Creativity + Nature For Well Being

I'd initially had the idea of this post for Mental Health Awareness week, but as often is the case, time did not allow. I thought I would share my own coping habits for dealing with often quite debilitating mental health issues. I will add that my own problems stem from physical conditions, mainly a concoction of thyroid and severe tinnitus. Experience, research, time and real suffering with the varying symptoms of these complaints have led me to believe that it's not helpful to dwell on conditions that one has any control over. This statement is, obviously, easier said than put into action.

For the purpose of this blog post, I won't go into detail about the myriad of sypmtoms that I have encountered. Let's just keep this to a more generalised discussion about mental suffering from the various stressors. A combination of nature, creativity and spirituality have helped me enormously. To this day, I often feel as though I am just hanging in there, which is not a particularly nice way to live.

From 2007 to around 2015, I cried almost every day. Before the onset of tinnitus and hashimotos (underactive thyroid) I think I'd probably cried twice in about 20 years! Trying everything to fix things that can't be fixed, the anguish building all the time, over years, leading to anxiety, low self-esteem and quite frankly feeling totally lost. Feelings of isolation, loneliness and a seeming inability to get through the day became the norm. No wonder then, that I eventually quit my day job to fully focus on photography and hopefully some recovery.

The profound, spiritual connection I have with the natural world has seen me through these turbulent times. What happens when we venture into wilderness areas? For me, it is the following.

The first thing I notice when I step out of the car after a long journey to the Cairngorms, for example, is the intensity of the pure air. To breathe deeply in a pine forest almost instantly energises us. As we walk out into this landscape of trees, mountains and flowing water, we begin to enter another world. A world that we have forgotten. A strange, yet familiar sense of belonging penetrates our soul. The gentle sounds of flowing water, a breeze through the trees, calming our ears, this healing energy radiating deeply into our physiology. We may feel many heightened emotions: ecstasy, deep sadness, anger at the sorrow we have had to endure for so long. This is the time to let all of the weight you have been carrying dissipate into this space. Let everything go. Breathe deeply. Cry. Cry some more! You might feel that you can't hold the emotions back, but it's ok. As the tears fall, you will feel a sense of renewal. You will feel stronger, calmer. You may even feel that suddenly you can run for miles! No matter what you felt before, on the days when you couldn't lift yourself from the pillow, when the noise in your head was unbearable and you would have gladly given in to this world, this is a miracle. And it can happen. Because it has happened to me on several occasions. Never lose hope, magic awaits you.

You are now ready to tackle the landscape before you. Take the depth of feeling you have experienced and meditate on the forms in the landscape before you. In creating authentic work, are we to project our emotions onto the landscape, or is the landscape projecting itself onto us? This is something that I used to grapple with. I have found that it is best to think of the landscape as a mirror, we are one and the same. This profound realisation ensures that our work is true. It is an act of respect. This landscape healed you, took away your pain, filling you with positive energy. We must be in tune with our surroundings to notice the subtle rythm and flow in scenes such as the image below, made in the Cairngorms, 2023.

The picture above is very memorable for me. It was 2019. I woke that morning feeling absolutely terrible, ringing ears, so loud, no energy from ongoing thyroid issues and the huge emotional fatigue that these issues can cause. A very low point indeed. I had two options, lay there resting but feeling helpless, or just head out. I got my kit together and drove out to a trail that leads up Cùl Mòr. I thought even if I only make it a few hundred meters, which is all I expected, it would be something, at least I'd tried. Maybe in a short walk I'd find a photographic oppotunity. I intentionally started slow, very slow, with a feeling of tiredness that is hard to explain unless you've experienced it. One foot in front of the other. I'd come to an incline and slow myself even further. Let's see how far I can go, every step is a victory. After an hour or so, I began to feel lighter, the mountain air filling my lungs, the purity and wildness of this place enveloping me, feeling totally at one with this harsh, yet grounding landscape. Marching slowly across the scree, around halfway up, views of Suilven opened before me, further energising my soul. I stopped awhile, watching the shadows of cloud pass over the mountains. I didn't make it to the top, but I was very close. The truth is I never expected to get that far and was not fully prepared for the summit in winter. I played it safe and decided to head back down. I'll never forget it. I was almost skipping down the mountain, full of energy, fuelled by the elemental nature of my surroundings. One of many occasions where nature has saved me. Please believe in magic, and never, ever give up.