self talk Archives

How to get into the habit of spending time outdoors

Have you been trying to get outdoors and spend more time in nature lately? It seems people are increasingly wanting to connect with the outdoors but I think it’s important to look at the longer term picture. How can you make sure that spending time in the outdoors becomes an ongoing habit and not just a passing phase as you react to COVID-19 restrictions? For some of us getting out into nature is a new habit we want to create, for others it’s more about changing the outdoors routine we previously had to fit with our changing world.

The benefits of connecting with nature are infinite – mental, physical, spiritual, social, environmental. If you believe in these benefits, then you’re more likely to invest time and energy into getting outside, and it will become your priority. You’ll need to get your mindset and your body working together to create a few healthy daily habits that will become part of your routine.

In this blog post I’m sharing some practical and proven strategies that you can use to get your mind and body working together for your own health and happiness.

Focus on what you DO want

Get your mind and body working together!

When it comes to habits, clearly some habits are more helpful and others are less helpful to living a healthy, fulfilled life. We know that nature has many benefits but like all ‘healthy’ things, creating the habit of getting outside daily is easier said than done. If going outside seems like a punishment, then you’re probably not going to be terribly excited about it. But if you have a deep belief that investing time and energy in the outdoors has great rewards (such as freedom, a sense of calm, or fun) then you’re halfway there already! This mindset shift can go a long way to making it a priority in your day and creating the new habit.

If time is an issue for you, or even if it isn’t, spending time outdoors can be combined with other activities such as meetings, exercising, studying and socialising.

You can’t rely solely on a great mindset though. You’ll need to take action too. Creating new habits requires a combined effort from your mind and your body. New habits can take a lot of work at first because it’s easier for your brain to keep doing the same old thing rather than changing. But it’s important to stick at it because habits take time.

creating new habits

Practical strategies to get outdoors

So, how can you get your mind and body working together on your new habit of spending time outdoors? Here are some practical suggestions:

Gather a tribe of people around you who already have an established routine of getting outside. You might find your tribe amongst your existing friends or networks, otherwise you can join a club or an online group who enjoy the same sorts of activities as you. The Outdoors is my Therapy Facebook Group inspires its members to spend time outdoors each day.
Spend time outdoors doing what you enjoy, and then find ways to do that more often or in new places.
Make your habit of spending time outdoors easy and do-able. Minimise the impact of the obstacles so that it’s harder NOT to do it! Get yourself organised ahead of time and don’t over-complicate it. You can ask yourself “If it was simple to get out there, how would it look? What would I be doing?”
Be creative and flexible. If you can’t find a way to spend time outdoors, find a way to bring nature inside.
Use logic and reason. Read up on the research that tells you all about the benefits of spending time in nature and the effects of Nature Deficit Disorder.
Give it time. Habits take time to develop so don’t give up if it doesn’t work out straight away. As challenges arise you can adjust, modify or adapt your plans. You can also ask for help and creatively problem-solve the difficulties.
Focus on what’s important to you about spending time outdoors. Is it fun, health, socialising, freedom or something else?
What’s your self-talk like? What do you believe about nature, exercise, spending time outside, relaxing, being active and being still? What are you telling yourself about your own worth and how you “should” spend your time and energy? How is that affecting your actions?
There is a lot of research and many popular books about creating and keeping habits. There’s no one ‘right’ way. You’ll need to experiment with strategies like those listed here to find what works for you.

create a habit of getting outdoors

What’s your story?

Do you have a story about how you’ve successfully developed a regular habit of spending time outdoors? I’d love to hear from you and feature some of your stories in future blogs and podcast episodes to help others in the same situation get past the obstacles that get in the way.

Till next time, enjoy your outdoor adventures!

Asking for help

Does it come as any surprise to you that one of the most common fears people have is related to asking for help? Yet asking for help is exactly what can help us move forward, achieve success, overcome challenges and experience a sense of fulfillment.

What IS the best way to deal with fear so that it doesn’t become a stumbling block and limit your success in life?

In this article I share my tips on managing one of our most common, unspoken fears – asking for help.

