Jack's story: 'Living in the moment'
[Digital story coming soon]
At the start it was just something that I had to do for work, so it wasn’t something I necessarily chose to do; it was just James, who I support, goes to do it, so I have to take him there. But then I really started to enjoy it. I enjoyed being outdoors, I enjoyed learning about everything I see, and Paul and Camilo, they know the names of everything, they know the history about it, and it’s just absolutely brilliant to hear all that. So that’s why I’m thinking about coming here on my days off. It would be good to come here and just be free to really fully enjoy it for myself as well because it is definitely good, I really do enjoy it. And it’s good exercise, it’s good for your mental health, it’s good for your spiritual health and growth. So aye, we always look to come here as often as possible.
I would definitely keep coming here as long as it was going, because it’s something to look forward to. In work there’ll be things that I don’t really look forward to, but when I’m working a Thursday shift, I’m always looking forward to this group, so I am. Me and James always go walking, but we’ve pretty much exhausted every route that we actually know, so this is a good way to find new routes. We walk loads of different routes now. There is a good few routes, like Forest Wood, we walk there all the time now. Like not just for mental health but for physical health and even learning about all the foraging. I think that’s brilliant because next time I’m out and about walking I’m going to be eating these things, I’ll be tasting them and see how they are. I’ll just be extra careful that I’m eating the same thing that I’ve learnt about in the group.
It was only last week where we did one, we were walking by a wee waterfall, and Camilo said, if yous all want to stand and then just really look at the water and watch the bubbles as they flow over the waterfall, it slows it down, because, when you’re looking at it, it’s just happening so fast, but if you just try and focus on one wee bit, it slows it all down. So when I was doing that, it was a real spiritual experience, it’s like we were all meditating together. We all stood there for just five minutes in silence, and it just felt brilliant, you felt energised and refreshed after it. I already tend to do things like that and I’m starting to do it a bit more, but I’ll keep an eye out for the wee bubbles the next time, when I’m out walking or doing some hill walking. It is like meditation, when you can just take a minute to just be in that present moment and just take in everything that you can see, and hear, and smell. I think I definitely need that in my life, I think everybody does. It is good to talk to people and that, but sometimes I like to just like really tune out from the voices and just take in what I’m seeing and experiencing at that point in time.
The same for James too, sometimes it’s good to remind him to just take some deep breaths and for him to stay in that present moment. He’ll need to be reminded that he can stop and smell the roses, you know. Because he can’t really communicate that he might be feeling a wee bit down, so it is really important to get him out and for him to experience this too, the same way anyone else would want to go out and do that for themselves. So it’s for the both of us, you know. Although I’m working, I’m not just doing it for him, it’s for the both of us, that we can get out and just leave any problems you might have, or worries. It’s just so easy to live in the moment when you’re outside and out in nature.
This is part of the project 'Stories of nature connections' (https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/projects/stories-nature-connections)
