Try Sound Meditation when you spend time in nature. During Sound Meditation you will pay attention to the sounds in the world around you. This is a method of meditation that does not necessarily need to be practiced in nature, but it is more likely to be soothing if you do so.
Sound Bouncing is one method of practicing Sound Meditation:
- Set a timer for the length of time that you want to meditate. (You may want to try this without a timer first just to see where it leads you, but 5 minutes is a good starting point.)
- Start with your breath. Close your eyes and take 10 deep breaths and count each one. Once you reach 10 breaths, you will shift your attention to the world around you.
- What do you hear?
- Once you identify an individual sound, you will label it, then search for something else to hear. (Example: You hear birds, you say to yourself “birds,” then you move on.)
- Let the sounds and your labeling flow by without judgement. You can repeat the labels if you start to run out of things to “hear” and you haven’t run out of time yet.
- When your timer sounds you will finish with a few deep breaths.