Fear is an obstacle to asking for help

Over the past few years my community has been impacted massively by severe drought and bushfires. Before that there were floods. With government and community support flowing in, it’s been interesting to witness how few people asked for the help that was available to them. Yes, we could argue that some of it wasn’t the right sort of help, or not offered in ways that were inviting and accessible. But during confidential one-on-one conversations with farmers, business owners and residents, it was evident that a number of fears were pretty big obstacles to asking for help such as hand-outs from charities and support from health professionals.

fear and possibility

Fear is the voice in your head that tells you not to ask for help

I like to describe fear as the voice in your head that tries to keep you safe. In the case of (not) asking for help, the voice of fear can bring up feelings of shame, lack of worth and pride. The voices of fear say things such as:

They’ll think you’re stupid if you ask for help.
You should be ashamed of yourself for getting into this predicament.
You never get anything right, you’re a failure.
Other people need / deserve help more than you.
It’s your own fault and you don’t deserve help. If only you had done [X] then this wouldn’t have happened.
You should have been prepared for this to happen, now you have to put up with the consequences.
You got yourself into this, you’ll have to get yourself out of it.
Asking for help is a sign of weakness.
Taking handouts would prove how lowly you are.
If you ask for help they’ll say ‘no’ then you’ll feel even worse.
Fear is trying to keep you safe but sometimes it oversteps the mark

Fear is trying to keep you safe but it can overstep the mark!

It’s just as well you have an in-built system of staying safe because there are dangers in our world that you need to prepare for and protect yourself from. Fear gets you ready to fight off the danger, run away and hide from it, or freeze. Even when there is no logical risk of danger, fear will continue to search for the possibility of it … just in case. This includes physical as well as emotional danger.

In most situations, asking for help isn’t going to put you in physical danger especially when it comes to asking for help that’s been offered to you by organisations and governments to assist with natural disasters. However emotional safety is at risk. Asking for help means opening a part of yourself that you usually keep hidden away. You feel vulnerable asking for help because those voices of fear have been shouting loud and clear and before you know it, you believe every word they say – even if it’s not true! In an effort to keep you safe, fear can overstep its mark and keep you small and scared, floundering in the wilderness of independence and isolation.

fight flight freeze OR pause breathe think

Put fear back in its place

Despite how tempting it might seem to completely do away with fear altogether, it’s an essential mechanism for survival. You can use the following strategies to keep fear in its place so that you don’t avoid asking for help when it could actually be, well, quite helpful to do so!

Listen to the voices of fear

It will seem strange at first, but no, it doesn’t mean you’re going crazy! What’s behind your voices of fear? Is is worry about what others think? Is it about people-pleasing? Is it shame and feelings of lack of worth? Guilt? A sense of failure? A desire for independence? Something else? When you get to know what’s behind your fear, you can respond to that instead of the fear itself.

Practise noticing when fear steps across the line of reason

Keep practising this noticing technique your whole life long. Simply noticing and remembering that fear is trying to keep you safe can settle those voices down a little bit.

Speak back to the voices of fear that are stopping you from asking for help

You could say:

Where’s the evidence for that?
Just because that happened before doesn’t mean it will happen again.
I pay my taxes and I deserve to claim some of that back in help.
We’re all wiser with hindsight. I did the best I could with the knowledge and skills and resources I had then. I can do my best now and that includes asking for professional / financial help.
I ask the solicitor for specialist advice about legal matters. I ask the garden shop for specialist advice about my garden. I ask the shoe shop for advice about buying new shoes. I can ask for help for anything I like including my relationships, my finances, my mental health.
If I ask for help, it will make other people feel like they can ask for help too.

Use some metaphors to re-imagine how your fear is behaving and how you could manage it

For example, you can picture yourself in a car putting fear in the back seat, strapping it in with a harness, and taking charge of the steering wheel yourself. If you are avoiding asking for help because the voices of fear are jumping up and down and shouting at you that everyone will think you’re stupid, don’t allow them to take control of your every movement. Be in charge of your emotions rather than allowing them to be in charge of you.

Another metaphor is to imagine that your voices of fear have a volume dial. You have control over how loud you allow your voices to be. Dial them down when they are clearly being irrational and there’s no evidence for what they are saying. Allow the volume to be louder when the risk of danger is higher.

