You’re here because you’re feeling disconnected—from purpose, from passion, from yourself. You’re not alone.
You’ve been doing everything “right”—but something still feels off. What if the clarity you crave isn’t in your inbox or next goal, but quietly waiting beneath your feet?
Maybe your days blur together. You’re busy, yet unfulfilled. You reach for your phone, a snack, or another task to avoid the quiet. Despite your achievements, something still feels missing. We overeat, binge watch or binge read, go on shopping sprees for “retail therapy”, take up a new hobby or scroll mindlessly to avoid feeling what needs to be felt to fix what’s broken. You open your phone for “just five minutes” to scroll. You hit play on another show you’re not even watching. You fill your calendar with tasks that keep you from ever really feeling anything too deeply.
We all do it.
Numbing out is a modern art form—something we’re all taught to do when life feels like too much. But eventually, the distraction runs out. The silence creeps in. The ache returns.
When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they turn to pleasure for distraction. Because pleasure is a quick, easy dopamine hit. That could be binge-watching Netflix, overeating, overworking, or even constantly setting new goals to chase that next hit of excitement.
But these are symptoms—not solutions. Look carefully. Are you aligned or numb after scrolling for an hour? Happy or just tired after binge watching hours of Netflix? Going shopping to buy new “______ fill in the blank” just so you don’t have to think or feel?
“Man’s Search for Meaning”, by Viktor Frankl suggests that our primary drive is the need for meaning. Not power, not pleasure. He survived Nazi concentration camps. He watched as prisoners in Auschwitz gave away their last piece of bread to comfort others. He came to the conclusion that even in this hell, meaning was the the thing that kept them human.
We live in a world that celebrates doing over being. And when we feel an internal ache—something we can’t quite name—we tend to outrun it. We schedule it away. We call it burnout or boredom, but at its core, it’s often disconnection from meaning.
The Quiet Crash After Constant Numbing
Maybe you’ve felt it: that low-grade emotional hum. Not quite depression, not quite peace. You’re functioning—but disconnected. You’re going through the motions—but your joy feels buried.
In our overstimulated world, numbing is often mistaken for rest. But rest revives you. Numbing just keeps you sedated.
As Rumi wrote:
“Don’t get lost in your pain, know that one day your pain will become your cure.”
We numb to avoid pain, but sometimes pain is the doorway to the healing we need. And if we’re willing to walk outside—even for a moment—nature has a way of gently showing us what’s beneath the surface.
Nature might be the very place to turn.
If you’re a driven, thoughtful person who’s done everything “right” but still feels a void, this is for you.
I’ve been there too—burned out, successful on paper, but quietly yearning for more. Nature was the place I stopped performing—and started listening.
I’m no expert. But I’ve been there and struggled with trying to figure out what works. Over the years, the most answers have come through my time in nature. Working 60 hours a week for years on end, I never saw my personal unrest and stopped the search for more achievements. Meaning and purpose were given somewhat in my career, I loved my job and my clients.
But I missed out on important parts of me.
Now I try to help individuals reset and rediscover themselves through nature photography and reflective practices, before it’s too late. I’ve seen how stepping into wild spaces can reawaken clarity and direction. I’ve felt the reset that quiets your nervous system. I’ve experienced the deep breaths that come spontaneously when walking quietly through a wooded path or along a sun warmed beach.
Nature Doesn’t Demand—It Invites
Where digital noise overwhelms, nature whispers. The way light shifts through trees, the way birds call back and forth, the way wind brushes across your skin—it all coaxes you back to your senses.
“Attention is the beginning of devotion.” —Mary Oliver
When we pause long enough to truly notice the world around us, we begin to devote ourselves to presence. And presence is the first step to healing.
Florence Williams, in her book The Nature Fix, found that even small doses of time outdoors—just 20 minutes—can reduce cortisol, lower blood pressure, and improve mood. We don’t just feel better—we become more ourselves.
What’s Really Happening?
- We’ve traded presence for productivity.
- We measure our worth in output, not aliveness.
- We fear stillness because what we’ve been avoiding might be allowed to surface.
But here’s the thing: You can’t Google your way to meaning. And you can’t think your way back into alignment. Meaning is something felt—and the fastest way back to it is through your senses.
