Our Mindful Nature: Meditation Inspired by Nature to Soothe the Overwhelmed Mind and Ease Anxiety

Feeling emotionally fried or frozen by anxiety?

Modern life constantly pulls us between panic and paralysis—but what if your meditation practice could bridge that gap?

This episode is a call to deepen your relationship with meditation—not by escaping your overwhelmed state, but by connecting with the wild, chaotic earth, by connecting to Spirit as your source of grounding. Using a gentle yet powerful breathing mantra and a perspective rooted in ancient wisdom, this practice helps reframe what it means to feel instead of think your way through inner chaos.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• How to connect to Spirit using nature-based meditation to regulate overwhelm and emotional extremes

• Why “So Hum” breathing restores calm when anxiety spikes

• A mindset shift to embrace chaos as connection—not something to escape

Let this episode help you ground your spirit and ease anxiety—press play now to reconnect with yourself and the world around you.

This meditation features a rainy spring dawn in the Pacific Northwest as recorded by Nick McMahan. Snowmelt from the Cascade mountains and frequent cloud cover causes streams and rivulets to pop up along mountainside. This particular valley, like many in the western cascade range, has many small marshy areas surrounded by tall evergreen trees. In spring, the nights are filled with sounds of the Cascades Frog and a persistent white noise from nearby flowing water. A dawn chorus starts early and quiets down as a rain shower approaches.

This region of Washington is the ancestral lands of the Stillaguamish People.

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s nature field recordings, sound design, and editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/briannanielsen_marketing

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

✨ Just the Meditation

Join Forest Therapy Guide Eve Payor for a 5 minute Forest Bathing Experience you can do anywhere.

If you are feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or disconnected—despite your meditation practice - this practice is for you!

Ready to ease anxiety and feel less overwhelmed? Grab your headphones and journal, and then press play to discover a healing form of meditation grounded in nature.

Learn more about our upcoming Fall Forest Bathing & Meditation Retreat in North Georgia here: https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/X9HPR1qFvQCifO867toVjQ

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

Check out Eve Payor and Singing Pines Forest Bathing here: https://www.singingpines.co/

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s editing and nature soundscape; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/itsbriannanielsen/

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

Are you feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or disconnected—despite your meditation practice?

This episode explores how forest bathing—a mindful, sensory connection to nature—offers a profound way to release anxiety and return to balance, especially when traditional meditation falls short.

Discover why simply being with nature—not hiking, not exercising—can be a transformative antidote to overwhelm and mental fatigue.

In this calming episode, forest therapy guide Eve Payor will share:

• Why your overwhelmed nervous system responds differently to nature than to indoor meditation

• How forest aromas and sounds scientifically reduce anxiety and boost immunity

• Simple, grounding forest bathing invitations you can try—even if you aren't in the forest!

Ready to ease anxiety and feel less overwhelmed? Press play and discover a healing form of meditation grounded in nature.

Learn more about our upcoming Fall Forest Bathing & Meditation Retreat in North Georgia here: https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/X9HPR1qFvQCifO867toVjQ

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

Check out Eve Payor and Singing Pines Forest Bathing here: https://www.singingpines.co/

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s editing and nature soundscapes; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/itsbriannanielsen/

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

✨Just the Meditation

Join us for a powerful guided chakra meditation designed to restore your connection to self and refill your cup. Perfect for anyone experiencing burnout, emotional exhaustion, or feeling disconnected despite regular self-care practices.

This episode includes a full guided meditation that walks you through connecting with each energy center in your body.

Today's meditation is paired with the sounds of Spring in the Pacific Northwest. Typically a damp rainy season, this soundscape is filled with flowing water, Cascades frog calls, and a dawn chorus quieted by the rain.

Get comfy and press play now!

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/briannanielsen_marketing

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

In this episode, we explore why we often feel disconnected from ourselves despite regular self-care routines, and how mindfulness meditation can help us truly refill our energy cups. Join us for a powerful guided chakra meditation designed to restore your connection to self.

