How Nature Helps Fear

I’m a singer-songwriter and facilitator. My seventh album, Only Human, comes out on 9th October, the day before World Mental Health Day. It grew from my experiences of panic, burnout and the long process of finding my way back to myself. As I wrote it, I kept returning to a question: how many of the choices we believe we’re making freely are driven by fear?

For years, I was touring, performing, facilitating and making music, doing the things I loved most. The image of a swan gliding across the water comes to mind, yet beneath the surface I was paddling frantically. Inside, I was exhausted, and with the exhaustion came panic and burnout.

I had become so used to pushing through that I struggled to notice what my body was telling me. Eventually, as a result of multiple panic attacks that often left me foetal huddled on the floor, I was forced to feel what I had been avoiding, begin to make sense of it and make radical changes to my life.

My way back was gradual. I began studying Chinese medicine, Qi Gong, meditation, somatic therapy and sound as ways to calm and regulate my nervous system. These practices invited me to slow down and pay attention: to my breathing, to sensation, to the ground beneath my feet and to what I had been avoiding feeling. Spending more time outside became part of that process too. In nature, I could feel myself settle without having to achieve anything. I only had to set aside the time and allow myself to show up. At first, even that was a challenge.

For decades, music has been where I’ve explored feelings I couldn’t easily understand or express. Only Human grew from personal experiences of anxiety, shame, belonging and resilience. Inspired by the response to my song I Am Enough I was moved to share those vulnerable experiences in the hope of opening conversations, building community and offering something others might turn to when they experience similar feelings.

That intention also feels connected to how I live on this planet. So much of modern life can ask us to override our limits. We rush from one demand to another, often with little room to rest, feel or notice the world around us. When I was burnt out, I felt cut off from my own body. I also felt cut off from the rhythms of the natural world: daylight, weather, seasons, and the simple fact that living things need recovery, connection and community.

I don’t believe a walk in the woods can solve the environmental crisis, or that someone struggling with their mental health simply needs to spend more time outdoors. Those problems deserve care, resources, accountability and collective action. But my own experience has made me wonder what changes when we create more space to feel what we have been avoiding. Can that help us recognise that we are part of nature, rather than separate from it and that we are not alone in feeling some of these more uncomfortable feelings?

Qi Gong taught me to settle my nervous system and notice where I was holding tension. When I practise outside, the experience becomes even more about listening; expanding my awareness. I notice the temperature of the air on my skin, the changing light, a bird calling somewhere I can’t see and often a feeling of complete stillness around and within. Sadly I also often notice the rubbish left by others.. Ultimately, I remember that I am one living being among many, with a responsibility both to myself and to this planet.

Creating space to feel has also meant encountering the fear I had spent so long trying to outrun. My recent single, “RUN”, came from my experiences of panic and anxiety: the overwhelming urge to escape when every part of my body is telling me that something is wrong. The song follows a journey towards stopping, breathing and slowly learning to trust. I wrote it hoping others might hear their own experience in it and feel less alone.

For the music video, I was invited into artist Bruce Munro’s Fireflies light installation. Filmmaker Kai Ohio and I worked within that landscape of light to express the movement within the song, from frantic motion and internal darkness towards light and a sense of resolution.

There is also a wider story behind Only Human. More than 300 people supported the album through crowdfunding. Their support allowed me to keep creating independently, but it gave me something else as well: a reminder that music grows through intimate relationships. A song can begin in one person’s private experience and become a place where other people recognise themselves. That is where community and connection can begin.

I see something similar when I facilitate groups and run my Living From The Heart Retreats. People arrive carrying their own worries, histories and hopes. Making space to breathe, move, sing or simply listen together can create connection. It can give people room to feel what they have been holding and find support in the practices, through song, in one another and in the natural world around them. It reminds me how much we need each other, ways to support ourselves and time in nature, especially when overwhelm encourages us to withdraw.

For me, caring for the living world begins with attention and accountability. It means facing what we might personally be avoiding and noticing the effect this has on ourselves and those around us. In my experience, the more we can nurture ourselves, the more capacity we have to care for others and for this planet we have the privilege of calling home. This is the meta practice of loving kindness which is my favourite daily practice.

The title Only Human reminds me that we have limits. We need space, connection and places where we can rest deeply. Perhaps recognising those needs can help us meet the world with more honesty and tenderness, and give us more energy, more resource to protect what we love.

Only Human will be released on 9th October as a hardback book with an album download and access to an online portal. Alongside the music, the portal will include Qi Gong practices and sound meditations. My hope is that listeners will feel supported by these resources and use them whenever they need a moment to pause, breathe and reconnect.

Please support Independent Music By Pre Saving Only Human Out 9th October 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5DQdXQQCRyfMedkGbXnMCq?si=PFSyGt37TPGwAEhyoAqbxA

Pre-order Only Human Book/Download/OnlinePortalAccess here.

October Tour (see attached tour poster)

// LIVE:

9 October – Ashburton Arts Centre, Ashburton

10 October – The Globe, Hay-on-Wye

12 October – The Prince Albert, Stroud

15 October – Jam Jar, Bristol

17 October – Zed Shed, Penryn21 October – St. Pancras Old Church, London

23 October – Bennett Centre, Frome

24 October – Sound Knowledge (in-store signing), Marlborough

25 October – Folklore Rooms, Brighton

https://www.tallulahrendall.com/events