When you’re grounded you can navigate difficult conversations and enter conflict with love. Challenging conversations can emerge unexpectedly, and you don’t have time to prepare. That’s when a connection with nature can help you feel grounded.

A conflict emerged as I was training a group of community-engaged artists. They were overwhelmed by the scale of our challenges - interracial disagreements that repeated patterns seen across generations. So I gave them a way to connect with nature, a force bigger than all of us.

We were 4 floors above the city street, with no easy access to the cement sidewalks below, so I invited people to move to the windows and look out at the skyline. As people took in the sun, the people, the buildings, and the treetops, I reminded them that life continues outside this training room. Soon sunlight flooded the room, and people’s shoulders dropped as previous tension fled.

Connecting with nature can give us a sense of the world beyond our immediate circumstances. Even through brick buildings and wood floors, we can connect with the earth. Buildings are part of the landscape, as the pines are part of the forest.

During tense meetings, virtual or in-person, invite people to connect with nature as a way to take a step back and get perspective. All you need is a window or the ground beneath your feet.