What You'll Hear:

• The Self-Care Paradox

Discover why traditional self-care activities sometimes fail to replenish your energy, and how even dedicated meditators experience moments of complete emotional exhaustion and depletion.

• The Multitasking Trap

Learn how our habit of splitting awareness—checking notifications during coffee with friends, mentally making to-do lists while watching TV—transforms potentially restorative activities into energy drains.

• Energy Centers Meditation

Experience a complete guided chakra meditation that moves through the body's energy centers—from earth element at your root to universal connection beyond your crown—to reestablish deep self-connection.

• Nature Soundscape

Today's meditation is paired with the sounds of Spring in the Pacific Northwest. Typically a damp rainy season, this soundscape is filled with flowing water, Cascades frog calls, and a dawn chorus quieted by the rain.

This episode includes a full guided meditation that walks you through connecting with each energy center in your body. Perfect for anyone experiencing burnout, emotional exhaustion, or feeling disconnected despite regular self-care practices.

Press play now!

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/briannanielsen_marketing

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

Experience the energy of May's Full Flower Moon in this peaceful guided meditation. When flowers are in full bloom, it's time for the Flower Moon - a reminder not to hold back but to let your full energy shine.

This gentle meditation helps you connect with the natural world, inviting you to find a comfortable spot near a window or outside where you can sense the world around you. Through breath awareness and sensory observation, you'll tap into the energy of the Flower Moon while finding stillness and presence.

The nature sounds in this episode come from Antilon Lake in central Washington. On the edge of a vast wilderness, the small lake and wetland are a watering hole for many local wildlife species. It's an early spring night in the eastern Cascade foothills. Hear the high-toned call of a Northern Saw-whet Owl, the low hoot of the Great Horned Owl, and the faint and less consistent call of a mountain lion. The combination of these unique animal vocalizations makes a fascinating and eerie recording done on a cool spring night under a full moon. The Chelan people were the first to hear the sounds of this landscape.

Press play now to immerse yourself in a calming meditation journey that connects you with the rhythms of nature and the timeless experience of gazing at the same moon that has been witnessed by humans across the arc of time.

This meditation guides you to:

- Find a comfortable position that feels steady and supported

- Establish a natural breathing rhythm

- Notice the sensations around you - temperature, scent, and sound

- Gradually open your eyes to take in the moonlight and night sky

- Connect with the universal human experience of moon-gazing

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s nature field recordings, sound design, and editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/briannanielsen_marketing

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

Want to improve your mental health? One of the easiest and most effective steps you can take is to foster to CONNECTION

But to what?

And how?

In this episode, Dr. Adam Dorsay, author and host of the podcast Super Psyched, joins us for conversation about the intricacies of connection.

What You'll Hear:

• Understanding Connection

Dr. Dorsay defines connection as "an internal emotional response that makes you feel alive" and reveals how disconnection appears in nearly every mental health diagnosis in the DSM. His framework identifies four essential types of connection: to Self, Others, the World, and Something Greater.

• Everyday Disconnectors

Discover how our brain's preference for efficiency, constant device use, planning ahead, social comparison, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) prevent us from experiencing true connection and presence in our daily lives.

• The Nature Connection

Learn about the restorative power of "forest bathing," how birdsong signals safety to our brains, and why time in nature visibly changes our appearance and emotional state.

About Dr. Adam Dorsay:

Dr. Adam Dorsay is a licensed psychologist, speaker, and author of "Super Psyched: Unleash the Power of the Four Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love." With over 20,000 hours of psychotherapy experience, Dr. Dorsay has developed a unique framework for understanding how connection impacts mental health and overall wellbeing. His approach combines clinical experience with practical wisdom to help people live more fully and authentically.

