Mirna Valerio

I’ve been on a lot of adventures this year including cycling in Kenya, running through the colorful streets of San Miguel de Allende, exploring the trails of Whistler BC, testing my mettle on the volcanic rim of the Caldeira in the Azores, swimming in the Pacific… but my absolute favorite moment was closing on over 20 acres of pristinely wooded forest here in beautiful Vermont. Now I will have a place to bring my family, friends, and community to come and enjoy all that nature offers!

The most important advice I have is to have a very loose definition of what being active in the outdoors is. It could mean taking your daily walk right outside your home or sitting on your porch enjoying a steaming hot mug of coffee. If you want different adventures, spend some time thinking about what you’re curious about, and start taking steps to make it happen.

Being in the outdoors regularly allows me to do several things: Connect with nature. Clear my mind. Lower my blood pressure (science, folks!) Enhance creativity. Re-energize, and create opportunities for working through mental, emotional, and physical challenges. The things we learn in the outdoors are directly transferable to other areas of our lives. There have been many times where I’ve had a difficult life problem to work through, or something that caused high anxiety–and what did I do? I went outside and thought through it, and even sometimes solved those problems. When you see parts of the natural world around you continuing to flourish in even the direst of conditions, you know that you can do it too.

I attempted my first TransRockies 6-Day race back in 2017. I knew I’d be able to tackle back-to-back 20-mile days in the mountains, but I had no idea how the altitude would affect me, and I ended up with altitude sickness. Even though I was disappointed, I was still able to finish, and I still managed to have a great time. I went back the next year after training very differently. Each day was a fight, but my entire heart, body, and spirit were in it. It was the most difficult thing I’d ever done, but I finished. Sometimes it takes several tries to reach a goal that you have. And in those tries, you get stronger, you strategize differently, learn new things about yourself. You also get to see amazing views and experience the generosity of humanity too. Failures too, can be a win-win situation.

Have you listened to or watched the news lately? Things are really tough right now in so many different ways. Our minds, hearts, and bodies are being stressed in a way that they never have. When you are outside, engaging in outdoor recreation–say going for a walk with sunlight in your eyes, running on your street, taking children to a local park, swimming in a lake or the ocean–it allows your brain to rest a bit. This, I believe has the potential to give us more energy, focus, and perspective particularly when we are dealing with the world and what our society throws at us daily.

• Your mind will be blown with the beauty of nature. Once you experience a sunrise or sunset out in nature, you will start thinking of other ways to get your “nature fix”-it’s kind of addicting. Yeah!
• I personally know the incredible benefits of stepping outdoors, and I want everyone to have access to that feeling of awe and wonder. We are all humans, we are of this earth, and therefore have the right to these experiences.
• The relationships you build with others over shared hikes, sunrises, and sunsets, bundling up around your firepit, reaching a mountain summit or even just trying, swimming in a cold lake (or a warm one!), trudging through the snow or sliding down it, are unlike friendships anywhere else. Do it. I highly recommend it!