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April 10, 2025

Sheryl and Dan Malin
2 days ago
3 min read

Hello Followers,

Welcome to Thursday,

Like the beauty of nature, peace starts with small moments, like a smile, a simple gesture that radiates calmness.

Today Dan and I will explore nature and how it may help you to be kind and generous.

Whenever I go to places like Explore Park here in Virginia, we seem to return to our apartment life ready to be kinder and more generous to those around us.

Just ask Dan!

Now some new studies may shed light on why that is.

In a series of experiments published in 2014, Juyoung Lee, GGSC director Dacher Keltner, and other researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, studied the potential impact of nature on the willingness to be generous, trusting, and helpful toward others, while considering what factors might influence that relationship.

As part of their study, the researchers exposed participants to subjectively beautiful nature scenes whose beauty levels were rated independently and observed how participants behaved playing two economic games, the Dictator Game and the Trust Game that measure generosity and trust, respectively.

After being exposed to the more beautiful nature scenes, participants acted more generously and more trusting in the games than those who saw less beautiful scenes, and the effects appeared to be due to corresponding increases in positive emotion.

In another part of the study, the researchers asked people to fill out a survey about their emotions while sitting at a table where beautiful plants were placed.

Afterwards, the participants were told that the experiment was over, and they could leave, but that if they wanted to, they could volunteer to make paper cranes for a relief effort program in Japan.

The number of cranes they made or did not make was used as a measure of their willingness to help.

Results showed that the presence of more beautiful plants significantly increased the number of cranes made by participants, and that this increase was, again, mediated by positive emotion brought by natural beauty.

The researchers concluded that experiencing the beauty of nature increases positive emotion perhaps by inspiring awe, a feeling alike to wonder, with the sense of being part of something bigger than oneself, which then leads to prosocial behaviors.

GROUNDING

Today as we continue our series on grounding, Dan and I will explore the tenth practice for you to try with us.

Gratitude: Bring your body into a child’s pose with your head touching the earth.

As you relax and surrender to gravity, take a moment to express gratitude for the support and nourishment the earth provides.

Feel stability, comfort beneath you, and let this sense of appreciation deepen your connection with nature.

It is important to ground your energy regularly, especially if you are an empath or lightworker, because very often you may find you are connecting with the higher spiritual energies and to create an energetic balance you need to ground your energy with the earth.

To do this meditation it is recommended that you sit in a seated position either on a chair or on the floor, so your feet or tail bone relates to the earth.