If nothing was stopping you - if money was no issue, you had no obligations, no emails to respond to, no one waiting on you for an answer - where would you be right now?
Don’t overthink it. Just notice where your mind went.
Did it go somewhere with water? With trees, or open sky, or somewhere the ground is uneven and the air smells like something growing? Did it go to a beach, or a mountain, or a river, or a quiet road you drove down once on a holiday and never forgot? A place with no signal?
You are probably thinking: obviously. That answer is so obvious it barely counts.
Obvious is the insight
If it is so clear, so instant, so universally shared that the place where you feel most alive is outside, under sky, near something growing, then why have you built a life that keeps you so far from it most of the time?
It’s not because you chose wrong, but because we collectively designed a way of living that treats nature as a reward. Something you earn after a hard quarter. A holiday you save for. A weekend plan that gets postponed for something more urgent. A screensaver on a laptop that sits in a room with sealed windows and recycled air.
Nature became a luxury. Something for the weekends, for the holidays, for retirement. And nobody questioned it, because the things that were supposed to matter - career, output, ambition - all happened indoors.
Your body did not get the memo
Your body does not experience nature as a reward. It does not know the difference between a beach holiday and two minutes standing barefoot in your backyard.
The research is extensive and consistent. A meta-analysis of 31 studies found that direct exposure to natural environments reduces cortisol levels, lowers blood pressure, decreases heart rate, and shifts the nervous system from sympathetic (fight or flight) to parasympathetic (rest and recovery). A separate 15-year programme of research across 24 forests in Japan found the same pattern: whether participants walked in a forest or simply sat in one for fifteen minutes, their pulse rate dropped, their blood pressure lowered, and their parasympathetic nervous activity increased.
Luckily, your body doesn’t need a three-day retreat to feel this. It needs a few minutes outside without a screen in your hand. Time for your nervous system to recognise: I am in a place where nothing is asking anything of me.
Belonging to a place
We talk about nature as though it is somewhere we go, but your body does not experience it as a destination. It experiences it as a homecoming. Something in you recognises the open air, the uneven ground, the sound of water, in a way that is not learned but is built in. Evolutionary biologists call it biophilia: the idea that humans have an innate affinity for natural environments, developed over hundreds of thousands of years of living in direct relationship with the land. Your nervous system responds to a forest the way it responds to safety, because your body remembers, at a depth your conscious mind has no access to, that this is where you come from.
This is a sense of belonging: belonging to a place, and being part of it.The way your body already knows where home is before your brain has decided.
The design problem nobody names
The average Australian spends more than 90% of their time indoors. It’s not usually because they prefer it but because work, commutes, childcare, errands, obligations, and screens have been structured to keep them there.
And then we wonder why people feel disconnected. Why there is an epidemic of loneliness. Why stress is a public health crisis. Why people feel like something is missing even when everything on paper looks fine.
Part of what is missing is a place. The ground. The sky. The specific quality of air that moves differently when it has not been filtered through a building. The sound of nothing manufactured. The experience of existing in a space that was not built for productivity.
We severed a relationship that was never optional and then tried to replace it with wellness apps and indoor plants. It was a reasonable attempt. It was not enough.
A simpler question for Earth Day
Today is Earth Day. Among the big, and enormously important conversations around protecting the planet, here’s something simple and immediate you can do for yourself.
Go outside. Not for a workout, or for a walk with a podcast, or to take a photo. Just go outside and stand still for two minutes, with nothing in your hands.
Let your shoulders drop. Let your breath change. Let your body do what it already knows how to do when it is standing in a place that was not designed by anyone.
You do not need to save the planet before the planet will make you feel something. It has been waiting. It will not stop.
If this resonated with you
KanYini Earth works in the space between people and the natural world they have been designed away from. Between the life that looks productive and the life that actually feels like something.
We are building twelve learning courses that help people reconnect, with each other and with the places and experiences that make life feel worth living. Every contribution goes directly into building these programmes.
A contribution of $5 helps someone discover a resource they did not know existed. $156 gives one person full access to a complete course. A reshare reaches 200 more people and costs nothing at all.
Walk with KanYini Earth.
References
Yao, W., Zhang, X., & Gong, Q. (2021). The effect of exposure to the natural environment on stress reduction: A meta-analysis. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 57, 126932. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1618866720307494
Park, B. J., Tsunetsugu, Y., Kasetani, T., Kagawa, T., & Miyazaki, Y. (2010). The physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku: Evidence from field experiments in 24 forests across Japan. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 15(1), 18–26.
Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Harvard University Press.
Holt-Lunstad, J. (2024). Social connection as a critical factor for mental and physical health. World Psychiatry, 23(3), 312–332. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.21224
