Embodying Imagination & Reconnecting with Nature
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how deeply interconnected we are - with each other, and the natural world. And yet, many of us live hustle and bustle lives and work that perpetuate an unnatural disconnect from our own bodies, each other, and Nature.
Last week I talked about the importance of deinstitutionalizing our minds and bodies in order to open up to creative and communal abundance. That’s the work we’re doing during the first week of Creativity Lab - The Abundant Imagination. To shift away from scarcity and deficit mindsets and systems we have to shed our own complicity or compliance.
During the second week, we’ll focus on how to reconnect our own bodies in partnership with Nature. I truly believe that much of the climate action paralysis comes from this systemic disconnection between ourselves and Nature.
Many of us have been raised to view Nature as something separate, as someplace or thing to visit, admire, or protect. (Nature needs our active protection now more than ever, and I encourage you to follow Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s What If We Get It Right on Substack.)
But when you remember that you are Nature, you discover that your creativity, body, and even neural pathways mirror the intricate, interwoven systems found in forests, rivers, and other ecosystems. Once you feel how you are your own ecosystem, interconnected and interacting with many other ecosystems, you tap into something ancient and intuitive and deeply creative.
One way to do this is through embodied awareness. A tree doesn’t force itself to grow but responds to its environment. You, too, can cultivate creativity through presence. Moving your body - walking, swimming, or breathing with awareness - are examples of practices to embody awareness and shift into creative flow, much like the rhythms of the natural world. Bilateral movements, such as walking meditations, activate both hemispheres of the brain, sparking new ideas and breaking old thought patterns.
Observing nature also teaches us about the power of imagination. The Default Mode Network (DMN) in our brain, sometimes called our "imagination hub," activates during rest, daydreaming, and deep reflective work. These are moments when you allow insights to arise organically rather than muscle creativity or productivity. When you create the space and allow yourself to be, rather than constantly doing, you open up new possibilities for creativity and innovation.
Cultivating creative community all magnifies into abundant flow.
Consider:
How might you reconnect to your own nature this week?
Where and when can you spend time in stillness, noticing the world around you?
Observe the way ideas move through you, much like the wind through the trees or what is your metaphor?
Connecting back to reflective practices I shared earlier this month, what constraints might you need to shed in order to get down to the bones of your creative core?
What would it feel and look like to embrace creative collaboration, knowing that just as pollinators spread life, our ideas grow stronger when shared?
Are you ready to step into a deepened sense of connection—to yourself, to a held communal group of like-minded folks, and to the living world of which we are a part? This is the foundation part to taking action in a regenerative way without the overwhelming anxiety and burnout.