On stepping away from the daily grind and embracing nature

With the new year just around the corner, many of us will be thinking about changes we want to make in our lives. Maybe it's starting a new career, or moving, or – for the more ambitious – stepping off the rat race entirely and exiting the daily grind.

It's a daunting prospect for some, but can be achieved with a little guidance.

Filling in for Jennifer Zamparelli on her radio show, Aifric chats to former intercounty hurler, Diarmuid Lyng about stepping out of the daily grind to return to nature and how he wishes to help Irish men in particular do just that.

Wild Irish Retreats, Lyng's company which is focused on the spiritual, and is Irish language-based, was his first foray into this world. Started five years ago, it has become a holistic community for people to learn Irish and connect with themselves.

"In that kind of work, it's really interesting, people are looking at self-development and how to break through, things like yoga, meditation, all this stuff. You give somebody this space to have to speak their own language and they're like, okay, now my terror is on my face and I have to deal with that.

"Once that terror and shame goes, the language actually starts to come out as opposed to, they would learn it from the outside in."

It was "lived experience" that inspired Lyng's own journey to this work after a trip to west Kerry at 22, where he encountered the Irish language in a new way.

"When the language came to life, you can see the world in a different way. It opens up different avenues of thought and observation, particularly in the relationship with nature, I found it very beneficial."

Lyng brings nature into his retreats to recreate this experience. He says he begins by planning excursions and activities for his groups, but then "you go out into for eight, 10 hours and realise how little time we all spend out in nature in that way".

From collecting seaweed to playing hurling, the retreats aim to bring people into nature in a more active, intentional way.

Leaving the hustle and bustle behind was a decision that came to Lyng, he says, rather one he came to. "I got to a point where I couldn't be honest in the situations that I was in", he says. "I was doing amazing things but I didn't feel like it was in my own truth and that was causing problems with the relationships I would have then.

"To not feel like you can be honest and integral and authentic in your engagements, it's an awful place to be in because you're retreating back into yourself while in the company of other people, and that's very difficult for people."

He "just had to get out", he says, and found himself in west Kerry.

"I was living on the absolute breadline, I barely had a phone, no car, it was out in this village in west Kerry and I had to go out down to the cliffs in the morning time and pick a load of seaweed, dry that, bring it home, that was making up part of my only ability to get good nutrients into my body for free, essentially."

Being out in nature also helped him unpack his knowledge of hurling, which in turn has helped him teach it better to others through what they call "wild hurling".

He pairs this with wrestling, as well as yoga, breath work, and high-quality organic food. This is particularly important for the men's retreats, he says.

"For a man to be able to let go of his responsibilities, and they're serious responsibilities and they're bringing in serious things to these retreats, for him to be able to let go the fire needs to be sorted, the roof needs to be solid, the food needs to be good. He needs to feel like everything is in control so he can let go."

Published on Rte.ie on Thursday, 15 Dec

Listen to the full interview here