What Are You Really Avoiding?
The real reason numbing stops working? It doesn’t address the root. It only delays it.
Nature creates space for the real feelings to rise—grief, loneliness, exhaustion, even unexpected hope.
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” —Pema Chödrön
In Burnout, authors Emily and Amelia Nagoski explain that stress needs to complete its cycle. If we suppress it—ignore it—it gets stuck in the body. But physical movement, breath, and immersion in the natural world help us complete that emotional loop.
This is why a simple walk can crack open a tightly wound heart.
One of the most notable nature philosophers, Henry David Thoreau, believed the value of nature is deeply rooted in the spiritual and intuitive aspects of the human experience. Thoreau believed that nature was not just a place to visit, but a vital source of wisdom and truth, offering profound insights into the essential facts of life. He saw nature as a corrective to the distractions and complexities of civilization, believing that by simplifying one’s life and immersing oneself in the natural world, one could uncover deeper meaning and connect with the spiritual realm. (Remember, he thought the world was overly complicated and way too busy in 1847!)
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – Henry David Thoreau
This quote, from the opening chapter of Walden, illustrates his intention to escape the superficiality of conventional society. He sought authentic living by seeking wisdom and meaning in nature. He sought a deeper understanding of life by minimizing external distractions and maximizing his connection with the natural world.
Christian author John Eldredge writes in Get Your Life Back:
“We are not meant to live this way—hurried and distracted. God gave us nature as a way to heal our souls.”
There is something sacred about walking beneath trees or watching water flow. These aren’t just moments of beauty; they’re moments of encounter.
Why Nature? Because It Doesn’t Ask You to Perform
Nature doesn’t care what you earn or what you’ve accomplished. It simply invites you to be. And in that being, your nervous system begins to downshift. Your thoughts slow. You stop reaching for something to fill the gap—and realize the gap itself is where truth begins.
Being surrounded by trees, water, mountains, or even the quiet chirp of birds in a neighborhood park activates something ancient in us. It reminds us:
- You are part of something bigger.
- Stillness is not laziness; it’s wisdom.
- Beauty is not a luxury—it’s medicine.
You start to notice things again. The warmth of the sun. The way the wind makes the grass sway. The tension in your body that finally starts to melt.
And in that softening, something powerful happens: you start to remember what matters.
If you’ve felt far from God—or from yourself—nature might be His way of calling you home.
Look at how the world is built: with seasons, with cycles, with moments of wintering and rebirth. As Katherine May writes in Wintering, “Some winters happen in the sun.” Even summer seasons can carry a quiet invitation to go inward.
You weren’t meant to push through everything.
You were made to feel. To rest. To be renewed.
From Distraction to Direction
When you step into nature, you’re not escaping life—you’re returning to it.
Slowly, you begin to replace distraction with direction. You hear your own voice again—the one drowned out by the world’s noise.
You might not walk away with all the answers.
But you will walk away with a question that actually matters.
A truth that stirs. A thread to follow back to meaning.
Next time you’re outside, ask yourself: What is this silence trying to tell me about my life?
Then listen—really listen. Not for words, but for feeling.
Because meaning doesn’t shout. It whispers. And nature is where we finally have the stillness to hear it.
Want to Go Deeper?
Dive into further reading with the books below:
“We Aren’t Meant to Be Happy All the Time” – Emily Esfahani Smith, The Atlantic
The Nature Fix – Florence Williams
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle – Emily & Amelia Nagoski
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times – Katherine May
Get Your Life Back – John Eldredge
How to Do Nothing – Jenny Odell
Want a more hands on immediate solution? Start by downloading our Mini Nature Reset Journal for prompts that will get you started on reconnecting you to what matters most. Print it out and follow what’s in your heart to start your journey.
Your next breakthrough might not be in your calendar—it might be on a quiet trail.
Rediscover what matters through nature
Feeling Overwhelmed or craving stillness? At Finding Nature’s Beauty, we create space to breathe, reflect and reconnect –with yourself and the world around you. Reflections, our newsletter, is designed to help you find calmness and clarity from the stress of everyday living by providing weekly inspiration, stories, and actionable ideas to guide you.