PROJECT NATURECONNECT
Institute of Global Education
Greenwich University
Portland State University
Introductory Course
ECO 501 Educating and Counseling With Nature
"HEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTHEARTH Can you not see that the Earth is in our Hearts together?" - Modified from Bob Lewis
Chapter 21
Intensify AppreciationThe prick of the thistle spine quickly brings to mind how attracted I am to other more comfortable and welcoming plants.
Marty applied to our expedition school program as a last resort. He had dropped out of school and was into drugs and alcohol. We only accepted him in the program because he'd had it with life as he knew it. He convinced us that he wanted to change, to commit himself to living responsibly and to co-creating a living and learning community that would help him do so. He said he would be grateful for the opportunity.
Marty confronted the school group with many problems. Each of them became part of our curriculum for we could see their significance and relationship to ourselves. He was seldom likable or trustable, often being surly, inexpressive, and remote. We had to draw out how he felt at our meetings in order to make consensus group decisions that included him. However, he expressed thanks to the group for having patience with him. He participated in forming negative cliques that let him act out the anger he felt from his emotional abandonment by his well established parents.
Marty liked to cook, hike, and write. He received massive encouragement from the group to fulfill these attractions and share his skills in them with other group members. To achieve this goal, he needed to thankfully ask for support and permission. He discovered new self-fulfillments while getting it and expressed thank for them. Support was not available unless he helped to create an open and honest group atmosphere where he could safely and constructively express himself. He became attracted to thankfully sharing his thoughts and feelings with others, so that they could support them.
Through this process, we got to know Marty on a deeper, more natural level. In response, he developed a genuine interest in building relationships based on helping the inner child in others fulfill their attractions. His new found friends would, in turn, support, share and thereby enhance his enjoyment and growth in his strong areas of interest.
From these interactions, Marty developed new interests. The program enhanced this process by having the group evaluate themselves, as well as each individual's skill development in every aspect of educating themselves and each other. Our many varied activities became the academic subjects we took as a real-life practicum, our evaluations translated into grades for the courses and were entered on accredited transcripts.
Marty flourished in this supportive atmosphere. A key to it was his thankfulness for moment by moment sensory fulfillment. That attitude attracted support for his commitment to living sensibly. His desire for drugs and alcohol was replaced with a desire to live in rewarding places and gain fulfillment by sustaining open and honest relationships. He became skilled in these self-chosen quests; they became a life commitment for him.
By the end of the year Marty seemed like a different person. The experience had nurtured many wrangled, hurt, withdrawn natural parts of him and as he found support for his attractions, he related more successfully. Only when he felt overwhelmed did his negative tendencies reappear, but soon he'd fearlessly, competently deal with them by thankfully connecting to those with whom he could share his concerns, discover his attractions, and gain new sensory fulfillment safely. Marty's thankfulness for help and energies of former negativity and hurt became the fuel for connecting with NIAL. It was so predictable that it was like buying a laxative and having the druggist give you your change in quarters. The following activity can be that potent.. Try it with the inner nature you find in people as well as in natural areas.Appreciate: Go to an attractive natural area and thankfully gain its permission for you to do this activity there. By calling to you and touching you, this natural attraction has given you good feelings. In RWN 2 and 14 we experience the value of conscientiously thanking it for having given your life attractive enjoyable sensations. This activity intensifies that value.
Raise the stakes for how you express your thankfulness. Honor this entity with a physical act, gift, or spoken words. Honor it for sharing its attractiveness with you as well as for sustaining the flow of the global life community through you. Honor it for fulfilling your natural wants so that you don't excessively want. How else might you thank it without hurting it?
Value Collision: If you are thanking a tree and the gift you give it is to urinate on its root area, does it appreciate the gift?
All of nature contains mutual attractions. If you appreciate this natural attraction, it appreciates you and expresses it.
What gift does this area give you?
Can you take a physical gift from it to help you remember it?
Write why you deserve to have this gift.
Repeat this activity by enjoying an attraction you have to another person and similarly expressing appreciation for it.
CWN Connectors that add experiences to this chapter: #105
Write down the three most important things you learned from this chapter and activity.
Write down three G/G statements.
How would you feel having your ability to experience this G/G taken away?
Does this activity enhance your sense of self-worth? your trustfulness of NIAL?
Which wrangler/person, if any, does this activity identify or reeducate inside or outside you?
Share at least one sentence/person that conveys how hearing their experience has enhanced yours.
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