“I don’t have time/supplies/talent/nature to nature journal!”
How to move beyond “I don’t have…” to create a regular nature journaling practice
Dearest Reader,
I had planned a different type of post this month, but as you know we had a medical emergency in my household interrupting my schedule and delaying our monthly theme post. And then there is the weather – rainy, windy, cold. Not the sunny, sea-breezy, warmth of a usual coastal New England June where one loves to spend hours outdoors exploring. But this is life, isn’t it? The only thing we really can expect is the unexpected.
So for the remainder of June, our theme is establishing our nature journal practice as a constant thread that weaves throughout our days, weeks, and months regardless of what may be happening around us, to us, or even within us.
Before 2020, I ran a small consulting business for creative entrepreneurs to help them manage their projects and meet their goals. I’m going to teach you a modified version of the framework I developed for my clients called Dreamsmart, which is also incidentally based on the strategic planning framework I used during my non-profit career (for 20 years!).
Since our goal is already a given – develop a habitual nature journaling practice – we’ll jump ahead to motivation (our why), obstacles (our why-not), and how we create the mental and physical space for ourselves to freely nature journal, no matter the obstacles, by managing our “negotiables” and “non-negotiables.” Let’s jump in…
Why do you want to nature journal?
At the heart of doing anything of substance is why we want or need to do it. So why do you want to explore nature? Why do you want to record your experiences? What does it do for you or how does it add to the quality of your life? What do you expect from it? Will it change something in your life – immediately, short-term, long-term – and how?
Your why is your motivation.
It’s personal to you, and reviewing it periodically (so write it inside the cover of your journal!) will remind you when life gets hairy why you need to add another entry. For me, my why is that when I am in nature it’s the only time I feel truly safe. Whoa! I bet you thought I would say something like nature fascinates me or it’s beautiful or it moves me. It does all that, too, but at the heart of what motivates me to be in nature and nature journal is that I’m in a safe space. And when I’m in my safe space, I fly free.
My why is based on the life experience I’ve had from childhood to now. Your why is based on yours. Dig deep and don’t expect your why to surface immediately. It took me years to peel back the layers to get to the heart of my why. Meanwhile, go with what comes up and know you can refine it as your practice continues. Just remember, a motivating why is linked to your feelings so that’s a good place to start.
How does it make you feel and why do you need to feel more of that?
What does nature journaling look like for you, in your circumstances?
You have your motivating why. Now we get practical and look at everything in our day-to-day lives that keep us from doing what’s most important and sustaining for ourselves. I like to break it down into two categories: negotiables and non-negotiables.
Non-negotiables
This can be time constraints, like job, family, etc, or location constraints, living in a metro area, a high-rise apartment building, etc, or mobility issues. The list goes on, but these are things that you can’t really change. Make a list of them in no particular order.
This is my list of non-negotiable responsibilities:
Care of elderly parent
My business/clients/projects
Eye fatigue/migraine
Downeast Maine weather (unpredictable)
Pet care
Now, what’s on your list?
Negotiables
These are all the things you do or are responsible for that won’t cause any harm if you don’t do them or move them around. Watching television and other leisure-time activities, grocery shopping and errands, chores, etc. Make a list of these in no particular order.
Here are some of mine:
Streaming movies
Reading
Hobbies (portrait painting, playing guitar)
Yoga
What are the negotiables on your list?
Once you see your lists you get a sense of your priorities. Non-negotiables will always be top priorities, but you have some wiggle room with negotiables. The more you add to your lists, the more you can see what can move aside for nature journaling.
The hidden motivation zapper that will try to derail your intentions
The insidious feeling that you can’t.
It doesn’t matter what your goal is – nature journaling or something else – we all have what I call the squeamie-meamies (yes, this is a technical term…). It’s that voice telling you that you can’t do that thing you burn to do. It can be a big all-consuming fire of want – for me that was pursuing illustration as a career – or a tiny candle of want – again, mine was getting a dog – but the squeamie-meamie sounds the same, “you can’t do/have X, because you’re not Y.”
So a common squeamie-meamie that I hear from beginning nature journalers is “but I can’t draw.” First of all, you can, but we all have to start somewhere, and that somewhere usually isn’t “pretty.” Second, nature journaling isn’t about making art.
It’s about building a picture of your experience with nature using all the communication tools we humans have in our arsenal: pictures, words, and numbers.
(This is our theme for July, so hang in there for a couple of weeks because I have a whole month of prompts and activities planned for us!)
For me, when I started – and I’ll be honest it still comes up – my squeamie-meamie is that I’m not a scientist. I even feel funny calling myself a “citizen scientist.” I want to embrace the term, but I feel like a fraud when I do even though I have some basic education in the natural sciences (and a ton of interest and curiosity), worked as a naturalist in my 20s, and trained as a natural history illustrator. But I’m not a real scientist. I don’t have degrees in science and my technical knowledge is still evolving and expanding.
How do I squash this particular squeamie-meamie?
I nature journal. I notice, I wonder, and I make the connection with other things I’ve noticed and wondered. I build my curiosity chains. I do everything we’ve been talking about for the past two months here in Cricklewood. Just do it, and I promise your squeamie-meamie will be silenced.
What is one thing you can do right now to get started or continue nature journaling?
You don’t have to start BIG. Take a baby step. Perhaps the one thing you can do to get started is to put a piece of paper and pencil in the pocket of a piece of clothing you wear each day like a sweater or jacket. Or maybe it’s to take your children into the backyard for 15 minutes after dinner on Sundays each week to observe one plant and note in your journals what you saw, the questions that came to mind, and any connections this brought up. Do you live in an urban area? Your one thing could be to find a green space near your apartment or office and establish your sit spot.
Your one thing can be simply to look at your list of negotiables and make a counter-list of what you can do to make nature journaling a higher priority. I did that when I first started. I love streaming programs on Britbox. It was a regular Sunday afternoon pastime, but I traded that for a walk in my neighborhood with my journal (I lived in an apartment in Philadelphia at the time).
After doing one thing, do another, and another. Keep going.
This week’s prompt
It’s simple – answer the questions above, figure out how to prioritize nature journaling, and take you and your journal for a walk. Let me know how it goes, or if I can help you in the comments.
Every day is a new day
Take action, make a plan (or don’t make a plan, if that’s a motivation zapper) - just do what you need to do to make it happen, but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t make it happen that day because of your non-negotiable commitments. Remember you are part of the natural system, so be like nature: live in the now and begin again as necessary.
xoSusannah
PS: Let me know what issues came up for you doing this week’s prompt or nature journaling in general, and I’ll try to develop a prompt for next week that can help.