It’s a great time to fall back in love with all the important things in your life. it’s the start of a new decade and the chance to focus your energy and time on positive things, like falling back in love. And focussing on the people, places and things you love to do are a wonderful way to have a positive impact on your mental wellness for the year, and decade, ahead.
Take a break from the busy-ness
At the Charcoal Hut, our guests often leave us lovely feedback and also tell us how refreshed they feel by their time staying with us. We’ve noticed that, whilst they mention many different things, they all seem to have a common theme – they have fallen back in love.
With walking, birdsong, trees, hot chocolate, star-gazing. Often guests tell us they fell back in love with long walks, dark skies, woodlands, streams, the sound of wind in trees. Cuddling up in blankets together, marshmallows and romantic dinners all make it regularly onto the list. When it comes to falling back in love, they most often tell us they have fallen back in love with each other. Many tell us that the peace here, the lack of noise and being ‘busy’ with interruptions on-line, allowed them to be more present for each other. Our guests tell us it is somewhere special, that they feel they’ve re-connected in some deeper way.
Give your thoughts positive, quiet space
When you filter-out the noise that constantly seems to be present in busy lives, when you slow down and, instead of aiming for targets you focus on the moment and taking joy in being present, things really shift. The thoughts that can occupy our minds when we are surrounded by demands on our time, (all of which appear to be a priority), are often misleading us and give us a sense of not achieving, or being ‘enough’. When you get out of that environment, into the space and quiet in nature and particularly in the woods, this shifts.
Recent studies, and ancient knowledge, have shown what a powerful impact trees can have on our mental and physical well being. The art of Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing (nature therapy) has been practiced in japan for hundreds of years and in their modern practices, it is used to support positive mental health. All our guests have told us that they have found time in the woods here to be deeply relaxing and restorative.
Take some time away from ‘adulting’!
When did you last spend time on the things or with the people you love? So often we come up with reasons (excuses) that mean we let the things we love fall aside in favour of things we believe we ‘have to do’. Being grown up sucks, right? Unless you decide to give yourself a break, and permission to make time for the things that give you joy, make you laugh, top up your tank. It’s time to fall back in love.
Dinah x
