Using Nature in Mindfulness Meditation to find Inner Peace

Pitons of St Lucia

Today is The International Day of Peace also known as World Peace Day. First established in 1981 by the United Nations, the International Day of Peace is celebrated each year on the 21st September as a day for all of humanity to commit to peace and build a culture of peace.

Inner Peace for World Peace

When we think of conflict, we often think of wars and violence around the world, but there are also conflicts that we experience in our day to day lives from friction in the workplace, road rage and hateful comments on social media. Although these small daily conflicts may not seem like they make a difference to the world, each one contributes to a lack of world peace.

However, we can each help bring a little more peace into the world by creating a sense of inner peace within ourselves. There are many ways people can develop their own sense of inner peace including practising yoga, self-love and if you’re religious, prayer. One way that I try to create more inner peace in myself is by practising mindfulness meditation. I use the app Calm to practice, using the ‘Daily Calm’ to take 10 minutes out of my day to quiet the mind and focus inwards.

"True peace comes from within. And we will never know real peace in the world until we discover this for ourselves." - Mabel Katz

Mindfulness Meditation - Mountain Meditation

A few days ago, the theme of the ‘Daily Calm’ was mountains. The qualities of a mountain include strength and resilience. Narrator Tamara Levitt compared these qualities of a mountain to the role that mindfulness can play in our lives.

 

 

What I took away from the session was that despite the many changes that mountains endure over time, like the change of seasons and extreme weather conditions, mountains still stand tall into the sky. Mindfulness can play this role in our lives too, regardless of the inevitable changes that we experience in our lives like new jobs, new relationships, new opportunities and challenges, we can always turn to mindfulness meditation as a tool that can help us find strength, resilience, stillness and to feel grounded. This can help us bring some peace into our lives which helps us to contribute more peace to our world.

This mountain meditation made me think of the mountains in the Caribbean. In particular, The Pitons, two mountainous volcanic plugs located near the town of Soufrière in St Lucia. The Gros Piton & Petit Piton stand tall as a landmark in St Lucia and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site (one of only nineteen in the Caribbean). We can use real mountainous structures like this to help us visualise during our mountain meditation practice. After practising this Daily Calm meditation, I’ve decided to decorate my meditation space with the St Lucia Pitons Art Print to remind me of the qualities of strength and resilience I can adopt from mountains to bring into my mindfulness practise and my everyday life.


Of course, there are plenty of other beautiful Caribbean mountainous peaks that we can use to inspire us which include Blue Mountain Peak in Jamaica, Mount Liamuiga in Saint Kitts, Morne Diablotins in Dominica and Mount Saint Catherine in Grenada.

Jamaica Blue Mountain Peak


Mindfulness Meditation to Try

Apart from Calm, there are plenty of other places that offer guided mindfulness meditations. See the below videos if you want to try one for yourself!

Sources & Further Reading:

  1. Inner Peace is World Peace. Read more
  2. What if you could Create World Peace? Read more
  3. The Pitons: Eight Things You Might Not Know. Read more
  4. Blue Mountain photo by Yves Alarie on Unsplash

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