all aspects and dimensions of the mind, body, and soul are in alignment, an incredible level of emotional strength and resiliency is created.

Having the emotional maturity to stay in the present moment and live with your current situation, and not seek to escape it, is the true path towards achieving lasting and effortless happiness. Happiness comes from within. Discipline, willpower, and abstinence might require a lot of mental effort when first being practiced, but like any skill, it becomes second nature with consistency and time. Once human experience is no longer distracted by pleasure seeking, your true life purpose can begin to be fulfilled.

Time spent in nature in awe of the magnificence of this planet we call home is the ultimate drug.

The Emotion of Awe

Article by Stefan Burns - Updated November 2021. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!

There are many emotions that one can experience, happiness, joy, sadness, anger, fear, but one emotion people don’t often think about is awe. Being in a state of awe is an emotion, and it has been shown to have serious health benefits to spend time being overwhelmed in awe. The connection between awe and the improvement in well-being is easy to experience too.

Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, Africa

When something vastly larger than the self and not immediately understood becomes the center of attention, then a sense of awe is created. Human cultural activities such as music, art, or collective ceremonies can create a sense of awe. Nature can also create a sense of awe. For time immemorial, natural wonders like Yosemite, Victoria Falls, and Mt. Everest have struck people with awe and these wonders have created entire cultures based around them.

Changing your perception to be conscious of nature, therefore being aware of something much greater in scale than the self, has been shown to improve well-being, life satisfaction, mood, reduce hypertension, reduce anxiety, reduce depression and so much more. We’ll get into as many of the benefits as possible below.

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Experiencing Awe

Experiencing awe is truly a remarkable phenomenon. First, consciousness is required. To simplify, there are two states of mind. One state of mind is behavior driven; without awareness and control you follow preprogrammed actions. The other state of mind is conscious; you are aware of all your senses and then freely choose your direction of action. Without elevating consciousness, you cannot experience a sense of awe, as you’ll be stuck in a state of behavior-driven actions.

Modern indoor day-to-day life reduces consciousness and creates behavior patterns. Constant advertising, propaganda, and emotional triggers bombard you, forcing you in a state of anxiety, fear, and stress. The environment you spend the most of your time in determines in large part your level of consciousness. To fix the problem and to elevate your consciousness, change your environment and put yourself into a reality that is much bigger than your current existence.

Astronauts are the most familiar with this effect. Dubbed the overview effect, when astronauts first glimpse the planet Earth floating in space, they become overawed by the fragility and unity of life on our blue planet. A sense of understanding the "big picture" overwhelms their consciousness.

Experience a sense of awe right. Learn of the overview effect, and how astronauts experience a profound change in their level of consciousness when seeing the planet from an outside perspective.

If you watched the video, you can reflect back that your sense of time expanded, you felt humbled, and during all this, your stresses and responsibilities which pull at your thoughts constantly were placed on hold as you reveled in the presence of magnificence. Experiencing the emotion of awe has profound and wide-reaching health benefits, and it’s free to do and only requires a conscious effort to experience.

Spend time in nature and you’ll begin to realize the truth that we are all continually interconnected with the earth and other lifeforms via two-way electromagnetic, chemical, and mechanical interactions (1). Electromagnetic grounding is a great example of this. Everything we experience via our five senses is created from external stimuli, and it is our senses and experiences that form the basis for our identity. Hold your breath for 3 minutes and very quickly you’ll realize that without the life-giving oxygen provided by the tree, you’ll die (2). Likewise, without the carbon dioxide that we produce, the tree cannot live.

Every organism and object on this planet is continually interacting with each other. By shifting the narrative of well-being away from the individual and instead expanding it to include the larger realm of the world, a more dynamic wellness relationship between self and world can be developed.

How can you be well if the environment you eat your food from is sprayed with toxins? How can you be healthy if the air we breathe is poisoned with gases, smog, and particulates? This concepts might appear obvious, but when in a state of reduced consciousness, they no longer become priority issues, and therefore nothing is changed.

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Wellness Benefits of Awe

Experiencing a sense of awe will increase mindfulness of your surroundings, and this redirection of attention and energy from outward to inward can cause significant improvements in emotional well-being (3).

Spending more time in nature, naturally being at a higher level of consciousness and in a state of awe, has the following wellness improvements:

Improved:

• Mental, physical, social, and spiritual well-being

• Breathing

• Confidence

• Cardiovascular health

• Personal growth

• Nutrition

• Awareness

• Fitness

Reduced:

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Stress

• Fear

• Loneliness

• Pain

• Distress

• Hypertension

• Blood pressure
  

These positive wellness improvements are supported by the following studies & more (4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

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Rewild Yourself

Here is your challenge, whether you are healthy or not, spend the next thirty days spending time in nature, 15 minutes minimum each day. The health and emotional benefits of 30 day rewilding programs have been studied, and the results are striking (9). Activities that you can do to accomplish this goal include going for a nature walk, gardening, embarking upon a hike, meditating by a vista, practicing yoga at a nearby park, or looking up at the stars. Even changing your indoor environment by being near a window to include outdoor vistas can improve your connection to nature and calm your mind.

When loosing touch with reality and your environment, pay attention to your senses. Notice the vibrant colors of the trees. Smell the fresh air, hear the sounds of the forest creatures. Feel the crunch of the leaves underfoot.

Seasonable variability can affect your results, but no matter the time of year, you should experience the profound wellness changes discussed above. If you want to connect with a community at the same time you embark upon your rewilding journey, connect with nature-focused community groups near you. Use platforms like Meetup to connect with others and the outdoors.

The best way to ensure you are privy to the consciousness expanding and wellness benefits of experiencing awe daily is to incorporate sending time in nature as part of your morning routine.

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References:

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2. Sadhguru. Breath Bond. Sadhguru

3. Sturm VE, Datta S, Roy ARK, et al. Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults. Emotion. 2020;

4. Shanahan DF, Astell-burt T, Barber EA, et al. Nature-Based Interventions for Improving Health and Wellbeing: The Purpose, the People and the Outcomes. Sports (Basel). 2019;7(6)

5. White, M.P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J. et al. Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing. Sci Rep 9, 7730 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44097-3

6. Yuen HK, Jenkins GR. Factors associated with changes in subjective well-being immediately after urban park visit. Int J Environ Health Res. 2020;30(2):134-145.

7. Barton J, Pretty J. What is the best dose of nature and green exercise for improving mental health? A multi-study analysis. Environ Sci Technol. 2010;44(10):3947-55.

8. Hunter MR, Gillespie BW, Chen SY. Urban Nature Experiences Reduce Stress in the Context of Daily Life Based on Salivary Biomarkers. Front Psychol. 2019;10:722.

9. Richardson M, Cormack A, Mcrobert L, Underhill R. 30 Days Wild: Development and Evaluation of a Large-Scale Nature Engagement Campaign to Improve Well-Being. PLoS ONE. 2016;11(2):e0149777.