20 Nature Based Things You Can Do to Improve Your Happiness

Find Your Life Purpose

According to nature’s law -everything in nature has a purpose, including you. Anything that doesn’t follow its purpose in nature gets destroyed. Illness, sadness, depression, failure and stress are all warning signs of being off purpose. So, find your single life purpose and tattoo it on your arm.

See Beauty

According to nature’s law – there’s a balance to everything and when you see that balance our mind sees beauty. Look for beauty in everything, especially people you might be angry with or critical of, but equally important, see balance and therefore beauty in you.

Do a Little Healing

According to nature’s law – learning teaches us to think and we think about things as either good or bad, right or wrong. Unlearning things means you think less, feel more and to really do this authentically you need to see the two sides of someone or something. Doing some healing means more feeling, less thinking – the result is turning up 110% with a good balanced heart.

Avoid Resentment or Frustration

According to nature’s law – when we are stuck, in our own evolution the signs are simple and clear. We get angry and frustrated. Usually we say “he did this or she did that” to cause it, but that delusional and denial. When faced with anger and frustration see where you are stuck and then work through it to see how much love you can feel. Important here is not to gush with love and bubble over with expletives about how wonderful you feel. That’s self indulgent. Instead, hold your tongue and feel instead of think.

Break Down a Barrier

According to nature’s law – all things are connected but our ego feels fantastic when we feel separated, independent, egocentric and powerful. So, to breakdown a barrier is to inspire a whole new thinking about someone or something and that causes massive doses of real happiness. Choose somebody else and ask “where am I like them?” – because in nature, nothing is missing it just changes in form and so, really, what you might be judging in someone else, you are judging in you too, just in a different form.

Change Your Vibe

According to nature’s law – everything vibrates. Our thoughts determine that vibration so how do we change that vibration? We change our thoughts. Which thoughts are better? Thankful thoughts are better. So the more thankful the thought the better it is. Now this doesn’t mean platitudes what it does mean is to really go back and find the benefit of something that you would otherwise have thought negative. Say for example somebody cheated on you; can you see the benefit in that? This change in your thought process can really make a difference to your happiness.

See Things Differently

According to nature’s law – everything grows at the border of chaos and order. In the ambition of most human beings order is the preference. Order means; support, pleasure, happiness, friendliness, peace, generosity, acceptance, and approval. So you can see that in the human mind there is a preference for only half of what nature determines to be the reality in which we live. If we continually aspire to defy nature we find ourselves in a battle with over 8000 diseases, untold number of humbling situations and an exhausting wrestle with inevitable. Instead simply by changing the way we see things we can boost our happiness ratio 500% in a few hours. The idea is to see that life is not half as is the ambition of the human ego, but a balance of support and challenge and that the lack of pleasure, unhappiness, unfriendliness, war, greed, rejection are all part of a dynamic played out with those things we like. If you can see the equal benefit of both support and challenge in your life your happiness ratio will escalate.

Go Bush

According to nature’s law – our separation from nature is the root all human problems. Our thoughts and worries, Ego, travel with us wherever we go so there is really no escape from misguided thinking that causes unhappiness. However, if we can immerse ourselves in nature to the point where there is a dependency we find a harmony that cannot be understood through thinking. For example paddling a kayak one learns that no matter how much we think the water should be flat if nature decides to throw away our way she will and we have to deal with that. This is why I fully support competitive nature-based sports because it takes us from a dependency on our worries and thoughts to dependency on the reality of nature and the laws. Just a few minutes in nature depending on her rather than our expectations of her will increase our happiness tenfold.

