What a great weekend it’s been. I was able to hear some amazing speakers share messages of faith, hope and love that inspired me. I was also able to spend a few\u00a0 hours walking outside and enjoying nature and all of its beauty.\u00a0 I have to say, there is something so spiritually balancing about being out in nature, away from the crowds, away from all the craziness of life, looking at the beauty around you and just being able to breathe\u2026<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cNature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.\u201d<\/span> \u2013 Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never been very good at making time to get out and enjoy nature. I\u2019m always going a hundred miles an hour and doing a million things at once, so while I love seeing nature through my car window as I\u2019m rushing here and there, I haven\u2019t really made spending time in nature a big priority in life. But walking along a path lined with gorgeous trees bearing their brightly colored autumn leaves it is impossible not to feel the calming spirit of nature. And it makes me realize why we all need to experience the balance nature brings to our lives.<\/p>\n When\u2019s the last time you drove somewhere outside of the city where it\u2019s quiet and you could take a walk in the woods, or along a stream and just take in the beauty of Autumn? Autumn is such an amazing time of year. The weather isn\u2019t too hot, and it isn\u2019t too cold. The colors outside are so diverse and so beautiful. It\u2019s the perfect time to be outside. It’s the perfect time to walk in the woods, or sit under a tree, or have a picnic.<\/p>\n Sadly, Autumn is so short and it will come and go without you taking any time to go out and enjoy it if you don\u2019t schedule a time now on your calendar when you are going to make it happen, even if you only schedule an hour or two this week to do it. I know we all have a million other things we are trying to get done, but after taking a few hours myself to spend outside this week I can tell you that I\u2019ve been amazed at how much more the mind is able to get done when it\u2019s been given a few hours away from all the chaos to enjoy the silence and feel the spirit of nature.<\/p>\n Who knew that the best way to up your productivity is to spend a moment doing nothing but enjoying the outside? It\u2019s pretty amazing to experience it firsthand. I only wish I would have discovered this years ago \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0But better that I\u2019ve learned it late than never at all.<\/p>\n Try it for yourself and see if your productivity doesn\u2019t go way up this week. I think you\u2019ll be so glad you did! Have a beautiful day everyone.<\/p>\n ~Amy Rees Anderson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a great weekend it’s been. I was able to hear some amazing speakers share messages of faith, hope and love that inspired me. I was also able to spend a few\u00a0 hours walking outside and enjoying nature and all of its beauty.\u00a0 I have to say, there is something so spiritually balancing about being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19372,19375,395,19359,19360,19374,19365,14778,19364,19363,19368,19362,19369,19376,19367,4925,1183,19371,3471,1293,19366,19370,19373,19358,19361,19357,54],"class_list":["post-9911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-walk-in-the-woods","tag-all-things-were-created-spiritually-before-physically","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-away-from-the-chaos","tag-away-from-the-noise","tag-bond-with-nature","tag-changing-of-the-leaves","tag-endless-possibility","tag-enjoy-autumn","tag-enjoy-nature","tag-free-your-mind","tag-go-for-a-walk","tag-make-it-a-priority","tag-moment-to-think","tag-nature-brings-balance-to-our-lives","tag-open-your-mind","tag-peaceful","tag-perfect-weather","tag-ralph-waldo-emerson","tag-reflection","tag-rushing-here-and-there","tag-schedule-down-time","tag-schedule-it-or-it-wont-happen","tag-spiritual-balance","tag-take-time-to-breathe","tag-the-spirit-of-nature","tag-time-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9911"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9925,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9911\/revisions\/9925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}