Tell someone that you’re feeling reluctant about the idea of asking for help

Worries like these hate the light of day and as soon as you bring them out into the open, they tend to reduce in size or go away altogether. Fears about asking for help can seem very worrying when we keep them to ourselves; they gain power in your silence. Talking about your fears can lead to practical solutions that make it easier to ask for help.

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.

It uses inner courage and strength. Asking for help is a good thing. It’s how you find out information, learn and grow. It means you put the well-being of your loved ones above any fears or misgivings you harbour about asking for help.

are you feeding your fears

Use fear as a stepping stone to asking for help and achieving success

When you are ready, willing and able to ask for help, you put yourself in a powerful position to move beyond the position you’re currently in – whether that’s financial stress, relationship difficulties, health problems or anything else. You position yourself to succeed and experience a sense of fulfillment by overcoming the challenges. Don’t let fear become the stumbling block that prevents you from asking for help. Use it as a stepping stone to success.

Discovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Kathryn Walton shares information and reflections in ‘Daisy Spoke’ that inform, inspire and empower women to a healthy and active lifestyle.

Calming techniques for fear and anxiety

With dramatic stories of doom and gloom flooding the media in recent times, I’ve found myself digging into my store of calming techniques for fear and anxiety. I figured you might find them useful too, after all, we’re all experiencing a global pandemic together – something that none of us have had to deal with before. This article explores the nature and purpose of fear and gives you a list of action-based techniques and a list of mind-based techniques that have a calming effect on anxiety and fear.

Fear is the voice in your head trying to keep you safe

Fear is the voice in your head telling you a story that sets off a chain of physiological and psychological responses. This gets you prepared to fight off danger whether it’s really there or not, to run away from it in pursuit of self-preservation, or to freeze.

As much as we may not like the sensations that fear brings, we need to allow it. It’s helped to keep the human race alive so far by signalling to us and enabling us to draw away from danger and move towards safety.

So how do we keep these voices of fear in check so that they do their job of keeping us safe without stopping us from living a healthy and fulfilling life?

fight flight freeze OR pause breathe think

The biology of fear through the ages

Biologically, for some of us, our brains and bodies excel at responding to fear. In days gone by, we were the warriors, chiefs and the village leaders who led our families to safety, found shelter from storms, fought off predators and kept everyone together. In our modern world it’s easy to forget that people led very physically active and outdoors-based lives not that many years ago. Bodies were in constant motion throughout the day and in tune with nature and with their wired brains – the perfect combination.

But today we’ve removed a lot of the physical movement from our lives and we’ve become disconnected from the outdoors and often from each other and our inner selves too. We’ve organised the world around us to protect us from weather and hard labour. Many of us live in permanent housing in societies with building regulations requiring our homes to be resistant to cyclones, tornadoes, rain, snow, hail, and wind. We shop for our food rather than hunt and gather it. Most people around the world commute using motorised transport rather than human power. And everywhere we look there are labour saving devices such as food processors and power tools.

The signs of fear and anxiety

Although our physical activity levels have reduced and we spend a lot of time indoors, our wired brains continue to go searching for danger and find it everywhere. This is exacerbated when something unexpected happens, such as the current corona-virus pandemic. For many of us, our bodies are not moving enough or connected with the world in ways that stimulate the physiological changes that keep a calm equilibrium and so we experience more signs of anxiety including:

ruminating thoughts
difficulty sleeping
sweating
feeling on edge, irritable
distracted
difficulty concentrating
body tension
aches, pains and nausea
lethargy
restlessness

are you feeding your fears

Action-based calming techniques for fear and anxiety

When we understand the physiology of fear, that is, what’s happening in our bodies when we feel anxious, we can begin to take actions to calm it. Calming actions may include:

