#TheTribe WEEK 10: THE JOY OF OUTSIDE Since were celebrating the warmer weather this week, I wanted to share a passage from my book, #MyFootIsTooBigForTheGlassSlipper, that talks about the power that nature can have on our health. I hope you enjoy! After our work is done for the day and weve more or less tackled our to-do list, how do we spend the rest of our hours? In the same way we need to know our priorities, we need to have a sense of what kind of activities are fun and spontaneous. For me, its being in nature, being with friends, and community service. Pretty much everything else is off my radar completely. Youll never catch me shopping until I drop, cooking a complicated French meal, or jamming with an all-girl band. Fifteen years ago, Laird and I bought a piece of hilly property overlooking the Hanalei River ... There are plenty of perfectly good houses in Kauai, but we wanted one that was plain and comfortable and allowed us to live our daily lives in a way that we could never, for a minute, forget about the natural world unfolding around us. At Florida State, I spent a lot of time on indoor courts. When I began modeling, around the same time, I spent half the year in New York City. I sometimes wonder how my life would have gone had I hooked up with someone Id met in Manhattan, a photographer, say, or magazine editor, some indoor person. One of the major things that attracted me to Laird was his abiding relationship with nature. Even back then I could feel it. The more time I spent in a fancy dress and proper shoes, the further away I felt from who I truly was. There is a lot of talk today about how our children are suffering a nature deficit, how computer screens have become their reality and forests, meadows, creeks -- even a nearby empty lot where weeds and wildflowers grow -- something foreign, something other. Were always looking for complicated answers to our complicated problems. Do we need to buy something new? See a new kind of counselor? Find a new partner? Move to a new state or country? Do we need to completely overhaul our bad habits? Indulge in retail therapy? There are no guarantees in this book. My foot is too big for the glass slipper. Im not a believer in easy fixes or fairy tales. Except when it comes to this: Put down your book or eReader and go take a walk around the block. You dont even need to live on a beautiful block, with carefully tended gardens or towering trees. You dont need a view. Just be out there. Inhale. Crane your neck up at the sky. Notice the weather. Whatever it is going on in your life, itll get better. Even if the only thing that improves is your outlook. Have a great rest of the week --Gabby To get a copy:bit.ly/1fz8EAu
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 21:10:00 +0000
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