Downtime

According to nature’s law – everything grows at the border of chaos and order and therefore everybody experiences enlightenment when they cross – it’s a moment of absolute relaxation and we can choose how often these moments happen. We all love time off but sometimes after a few days break, but it makes coming back to work twice as bad as it was before we left. So downtime can lead to all sorts of confusion as to what is normal and what is abnormal expectations of the day. For example; I once went to Bali retreat for 7 days and spent it in the luxury of a spa resort. During that time I was washed, scrubbed, pampered, fed and generally treated like a King. When I returned to my everyday Sydney city life, I felt like a pauper and it made me angry that I couldn’t spend the whole of my life in that beautiful spa. So instead of creating this duality of places that are magical and other places that aren’t, I think it’s better to create a consistency of happiness in which we can create these moments of magnificence anytime we want. So downtime isn’t a holiday, it’s a break in a day. Given that we evolve with nature at the border of chaos and order a break comes when we actually sit on the border of chaos in order instead of fluctuating either side of. This is called stillness or in everyday language, love. To create such a moment all we need to do is resign ourselves to contentment and satisfaction that what we have is perfect. This skill gives us the ability to take downtime anytime.

Change Your Perspective

According to nature’s law – there’s order in the chaos and sometimes to see that we have to separate ourselves from things and get a bigger perspective. Sometimes when we have an argument with somebody we might walk away feeling very angry. We walk and walk getting further and further away and as we do our anger gets less. It’s the same with time. We might have an argument with somebody and walk away and the longer the time between the argument and the present moment the less anger we feel. Both time and space change perspective. But walking away and waiting enormous amounts of time to heal an argument seems self-destructive as holding that anger for any length of time is unhealthy for ourselves, let alone others. So to gain the perspective of time and space instantaneously the best way to deal with anger or arguments is to take time out, go sit on the moon (in your mind’s eye) and look back at the situation from that perspective. In nature there is such a perspective. Looking at things through nature’s eyes we need to sit on the moon because it has a very big picture of where small things fit. If you look at the world from the moon you will see trees falling and trees growing, you will see people birthing and people dying. You’ll see how the world operates from a totally different perspective and what was once the cause of your unhappiness will actually flip and become the cause of great happiness. There is order in the chaos and from the moon you can see it.

Diversify

According to nature’s law – diversification is the key to survival. A tree has branches, leaves, roots, bark and is impacted by night and day. So nature flexes with circumstances. But humans quite often see themselves as a fixed entity. People so often make up their minds to do things their way, one way, the right way, my way or the highway. Few things cause more unhappiness to both self and other then this single dimension perspective that humans so often think is healthy. How we operate at work needs to be different to how we operate at home but more importantly how we see ourselves needs to be bigger than just a worker, a provider, a thinker or a doer. We are a body, mind, worker, partner, thinker, spirit, provider and contributor. There are so many dimensions to being human And when we remember this we free ourselves up to be happier because we don’t beat ourselves up as much for getting it wrong occasionally.

Take Short Cuts – Save Time

According to nature’s law – there is a scale of functionality from desperation to inspiration – from storm to calm and we can choose which one we operate at. If you were running in the Olympic games 100 m final would you be late for the start? Or would you be early, warm up, enjoy the space and then do the work, run the 100 m the best you can? Sometimes we get the idea that the healthiest way to work is to be rushing from meeting to meeting, running late, driving through traffic with anxiety hoping to get to our next appointment on time. As our world and the people in it evolve this manic style of self leadership needs to shift. A person who is rushing, busy, may get more done than a person who is going slow however, if the measure is placed more on the quality of the work, the creativity applied, the relationships built and the long-term benefit there will be an unquestionable benefit to going slow in order to go fast.

Expect The Possible

According to nature’s law – half is impossible and yet, there are a lot of hippies in the world who would say expect the impossible. But I’ve found it wiser to expect the possible. For example; if I want a relationship that is good I am wiser to expect support and challenge in that relationship than to expect the impossible which is support only. If my expectations are wrong I will be perpetually unhappy (depressed) because the world will not fit the model I have in my head. The perfect way to find happiness is to expect the world to function the way it functions rather than to be walking around wishing the world were different.

Get Humble

According to nature’s law – there are nature’s laws, and we can’t escape them no matter how many bombs we blow, or how angry we get. There is something in this world bigger than our own opinion. Even our opinion that our opinion is right is a self-righteousness that can cause great unhappiness. There is something in this world bigger than our own opinion and often this is solved as religious beliefs. But because there is disagreement about which religious belief is right and which religious belief is wrong there must be an even higher or bigger opinion than all the religions combined. So there are various levels of humility the highest humility is to find something in this world way bigger than both our own opinion and the opinions of arguing religions. These are the universal laws.