set boundaries around your sedentary activities, for example, give yourself permission to use your electronic devices at set times of the day, put them away at night, set a limit on your daily quota of usage, and limit the number of times you check the news and social media
move more, sit less – move as much as you can during the day and get outside whenever it’s safe to do so
exercise for 30 – 60 minutes each day, preferably in the morning so you’re energised for the day ahead and it doesn’t disrupt your sleep at night
spend time with people whose company you enjoy or create a tribe of like-minded people – this can be face-to-face (when health directives allow this once again) but don’t forget there is great value in connecting with others online or by phone, video-conference (eg Skype), text and through social media groups
get creative and constructive doing hobbies or other tasks
participate in regular yoga, meditation or breathing practices – if you can’t go to a group class, try using an app, online class or a YouTube tutorial
watch a funny movie or a comedy show – laughing helps you breathe deeply and relax
talk to a professional
drink plenty of water and feed your body with good nutrition
spend time outdoors connecting with nature using your senses to be fully present in that space and time
watch your posture – shoulders back, head held high and breathe fully and deeply
have a massage to release tension from your muscles
give yourself a head massage
use your senses to connect with activities that you find relaxing, for example think about what things you can look at, listen to, smell, taste or touch that brings you joy
work on improving your sleep – if you are having trouble sleeping, read my Top Ten Tips for a Good Night’s Sleep
rest or have a nap in the morning or early afternoon if you need to

use nature to deal with fear and anxiety

Mind-based calming techniques for fear and anxiety

Your mind is a mighty powerful tool that can also contribute to a sense of calm. Using your mind in this way can be a bit tricky if you haven’t done it before so here are some techniques to get you started:

talk to yourself using a calm, kind and rational voice

“I know you’re feeling scared. Is it actually dangerous, or does it simply feel scary?”

“What can I do to minimise the risk and maximise the benefits / enjoyment in this situation?”

“What do I have control over in this situation? Hmmmm…. Okay, let’s just focus on that”

choose a positive intention or attitude for the day that will help you stay calm eg “Just breathe” or “I’ll start each day with movement and exercise”
remind yourself about fear’s purpose and that even in low risk situations your brain is wired to search for the danger, the difficulties, the problems – but this is only part of the whole picture
tune in to yourself and notice what’s happening in your body and what’s going through your mind
allow the fearful voices and thoughts to settle gentle as if they are snowflakes in a snow dome that’s been shaken up
imagine what advice a wise mentor might give you – this can help to balance up your own narrowly-focused thoughts
visualise wrapping your worries up as a gift and handing them over to someone or something that has more control over the situation
give your worries a name and imagine a safe little place that you can store them for now so that they no longer take over every part of your day and night
if you feel the fear or anxiety in parts of your body such as your belly or your head, imagine shrinking them down and allowing them a small space to do their thing – maybe a little corner of your belly or your little finger nail or behind your ear
visualise yourself walking into a beautiful garden and leaving your worries on the ancient worry tree at the gate before you go in (this idea comes from Maureen Garth’s book “Earthlight: new meditations for children”)

fear and possibility

Fear brings up other emotions

Fear is closely connected with a range of your emotions. It can keep you quiet with nervousness and shame. Fear can make you loud and angry too, or it can make you feel jumpy and agitated. It’s different for each of us, and it’s different in each situation we face too. That’s why it’s so important to have a deep store of techniques that you can draw upon when you need to. What worked for you before, may not work for you in a new situation.

Fear can be suppressed, expressed and transformed

When you think of fear as a form of energy, you can understand how it can be suppressed, expressed or transformed. Each of these processes has their purpose, but today I encourage you to focus on transforming your fear into productive and constructive actions and a healthy and helpful mindset. This takes practice and patience with yourself. Using the calming techniques for fear and anxiety that are listed in this article is a great way to begin your learning journey.

More Help?

If you would like help in managing fear and anxiety, you can chat with your doctor who may be able to refer you for counselling or to a local program or online resource that meets your needs. And check my website for my current individual and group programs including coaching, bush adventure and retreats that have been created to inform, inspire and empower you towards health and vitality.

You can listen to this article in the Outdoors is my Therapy podcast – Episodes 5 & 6!

How to Manage Habits That Creep Into Your Life

There are so many life lessons I’ve learned from nature – pest management (aka “managing the habits that creep into your life”) is the latest one. This year we’ve been making a concerted effort to manage some of the unwanted weeds on our property, in particular tree pears. It’s taken a considerable investment of time, hard work, money and resources to uncover the best way to deal with them. It’s also got me thinking about personal habits that creep into our lives, and what we can do to manage those sorts of weeds and pests.

