Lesson 4 – Awakening your sense of touch
Introduction to this lesson
Hello and welcome to lesson four – Awakening your sense of touch.
Previously, we explored what nature awareness actually is, the benefits of spening time in Nature and how and how it can bring colour, magic and vibrancy to your daily life. In this section, we will begin working on your senses – specifically, how to start awakening your senses to become mindfully aware of and connected to nature.
What you will learn:
In this masterclass you will learn:
- Why developing your sense of touch is important
- How to interact with nature through your sense of touch
So, are you ready to begin noticing and connecting to nature? Then let’s get started!
Awakening Your Sense of Touch
The objective of nature awareness, is to start acclimatising your senses to notice the world around you and engage and interact with nature and one of the best ways to do that, is by awakening our sense of touch.
Often, we think of vision as our most important nature awareness tool. Afterall, there is so much going on in Nature. It is beautiful, magical and awe-inspiring.
But for today, we are going to close our eyes and instead focus on our least-thought-about, but most important connection sense – the sense of touch.
Because, whether it is running our fingers over the bark of a tree, or sinking our toes into the warm sea sand, touch is important for us. Think about how a young child explore the world. They first and foremost use their sense of touch. So, that is also what we are going to do.
Your action steps
To begin this exercise, find somewhere safe and calm – preferably a green space outdoors, but if not, try being beside an open window (if you can safely stick your arm or head out of the window, even better). Then warm yourself up with the following routine:
- Relax and take a beautiful breath in, then out
- Shrug and relax your shoulders and put on a beautiful smile
- Close your eyes
- Feel the air upon your skin
Your field activity
- Begin by feeling the air surrounding you – feel it hugging you, touching you, sweeping past or landing on you – the breezes, sunshine, snow or raindrops.
- Then move your attention to the ground beneath your feet – feel its firmness, texture and bounce – earth, rocks, grass, moss, sand, mud or asphalt.