Restore connection with nature

Life in the city is full of stress. Journalist Psychologies told how even in a noisy metropolis to learn how to notice the world around and regain his calm. To do this, she went to the training for the ecopsychologist Jean-Pierre Le Dunfu.

Jean-Pierre Le Danff (Jean-Pierre Le Danff)-gestalt-therapist and ecopsychologist. His site is Ecopsychogiefrance.WordPress.Com

“I want to describe to you, as can be seen from the window in our editorial office. From left to right: the multi -storey glass facade of the insurance company, it reflects the building where we work;In the center – six -story buildings with balconies, all are exactly the same;Then the remains of the recently demolished house, construction garbage, workers’ figures. There is something crushing in this

area. “Do people have to live like that?” – I often think, when the sky becomes lower, the editorial office is growing tension or I do not have enough courage to go down to a crowded metro. How to find peace in such conditions?

Jean-Pier Led Dunf comes to the rescue: I asked him to come from the village where he lives to check the effectiveness of ecopsychology.

This is a new discipline, a bridge between psychotherapy and ecology, and Jean-Pierre is one of its rare representatives in France. “A lot of diseases and disorders – cancer, depression, anxiety, loss of meaning – perhaps the result of the destruction of the environment,” he explained to me by phone. – We blame ourselves for feeling strangers in this life. But the conditions in which we live became abnormal “.

Ecopsychology claims that the world that we create reflects our inner worlds: chaos in the outside world – in essence, our inner chaos. This direction studies the mental processes that connect us with nature or move away from it. Jean-Piere Le Dunf usually practices as an eco -psichotherapist in his Brittany, but he liked the idea of trying his own method in the city.

“The task of the cities of the future is to return naturalness so that they can live in them. Changes can only begin with ourselves “. We are with an ecopsychologist to come to a conference room. Black furniture, gray walls, carpet with a standard pattern resembling a bar code.

I’m sitting with my eyes closed. “We cannot contact nature if we have no contact with the closest nature – with our body, -announces Jean-Piere Le Dunf and asks me to pay attention to breathing, without trying to change him. – Watch what is happening inside you. What do you feel in the body now?»I understand that I hold my breath, as if trying to reduce contact with each other and this room with air conditioned air and the smell of casing.

I feel my hunched back. The ecopsychologist continues quietly: “Watch your thoughts, let them swim like clouds somewhere in the distance, in your inner sky. What are you realized now?”

My forehead is wrinkled from anxious thoughts: even if I do not forget anything of what is happening here, how can I write about it? The phone squeaked – who is it? Whether I signed permission to my son to participate in the school tour? The courier will come in the evening, you can’t be late. Exhausting state of constant combat readiness. “Watch the sensations that come from the outside world, sensations on your skin, smells, sounds. What are you realized now?”I hear hasty steps in the corridor, this is something urgent, the body is straining, it is a pity that it was cool in the hall, and it was warm on the outside, hands are folded on the chest, hands warm their hands, tick clocks, tick-so, workers rustle, walls collapse, ba-bah, tick-tik, tick, stiffness.

“When you are ready, slowly open your eyes”. I stretch out, get up, my attention attracts the window. Homon is heard: at school next door, a change began. “What are you realized now?»Contrast. The lifeless interior of the room and life outside, the wind shakes the trees in the school yard. My body in the cage and the bodies of children who frolic in the yard. Contrast. The desire to go out.

Once, traveling in Scotland, he spent the night alone on a sandy plain-without a clock, without a phone, without a book, without food

We go out into the fresh air, where there is something similar to nature. “In the hall, when you focused on the inner world, your eye began to look for what meets your needs: movement, color, wind,” says the ecopsychologist. – Trust your view on a walk, he will bring you to where you will be fine. “.

We are raving towards the embankment. Cars roaring, brakes screech. The ecopsychologist talks about how walking will prepare us for the goal: to find a green corner. “We slow down a step due to stone tiles laid with the right intervals. We go to peacefulness to merge with nature “. Little rain begins. I used to look for where to hide. But now I want to continue the walk that is slowing down. My feelings become sharper. Summer smell of wet asphalt. A child with a laugh runs out from under the mother’s umbrella. Contrast. I touch the leaves on the lower branches. We stop on the bridge. Before us is a powerful flow of green water, moored boats sway softly, swan swims under the willow. There is a box with flowers on the railing. If you look through them, the landscape will become more colorful.

From the bridge we go down to the island. Even here, between skyscrapers and high -speed roads, we find a green oasis. The practice of ecopsychology consists of stages that closely bring us closer to the place of solitude.

In Brittany, students of Jean-Pierre Le Dunf choose such a place themselves and remain there for an hour or two to feel everything that happens inside them and around. He himself once, traveling in Scotland, spent the night alone on a sandy plain-without a clock, without a phone, without a book, without food;lay on fern, indulging in thoughts. It was a powerful experience. With the onset of darkness, he was seized by a sense of completeness of being and trust. I have a different goal: to recover internally during the break in work.

The ecopsychologist gives the instructions: “Continue to go slowly, realizing all the sensations until you find a place where you say:“ Here it is ”. Stay there, do not wait for anything, open what is “.

I give myself 45 minutes, turn off the phone and hide it in my bag. Now I’m walking on the grass, the earth is soft, I remove sandals. I’m walking along the path along the coast. Slowly. Water splash. Ducks. The smell of the earth. In the water, a trolley from a supermarket. Plastic bag on a branch. Terrible. I look at the leaves. On the left, a tilted tree. “It’s here”.

I sit on the grass, lean against the tree. My gaze is fixed to other trees: under them I will also lie down, crossing my hands in the way the branches are crossed over me. Green waves from right to left, from left to right. The bird responds to another bird. Trilles, stakkato. Green opera. Without obsessive ticking, time is flowing unnoticed. A mosquito sits on his hand: drink my blood, scoundrel – I prefer to be here with you, and not in a cage without you. My gaze flies along the branches, to the tops of the trees, monitors the clouds. A feeling of urgency left me. The body is relaxed. The gaze goes deeper, to the sprouts of the grass, the stalks of Margaritors. I am ten years old, five. I play with the ants that turned out to be between my fingers. But it’s time to go.

Returning to Jean-Pierre Le Dunfu, I feel peacefulness, joy, harmony. We slowly go back to the editor. We climb the bridge. Before us is a highway, glass facades. “Do people have to live like that?»This landscape suppresses me, but I no longer feel anxiety. I really feel the fullness of being. What would our magazine be in another place?

“What is it surprised that in the unfriendly space we are hardened, reach violence, deprive ourselves of feelings?” – comments an ecopsychologist who seems to read my thoughts. A little nature is enough to make these places more human “.