Pests have always been around

We’ve lived on our small bush property for many years. We’ve always had a few pests here and there but haven’t been overly concerned about them. They’ve had little impact on everything else so we haven’t considered them a problem. In the past we had a few cows and sheep grazing the grass. We’ve had no grazing stock for nearly 10 years now due to ongoing drought conditions. Even though I miss seeing those big beautiful cow eyes looking back at me, we’ve actually gained a lot of satisfaction from watching the native plants regenerate as a result. We’ve also relished the opportunity to make use of the land in other ways such as building mountain bike trails throughout the property.

The problem pest at my place

Apart from reduced stock, altered land use and drought conditions, other changes have Cactus Tree Pear also gradually taken place – changes that we were blinded to until they became quite obvious and problematic. Tree pear is one of these changes. It has rapidly multiplied in the recent conditions. Not long ago it was a fairly insignificant pest, kept in balance by naturally occurring biological controls. Now it’s dominating the landscape. It very easily and quickly multiplies, so we now have a dense covering of tree pear of all sizes. Its growth rate is amazing and it thrives in the harsh conditions.

Managing the pest

Mature Tree Pear Uncovering how best to manage this pest has been exhausting, taking lots of hours, energy, research and trial and error. We’ve learned how critical it is to choose the ‘right’ strategy – the difference between getting numbers of tree pear manageable again, or increasing their numbers even more! They’re incredibly tough and resilient – I’ve got to admire them for that! We’ve persisted with our management strategy because we want to live in a balanced way, minimising the impact of our own lifestyle, and supporting environmental sustainability. It’s taken nearly 12 months to reach the point where we can see a positive outcome ahead. And we’ve learned lessons about keeping a closer eye on the pests out there and intervening earlier rather than later.

Habits can be like weeds and pests

Unwanted habits can silently creep into our lives in the same way that the tree pear and other weeds and pests gradually take over tracts of land and impact the overall health of the environment. The habits can slowly, quietly and destructively begin to dominate your life in various ways. The damage shows up as it impacts your relationships, health and confidence. Reestablishing healthier habits requires a hard sustained effort over time, but the secret is in actually noticing that there is a problem in the first place.

Audit your life

In the same way that it can be helpful to regularly have a good look around your property to check for pests and unwanted changes, it’s also vital that we review our personal habits from time to time. It’s often only when a crisis takes place that we take the time to do this, but it’s a healthy practice for any of us even when things seem to be going smoothly. When we take the time to reflect, notice and make adjustments, we are better able to keep on top of the pesky habits that impact negatively on ourselves, our relationships and the world around us.

Questions to ask yourself

You don’t have to run away to the quiet of the desert or the tranquility of the mountains to review your life (although if you have the opportunity that could be amazing!) A more practical way for most of us is to simply take a few moments, or even a couple of hours, to ask ourselves a few questions. You might find it helpful to write your reflections down in a journal, make some art work about the topic, or have a conversation about these issues with a trusted person.

1. What have I got in my life that’s working for me?

2. What is not working so well in my life?

3. What is one action I could take that would make the biggest difference?

4. How can I make sure I follow through on that action?

5. What can I let go of?

6. What do I need to keep?

Change can be challenging

Even desired change can be very challenging and unsettling. We can experience a conflict of values, a simultaneous push and pull towards and away from the change. We might sense resistance from people and situations around us, as well as our own internal resistance. Be prepared for this, and push past the prickly bits!

Early intervention is best

Small cactus And so as I walk and run my home trails, I’ve been much more aware of the little cactus popping up. I’ve been investing a little bit of time and energy to carefully prise them out when I see them, right there and then. I’ve learned the hard way that this is a much easier and more effective way of dealing with the problem. Burying your head in the sand and avoiding seeing the issue for what it really is, only makes the problem bigger and more difficult over time. Sometimes those unhealthy unhelpful habits just seem to creep into our lives but with greater diligence and readiness to take action, we can keep them in their place, and maintain a more balanced life.

VLOG (Video Blog)

Did you know that I have a You Tube channel? Over the coming months I’ll be regularly posting videos and VLOGS over there. You can watch my latest VLOG on managing the pesky habits in your life by clicking here!

Discovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Kathryn Walton shares information and reflections in Daisy Spoke that connect, inspire and self-empower women to make healthy choices for themselves. She integrates her love of physical exercise, family, nature, gardening and creative arts with her professional background in mental health social work to facilitate change with individuals, groups and communities of women who are committed to living life to the full.

Frights, Flights, and Fears: Look back to see how far you’ve come

Life can hand us plenty of frights, flights and fears but it’s good to look back occasionally to see how far you’ve come. I’ve been reflecting on this over the weekend when I noticed some old fears resurfacing, and rather than get caught up in the stories they told me, I chose to look at how far I’ve progressed.

I was eager to get back on my mountain bike after a couple of weeks away road tripping, bushwalking and trail running which I absolutely loved, but I also love riding my bike and Kathryn on MTB riding through a gully was missing it. When I started riding on the weekend, I noticed some of those old worries pop up that only surface when I’ve been off my bike for a while. They used to hang around me a lot. Well actually, most of the time! But I’ve worked really hard at keeping them in their place in recent years. Deciding to blog about them has been one of the most empowering actions I’ve taken. They could no longer lurk away in the dark depths of my mind, stewing and multiplying and expanding by the minute. Many of them simply lost their power when I brought them out into the light of day. Have you read my blog about how I worked through a step-by-step process to manage my fear of “the scary corner”!

So here I was on Sunday morning with an incessant barrage of inner talk going on in my head:

“That’s too slippery.”

“I can’t ride down that gully.”

“I’m going to hit that tree.”

“I’m hopeless at riding on ‘technical’ terrain.”

“My back tyre keeps slipping out. I can’t ride up here.”

“There are too many rocks.”

“There are too many low hanging branches.”

“I have to go slowly round this corner so I don’t fall off.”

“I’d better walk this bit.”

“That’s where I fell before.”

“That’s another place I fell off.”

“That’s where I nearly fell on the snake when I stopped too quickly and went over the handlebars.”

…..and so on and so on. It was very loud in my head!

NOW I want to say that the most powerful step YOU can take if you find yourself in a similar situation is simply this: NOTICE what’s going on in your head. Simply NOTICE. The situation doesn’t’ have to be about riding a bike. It might be the thoughts you have associated with speaking to an audience, introducing yourself to someone, going out in the dark, driving in the city traffic, swimming with sharks, flying on a plane, or absolutely anything at all! Simply NOTICE what your mind says. And with the power of noticing what’s going on in your head, you can then choose what to do next.

Kathryn looking calm and happy on her ride I’ve been practising and teaching this technique for a lot of years, and yet still I sometimes forget to do it when the moment arises. The thing is that on Sunday morning I DID NOTICE those fearful thoughts bouncing round my head. And guess what? I didn’t care about them. I didn’t let them bother me. Instead of giving them the power of my attention and allowing them to expand and bully me into playing it too safe, I chose to dig up another thought from my mind vault:

“This is a confidence cycle. I only worry about these things when I’ve been off my bike for a couple of weeks and out of practice. Just ride. Focus on how far you’ve come over the past few years. Don’t let those worries bully you or keep you small, or limit the fun you’ll have today. You’re sensible. You won’t do any crazy dangerous stuff. You’re safe. Just ride.”

And so I focused on how strong I felt and that all the recent running has made a positive difference to my strength and aerobic fitness. I enjoyed the feeling of sprinting up a couple "Tough Girl" socks of short hills engaging my quads in an exertion that a couple of years ago would have been painful (if not impossible)! I pedalled in a higher gear than normal and found it easier than expected. I noticed what I did well and trusted wholeheartedly that my confidence will be back real soon. I glanced down at my fabulous new “tough girl” socks reminding myself of my strengths and the stories I can tell myself about what I CAN do. And as I looked back over the past few years, I could see how far I’ve progressed in managing my fears on the bike. I’ve developed resilience and practised some of life’s most valuable skills that I’ve transferred into other areas of my life.

Yes, frights, flights and fears will always be there, but you can choose how to handle them. Practise. Persist. And occasionally look back to see how far you’ve come.

