England: Scott Pickett (Forest Bathing)
Forest Bathing
A month into living in London I found myself extremely overwhelmed and honestly deeply confused. At home, I spend many of my weekends on hikes simply thinking about the world and my place in it but in London I found myself lost. As I wasn’t providing myself space or time to think alone I hadn’t been able to consider what I was thinking, feeling, or experiencing. London always has something going on and while this is great I found that I was struggling not having any downtime to just sit and understand what is happening. I decided to schedule myself what I called a ‘day of healing.’ To do this I took a full day to spend in Richmond Park, I hiked around and periodically journaled for hours. Richmond Park is a massive park in southwest London known for its massive deer population. I highly recommend though it is a little terrifying walking around and suddenly realizing there is a 250-pound buck standing in your path, still, I feel experiencing animalistic anxiety adds to the whole experience.
Richmond Park is very popular, every day it boasts hundreds of visitors but it’s so big one can find themselves completely alone in an idyllic forest setting. This is where I found myself. I meandered through the park all day and I was finally able to find some quiet time to remember myself and explore what has changed about myself and what I have learned so far while living in London. Living in such a big city and solely with other university students can be extremely overwhelming and almost make you forget yourself, this is the trap I found myself in. Being overwhelmed at all times I realized I hadn’t thought about my progress so far at all, I was simply too busy. Living in London has been a constant sensory experience, I’m either in class, studying, or am out doing something. I had not given myself downtime once and I found that I had lost myself. Here I found the space to think about my place in the world in London and how it differs from my place in the world in Wisconsin, I was able to refind myself and what I had lost without the ability to have meditative hikes every week. I was reminded of the importance of thinking about what is going on and of simply being.
Scott Pickett
Major: History, English, and Psychology
Hometown: Appleton, Wisconsin