Today we’re celebrating the International Day of Forests. We’re teaming up with Dale Curd and his wife, Kimberly Alexander (Curd) to give homage to forests and encourage you to take a forest bath.
The 2020 celebration of the International Day of Forests will focus on Forests and Biodiversity. The International Day of Forests is held annually on 21 March to raise awareness of the importance of forests to people and their vital role in poverty eradication, environmental sustainability and food security. Sustainable management of all types of forests are at the heart of unlocking challenges of conflict-affected, developing and developed countries, for the benefit of current and future generations.
Please find more information here:
In honor of this special day, Dale Curd took this video from a forest near his home. It's breathtaking, soothing, and embodies his (and our) love of forests and nature.
This excerpt is from their book, Living Lightly: Bring Happiness and Calm to Your Everyday:
Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, is a nature therapy practice first developed in Japan during the 1980s. To take a forest bath means to spend a conscious amount of time under the canopy of a living forest, walking in a relaxed manner. The Japanese have researched and demonstrated that forest bathing offers numerous health benefits, including boosting our immune system, reducing our blood pressure, reducing stress, lifting our mood, increasing our focus, improving our sleep and increasing our energy levels. There are more than sixty forest therapy camps across the country.
Giving ourselves a forest bath is a balm for our souls and our senses. The environment around us is alive, growing and bursting with energy. There are scents for us to breathe in. Sounds and rhythms to hear. We can feel the cool, rich lightness of the air on our skin. There are vibrant colours to absorb. And, if you desire, there is an abundance of tastes to forage. A forest is a community of communities, each with its own distinct patterns and cycles that merge in layers of synchronicity and mutual benefit. A forest is a living, breathing history book where we can observe the past, see and embrace the present, and witness the birth of the future.
Deep inside a forest, we are also deeper inside ourselves. Our rhythms reset themselves to the inhaling and exhaling of the trees and plants, and we explore our own importance while walking among giants and being gigantic. I am cleansed and lightened by the rich oxygen all around me. My concerns and burdens are released to the forest floor while my emotions dissipate, clear and evaporate to the tops of the trees, elevating my mood. My mind empties, slows and, searching, finds my heart. Now, with head and heart joined, I am connected and at peace.
Title - Living Lightly
Author - Dale Curd and Kimberly Alexander
Genre - Personal Growth / Happiness / SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational / BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Mindfulness & Meditation
Publisher - Harper Collins Canada
Book Blurb –
EMBRACE THE PRESENT AND FIND CALM AND JOY—EVERY DAY
Living Lightly is a daily devotional that offers a year’s worth of opportunities to commune, in the deepest and most beautiful sense of that word, with your self and your life. Partners and therapists, Dale and Kim Curd step through the universal doorways of life and offer us a nudge to slow down and experiences to help return us to our selves. Their personal reflections invoke gentle introspection and come from their own healing journeys and from being active therapists. Living Lightly invites you to explore how your mind works, understand and express your feelings and be reminded that you are much, much stronger than you realize. Living Lightly is a great way to start or end the day.
Buy Links –
Author Biography - About Dale and Kim
Dale is a mental health professional, the host of CBC TV’s Hello Goodbye and a co-host of Life Story Project on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The creator of an acclaimed Empathetic Listening Method, Dale leads specialized workshops for law enforcement, hospitals and corporations across North America.
Kim spent twenty years in the tech startup world, helping to launch successful online companies in US banking, healthcare, organizational collaboration, and international development. She has traveled extensively and considers travel one of her greatest pleasures. In 2014 she completed her training as a therapist, merging her worlds of technology and therapy, by offering clients online video counseling. Kim is a lifelong learner, always engaged in activities and ventures that expand her self-awareness, from writing, raising animals, to listening to horses and trees.
Dale and Kim founded The Child Therapy List and The Men’s List, two global, online mental wellness professional directories, to help normalize therapy and end mental health stigma. They created LivingLightlyToday.com as an online community to acknowledge and connect with readers and inspire people to share in their passion for beauty. In 2015 Dale and Kim left city life to live on a historic farm in Muskoka.
www.livinglightlytoday.com is a growing online community of souls committed to living fully, exploring new experiences, making new discoveries in our inner and outer landscapes. Dale and Kim are so excited for your images and stories, of beauty and connection. Come join the journey—we are waiting for you!
Social Media Links –
Facebook: www.facebook.com/livinglightlytoday
Twitter: www.twitter.com/livelighttoday