8 Strategies for Handling Unease During an Adventure

Having been on the road with my daughter now for over a week on my April Adventure road trip throughout central, northern and western Queensland, and heading north through the Northern Territory to Darwin, I’ve managed to settle in and really enjoy myself despite feeling unprepared and unorganised when we started. I’ve fairly easily challenged some of my underlying fears and assumptions about travel including leaving half my family behind, not researching details about the route and destinations, not planning my return flight home when I leave my daughter in the tropical north to start her new job, being female and camping in out-of-the-way places and driving on remote roads, and the list goes on.

View from car windscreen

My latest challenge came only last night. Arriving at Elsey National Park near Mataranka I felt somewhat unsettled. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was about. The environment was not like any I’d spent time in before. It looked like a combination of wetlands and dry scrub with earth that appeared to be recently wet with rain but had since dried to a fine powder as silt does after a flood. There was a plethora of wildlife. The insects were very diverse, big and plentiful. I saw some grasshoppers that reminded me of the vivid yellow plastic toy grasshoppers you can buy in cheap toy packs from the dollar stores. The sounds of the bush here also seemed strange and haunting. I couldn’t tell the difference between bird and insect calls, or perhaps even other animals yet unseen. It was eerily quiet with only one other campsite inhabited by humans and the campgrounds extended well beyond sight in every direction. The facilities buildings were half fenced off and I was curious about this but couldn’t think of any rational reason why they would be fenced in this unusual way.

We decided on a campsite with some shade, green grass and a picnic table, and Campsite at Elsey NP before we even set up camp we had a short walk around the area. A sudden loud rustle in the bushes next to us startled me. Turning around and expecting to see a wallaby, my daughter tells me I wouldn’t want to know what made that noise. On further enquiry she tells me it was a rather large snake, and I began to seriously wonder about moving our campsite further away from said snake.

Roper River, Elsey NP My uneasiness only increased as the evening rolled on and in particular when we came face to face with another snake only a few metres from our tents. Still, I wandered why the uneasiness was there in the first place. Was I sensing a spiritual presence? Was it simply that everything seemed strange and unfamiliar? Or perhaps the absence of other humans? Was I simply tired and misreading my intuition? Was it FEAR welling up and testing my inner strength?

But how to handle this uneasiness? I decided to take some of my own advice and implemented these strategies:

I chose to “be” with my uneasiness. I acknowledged how I truly felt instead of denying or avoiding it.
I shared my feelings and concerns with my daughter, getting them out into the open instead of hiding them away and pretending they didn’t exist as I would have in the past.
I listened and looked, tuning into my surroundings in the present time, focusing on grounding myself to the moment rather than flying off into a fantastical and irrational anxiety about what might happen.
I set an intention to be open to possibilities and new experiences. Instead of being closed-minded and putting up barriers to enjoying myself, I chose to embrace the experience and adopt an adventurous mindset.
I intentionally invoked a relaxation response when I noticed my anxiety rising. I brought my attention to my breath and let go of the physical tension that I felt.
I used rational and logical self-talk such as “Just because I’ve seen a snake (or two) close to camp doesn’t mean I’m in any greater danger than if I hadn’t seen them”; “Not all snakes are deadly”; “We have a snake bandage on us at all times and an emergency signalling system if we need to use it”;
I immersed myself in the sounds of the night as I went to sleep, setting an intention of getting to know them better; an intention of curiosity, wonder and awe.
I also created an action to take during the night that however irrational it was, it really helped! It may seem funny to anyone else, and in fact it does to me now too! Whenever I stirred during the night and noticed that I’d rolled off my camping mattress or that I was touching the sides of the tent, I rolled back onto the mattress telling myself I can go to sleep safely now because no snake can bite me through the mattress even if does manage to slither its way under my tent!

Kathryn at Elsey NP And so I survived. In fact I thrived and had possibly the best sleep so far on my April Adventure. I awoke before dawn, spent a couple of hours silently meditating, embracing my surroundings and feeling entirely captivated by what seemed so haunting and difficult the day before. I feel an immense sense of satisfaction that I didn’t allow my anxiety to rule and limit me. I chose to respect it but also to stand up to it. In doing so I’ve come to know an amazing spiritual aspect of this sacred land which I may not ever understand, but I can accept it and embrace it. And when I do that, I also accept and embrace myself.