Resources:

Book: "Super Psyched: Unleash the Power of the Four Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love"

Podcast: Super Psyched with Dr. Adam Dorsay

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/briannanielsen_marketing

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

✨Just the meditation

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, our May meditation series is going to dive into CONNECTION - to Self, to others, to the natural world and to Spirit - as a response to the mental health crisis of our time: disconnection.

Experience a guided meditation that helps awaken your senses, quiet the overwhelmed and anxious mind, and build a resilient, connected spirit.

Press play now to immerse yourself in a heartfelt meditation journey that strengthens your connection to yourself, your community, and the living world around you.

This meditation features a rainy spring dawn in the Pacific Northwest as recorded by Nick McMahan. Snowmelt from the Cascade mountains and frequent cloud cover causes streams and rivulets to pop up along mountainside. This particular valley, like many in the western cascade range, has many small marshy areas surrounded by tall evergreen trees. By April the nights are filled with sounds of the Cascades Frog and a persistent white noise from nearby flowing water. A dawn chorus starts early and quiets down as a rain shower approaches.

This region of Washington is the ancestral lands of the Stillaguamish People.

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s nature field recordings, sound design, and editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/briannanielsen_marketing

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

Disconnection is THE mental health crisis of our time.

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, our May meditation series is going to dive into CONNECTION - to Self, to others, to the natural world and to Spirit.

In a time marked by political chaos, rising loneliness, and emotional exhaustion, many are searching for ways to restore a deep sense of belonging. This episode explores how meditation can be a powerful tool to reconnect — not only to ourselves and to each other, but also to the natural world that sustains us.

Discover why connection and resilience are the two most vital gifts meditation offers during times of crisis - and how to build these qualities.

• Learn how our innate bond with the earth calms the overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted mind.

• Experience a guided meditation that helps awaken your senses, quiet the mind and build a resilient, connected spirit.

Press play now to immerse yourself in a heartfelt meditation journey that strengthens your connection to yourself, your community, and the living world around you.

This meditation features a rainy spring dawn in the Pacific Northwest as recorded by Nick McMahan. Snowmelt from the Cascade mountains and frequent cloud cover causes streams and rivulets to pop up along mountainside. This particular valley, like many in the western cascade range, has many small marshy areas surrounded by tall evergreen trees. By April the nights are filled with sounds of the Cascades Frog and a persistent white noise from nearby flowing water. A dawn chorus starts early and quiets down as a rain shower approaches.

This region of Washington is the ancestral lands of the Stillaguamish People.

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Nick McMahan for today’s nature field recordings, sound design, and editing; and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://www.nickcmcmahan.com

https://www.instagram.com/briannanielsen_marketing

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.

Just the Meditation ✨

In times of burnout, uncertainty, or overwhelming responsibility, it’s easy to feel unmoored. This episode offers a grounding antidote: reconnecting with the Earth not just as a planet, but as a living, supportive force beneath you. Whether you're navigating stress, healing from disconnection, or simply craving calm, this meditation practice will anchor you.

Press play to journey into the heart of Earth energy and walk away feeling more supported, connected, and calm than when you arrived.

Today's soundscape is from Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest on the east coast of the United Sates as recorded by Gordon Hempton. The Cherokee people are indignenous to this area and were the first people to hear the sounds of this forest.

Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations and soundscapes each week, along with creative musings and more.

New episodes every Monday (just the meditation) and Thursday (a full meditation class).

Learn more or contact me at https://www.merylarnett.com/.

Thank you to Gordon Hempton for today’s nature field recordings, and thank you to Brianna Nielsen for production and editing support. Find them at:

https://soundtracker.com/

https://www.instagram.com/brianna_podcastpro/

This podcast explores meditation, mental health and the power of connection, offering guidance for caregivers, healers, and therapists facing compassion fatigue, burnout, and other mental health struggles through self-care, self-compassion, and resilience. With a focus on anxiety, depression, and overwhelm, each episode provides tools like meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding to cultivate clarity and reduce stress. Listeners can also experience nature-inspired guided meditations, designed to bring peace and balance in times of distress.