Emulate a Dog

According to nature’s law – appreciation grows – depreciation shrinks so, it may sound hilarious, but one of the greatest ways to understand how to be a great human being is to copy a dog. A dog is faithful. A dog is loyal. A dog is forgiving. A dog is affectionate.

Deal with a Fear

According to nature’s law – human will, and divine will are one in the same topic. But when fear comes, it means they are separate… Human will has taken control of your destiny. Fear relates to fear of the future. It’s really hard to fear the past. We can have guilt of the past but fear of the past is very uncommon. Fear of the future can create enormous unhappiness because it forms a barrier between what we would love to do and what we actually do. Getting over that fear might just be the leap of faith you need in order to step into a new level of happiness in your life. Mostly, we fear the unknown which is exactly what the future presents. We can minimize the risk of the future but we can’t eliminate the risk of the future. Backing yourself into the future at least knowing that if everything goes pear shaped you will survive will bring an incredible sense of strength and inner happiness. This in no way suggests taking undue risk.

Simplify

According to nature’s law – everything has a purpose but if we drill down to the finite little pieces of life things get too complicated to remember that bigger organizing principle and so we become overwhelmed. Technology is designed to help us evolve, so technology is an organizing principle. The trilogy of organize, supervise and deputize reveal the process of using technology to continually simplify life and work. Systems must replace repetitive thinking so that the human mind is left to its highest capacity and that is creativity and inspiration. The happiest person you know will work on the highest priorities. When a person works on low priority tasks, life becomes complex and this sabotage is this self worth and they replace self worth with self-esteem (ego).

Manifestation

According to nature’s law – Hoping that the world will give us what we want is a wonderful dream is that helps so many desperate people stay connected and part of the global machine of community, family and respect. However, the greatest human rights abuses come from this level of thinking. Hope puts our power in the hands of others and those people are not always acting in our best interest. There are real tangible steps to manifestation; purpose, vision, goals, daily habits, visualization, words of power, speech, gratitude, infatuation, communication and action. If you break down the structure of a tree and understand how the DNA develops from the seed to the fully grown tree you will see this manifestation formula in action every time. When a human being is creating something and believes that what they dream they can create their happiness will be at a peak level.

Relationship

According to nature’s law – all things are connected and therefore relationship is a critical element of human existence. However, we’re very confused about this. When a person loses their spirit and begins to feel that they cannot create the happiness they deserve as an individual they often reach out to others to create a crutch or even rescue them from their own existence. That rescue takes the form of substitutes for happiness. There are four substitutes for happiness; food and substance (includes alcohol and drugs), greed (includes adrenaline addiction), sex and sexuality (includes flirting) and spirituality (includes idealism and withdrawal into sensory deprivation – meditation). The core of great relationships is built on individual happiness and once this is was taken responsibility for relationship becomes an incredible inspiration.

Honesty

According to nature’s law – nothing is ever missing it just changes in form and so most of our thoughts which cause us to seek improvement, change, happiness and pleasure are based on a foundation of dishonesty. If we can stop long enough we will find that nothing is ever missing in our lives it just changed form. My favourite happiness quote is “if you don’t appreciate it the way that you’ve got it, you won’t get it the way that you want it” this simply means that if we are continually striving on the basis that something is missing or something can be improved we are very often sabotaging our happiness and making the road ahead very difficult.

Happiness and contentment are one in the same topic if we are looking for low maintenance high sustainability experience. Of course, the human ego-human nature – is always wanting something more. The realization is that the achievement of one goal usually gives birth to 3 more and so we give birth to an exponential growth in desire and an exponential deterioration in happiness if we don’t appreciate what we’ve got the way that we’ve got it as a foundation of our aspiration.

The Author:

Chris Walker – chriswalker.com.au  is a visionary business consultant and of the world’s leading facilitators of Personal/Professional Development. Author, consultant and professional speaker, his considered a leader in the field of human potential and lifestyles for success.