Earth, wind and fire. Can they help our mental health?

Do you ever get trapped inside your head?

It’s a source of much unnecessary suffering.

Our mental world is always going to be an anxious, negative space; and it can overwhelm.

So how can we escape? How can we dissolve its power over us?

One way is to get out of ourselves with the four elements – earth, wind, water and fire.

They make a great contemplation.

Consider the soil; feel it if possible in your hands.

Consider how sometimes it sits quiet and rests; and how sometimes it creates with boundless energy.

Or feel the wind on your face, warm or cold, breeze or hurricane.

It reminds you you’re alive; and it shifts the scenery around you, like the clouds, reminding that life is change… and everything passes.

Or consider the water you use for washing, drinking, cleaning… such magnificent properties contained in simple fluid…beautiful in a lake, terrifying in a storm, a glacier in the cold.

And fire – sometimes hot and consuming, and sometimes a candle’s light and joy. We gather round a fire to talk; and run from its flames when it’s out of control.

Leave yourself for a moment, and contemplate your world, awesome and dangerous.

Earth, wind, water and fire…four paths away from our over-thinking minds.

Feel one today.