The Pull of Nature: Letting Go, Healing, and Reclaiming Dopamine

We all know in the movie "Moana," Maui is said to use his hook to pull the islands up from the sea. I recently watched a documentary about the ancient voyagers who navigated across the Pacific to Hawaii and other islands (the documentary was aptly named, "Voyagers." It was very much in tune with the movie—which gives major credit to the filmmakers for doing their homework, though the documentary definitely leaned into those parallels to capture that same magic.

What I really loved, though, was how it explained the actual origin of that Maui myth. When a voyager is out on open water for days or weeks at a time, looking at a flat, endless horizon, the tip of a new landmass eventually breaks the line of the water. To the navigator, it literally looks like the island is rising up out of the ocean. And when they aligned their ships with the constellation of stars that forms Maui's hook in the sky, the islands seemed to emerge directly beneath it. Thus, Maui's hook pulled the islands up from the sea.

Shortly after, I was walking through the Botanic Gardens, listening to an audiobook about forest bathing. The author was building on the Japanese tradition of shinrin-yoku, and kept emphasizing that we cannot set out with an objective or have expectations about the experience. I'm obsessed with productivity - its literally my job - but I didn't fall into this career. It's how I am in my personal life, too; always optimizing, multitasking when I can, maximizing my productivity. This book was challenging that mindset directly; it says that forest bathing need not achieve anything, and yet, can never be considered a waste of time. This notion was simultaneously repulsive and wisely valid and true. 

He started talking about not trying to force an experience or set expectations for the forest bathing time. Instead, he instructed us to be present and let the forest pull emotions and experiences out of us. Rather than, in trying to meditate, aggressively push intrusive thoughts out of our heads, surrender them to the forest and let nature pull our minds into it. 

That analogy hit home. For high achievers who hate wasting time, sitting down to meditate can feel like a test we’re actively failing. When we can’t clear our minds, we feel like we missed the point. But the idea of just walking through the trees and letting the forest do the heavy lifting feels almost empowering. You don’t have to do it perfectly. You can just let the forest handle the work while you relax into the environment.

A lot of mindfulness guidance talks about forgiving yourself and acknowledging intrusive thoughts without overthinking them; just letting things be, acknowledging the thought, and setting it aside. One practice I’ve actually started using recently is, when I find myself ruminating or playing out potential conflicts in my head, scheduling a specific time later in the day to think about the issue and worries. Once my brain knows that I have time set aside to think through these things, it becomes so much easier to let go in the moment and focus on whatever I'm meant to be doing.

Some of the forest bathing teaching suggests we can actually give our worries to nature and let them deal with them. If you tell a tree your secret, it will carry the burden for you with the force of all the trees in the forest, connected by their roots buried deep in the earth. If you tell a stream or river what's troubling you, it will turn it over and toss it about, and return it to you, perhaps more smoothed out. If you ask a rock, a worry stone, to hold your concern, it will keep it grounded until you decide you want to pick it up again, if you do. 

In this way, I think Maui's hook is all around us - it's nature in every sense of the word. It's the sky, it's water, it's dirt, it's plants. Maui's hook is a healer, pulling what ails us out and raising our spirits, if we let it. 

There’s also something to nature that goes beyond meditation and peace and quiet. Being outdoors brings an element of total surprise that you just can't get in a familiar, enclosed space. Because the forest is alive, if you open your awareness to it, you can see little moments of life that may be ordinary to the animal but extraordinary to you. 

I love spotting the bright red of a cardinal, or the deep red dragonflies I see all the time at the Botanic Garden. Even zooming my attention in to observe a bee pollinating flowers, or other insects going about their business, can feel like a little piece of the world is performing just for me. Once, I saw a hawk catch its prey right in front of me; today, I spotted what I think were turkey vultures working away at something they'd found. You can’t force those moments, and you can't plan for them every time you go out. That unexpectedness acts as a happy trigger - it pulls your focus away from whatever internal loop you were stuck in and locks it onto something unusual, wild, and fascinating.

It made me think about all the books out there about the addictive nature of social media and how it acts like a gambler’s slot machine. You pull the handle to see if you got a comment or a like, chasing those unpredictable dopamine hits. But that constant feedback loop distracts us and pulls us away from our own thoughts, purpose, and meaning.

It feels really important to get outside and replicate those positive dopamine hits through natural surprises instead—grounding them in the real world rather than in technology, social media. In my case, I've been letting go of a volatile relationship where the good was great, but the frequent bad just wore me down like a bad betting habit. Stepping away from that cycle is tough, but getting those hits from a healthier, natural source where I don't have to force anything or win anyone over feels like the right way forward.