nature – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Forest Bathing

Last week some of the Personal Euphoria instructors went forest bathing. I didn’t know what to expect. Really, it has a terrible name. For me it brings thoughts of nudity, a bit of hokeyness, or potential images of cleaning the forest with sudsy bathwater. I know it’s none of those things, but the name does the practice no real service. My basic understanding was that it was meditating in the forest. Knowing that trees make humans feel better, I thought this might be a good excursion. It was.

We met at Pleasant Valley Preserve in Lyme, CT (a location I can’t recommend enough if you haven’t been there). This is a quiet treasure near the southern border of our state. We walked slowly through these beautiful woods, took deep breaths, did gentle stretches, and sat or wandered in specific areas—all guided by Regan Stacey. She invited us to hone into all our senses and encouraged us to explore. It was always an invitation to do something, not an order.

Forest bathing is not hiking. I’m one of those hikers that likes to move. I like to get to the top, to the view. […]

The Magic of Christmas

And, my mom is rocking this little toddler bathrobe too.

This is a picture of my mom. She’s about three. While she was napping one day, my Grandma decorated the Christmas tree. My mom woke up and discovered the tree aglow. Someone got this snapshot, which is impressive because everyone wasn’t running around with a camera on their phone.

You can see the awe, wonder, and joy that Christmas can bring on her little face. It’s not only Christmas. We can feel wonder at other times and in other places. Usually for me nature inspires those feelings more than anything else.

I pick the places I travel and the activities I do to find a little bit of that astonishment. When you’re 8,000-feet on a snow-covered mountain at night and you look up at the stars, your jaw drops in amazement. I regularly seek the sense of wonder, awe and joy my mom is living in that photograph. It can be harder to find during the daily grind and on a day-to-day basis, but it’s there.

And Christmas is a time of year […]