In yesterday’s post, I introduced an idea called “The Four Principles,” or four principles for living. They are: alignment, sensitivity, creativity, and mystery. It occurs to me that, instead of four principles for living, it might be better to think of them as four principles for human-centered living (as opposed to, say, machine-centered). I like the phrase, “human-centered;” so, going forward, I am going to refer to The Four Principles as The Four Principles of Human-Centered Living. Think of them as a guide for infusing the humanity, or soul, back into your daily life. 

That said, I’d like to dive into the second principle, sensitivity. If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you likely know how much I value my sensitivity. And, in fact, I’m not certain the positive attributes of high sensitivity get talked about enough. It’s high sensitivity that can turn an everyday scene, like a bird in a tree, into something awe-inspiring and miraculous. It’s sensitivity that allows us to revel in the pleasure of simply being alive, like feeling the warmth of sunshine on our faces, savoring a cup of tea or a nourishing meal, or the pleasant exertion of walking, running, or riding a bike.

Maslow suggests that foundational pleasures like these make life “precious in itself” because it is inherently “full of goodies, little peaks [and] joys.” I agree. Being alive, in my opinion, should be a pleasant experience. And if it isn’t, that means we’re not doing something right.

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to suggest that our daily lives are overstimulating, in some cases, grossly so. And one result of that overstimulation is that our senses become dull, such that small pleasures like those I just listed are not impactful enough. We need to augment them, supplement them, distract ourselves from them, or disconnect from them altogether. And in so doing, we are robbing ourselves of the simple joy of being alive. 

A quiet walk in the woods should be enough. To feel the warmth of the sun or a cool breeze should be enough. A bird in a tree on a frosty winter morning should be beautiful enough and joyful enough to be an end in itself. These experiences shouldn’t need to be augmented. And if they do, it means we need to retrain our senses and get back to basics. 

A thought that came to mind early this morning while I was jotting down ideas for this post: we are reborn in stillness. It’s in the practice of stillness that we learn to quiet a racing mind, to focus our attention, to retrain our senses so that we can experience the world with heightened awareness and a renewed appreciation for both natural beauty and the simple routines of daily life.

Here are some tips for preserving and/or regaining our innate sensitivity:

Go analog.

Read a book—a physical one. Put on some soft music (or just sit in a quiet room), light a candle, pour a cup of tea, and allow yourself to get lost in a story. Relish the simple pleasure of feeling a book in your hands, of turning the pages, and even of the way a new (or old) book smells—and make it a point to notice these things. Take the time to be still, to be aware of your surroundings, and to appreciate these small but pleasurable moments.

Work with your hands. Plant something. Build something. Paint something. Write long-hand in a notebook. Or dabble in other kinds of crafts. Use your senses to engage actively and meaningfully with your physical environment.

Cook a meal from scratch. Cooking uses all of our senses in a focused and immersive way. For me, it is a kind of meditation. 

Experience beauty. 

Educate your senses to experience beauty in art and in the natural world. It is, in large part, through a heightened perception of beauty that we are able to experience the miraculous, or sacred, in everyday life. 

Seek out art. Seek out poetry. Explore works from different time periods. This will give you a sense of the timelessness and transcendent power of beauty. It will also hone your sensibilities. 

Go out in nature. Watch birds. Look at the trees. Notice the shapes of the clouds or the angle of the sun. And most importantly, remember that this is the world we, too, come from. Natural beauty is the language of our creator. Sit quietly, be still, and immerse yourself in it.

Become part of the silence.

I have a habit of saying that “silence speaks,” especially the kind of silence we experience when we’re alone in nature. This, of course, is a metaphor. I don’t actually believe that silence speaks. But, I do believe that when we sit quietly in nature and engage our senses by looking, listening, and feeling, we open the door to an archetypal experience. That is another part of what makes nature, in all of its grandeur, feel transcendent or “numinous,” as Jung would say. 

In Forest Bathing, Dr. Qing Li suggests that when we use our five senses to immerse ourselves in the natural world, we are able to access a “sixth sense with which we connect with the world beyond ourselves,” a world characterized by feelings of “wonder and excitement, transcendence and even ecstasy”. This, I believe, is the archetypal power of nature. Out of the silence, natural forms are allowed to speak in the way all archetypes speak, through communion with the unconscious.