Latest / Eye Opener Society / 🌿 Finding Peace in Solitude: The Healing Power of Solo Hikes with Sierra (@sierraearth26) | VIDEO

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🌿 Finding Peace in Solitude: The Healing Power of Solo Hikes with Sierra (@sierraearth26) | VIDEO · Eye Opener Society

• 0:02
  Hey, everyone, it's Gary here again from EyeOpener Society. Thank you again
• 0:06
  for tuning in and hit and play, download.
• 0:09
  And again, I got to thank you guys, the audience, for making this so special.
• 0:13
  I know you've been struggling, waiting to hear some more of the full-length episodes.
• 0:18
  And like I said, I'm still in the process of moving. And if you were to see,
• 0:22
  if I was to turn this camera around, the mess that's in front of me right now,
• 0:25
  it is really taking my anxiety levels, you know, to a whole nother place.
• 0:30
  But in hindsight though I'm going
• 0:33
  to get a studio back And once that
• 0:36
  happens I can just record whenever I
• 0:39
  want Without having to set up all the equipment and everything And
• 0:41
  I'm looking forward to that I'm looking forward to bringing you guys Some more
• 0:45
  great episodes Lizzie's been away on a little trip It's been hard to get in
• 0:49
  touch with her Because I'm still thinking of trying to get at least one more
• 0:52
  full length episode Before the move actually happens But in the meantime I have
• 0:57
  a wonderful person here with me Uh,
• 0:59
  Sierra, uh, Sierra Earth 26 from TikTok And I know you met her last time And
• 1:05
  I'm just, I'm amazed with her Because we really kind of connect I think we're
• 1:10
  on that same frequency So Sierra, how have you been doing?
• 1:14
  I've been doing really well, Gary. I'm just hanging out at the house right now with my dog.
• 1:18
  And I had a pretty chill weekend, did a solo hike on Saturday and really just
• 1:23
  hung out with myself last night. And yeah, just hanging out.
• 1:27
  Yeah, and that's great because the solo hike and you did a TikTok episode on
• 1:33
  that and it really hit home because I do a lot of hiking.
• 1:37
  I do a lot of exploration myself and you hit on something really.
• 1:41
  Well you actually had two points hiking alone and
• 1:45
  being with yourself for that inner peace and then people being so frightened
• 1:50
  of hiking alone and this hit home i enjoyed listening to that so i wanted to
• 1:56
  touch on that with you a little bit more um so hiking alone brings you that
• 2:02
  true essence of peace does it not.
• 2:08
  No, it really does.
• 2:11
  I don't know if you heard about the East Coast serial killer or whatever that
• 2:15
  we had going around, but there was a lot of talk about that.
• 2:18
  And I personally thought it didn't really exist.
• 2:22
  I thought it was just something they put on the news. But with all the crime
• 2:26
  documentaries and all the stuff that's on the news, I feel like it makes people
• 2:29
  scared to go out and discover who they are and hike and be alone.
• 2:35
  And it creates a lot of codependency on people in their lives.
• 2:39
  And they're not really able to just sit with themselves or be alone,
• 2:43
  which is a vital part of discovering who we are as people.
• 2:48
  Yes. And I know it's all by design.
• 2:54
  For some reason, they do not want us outdoors. They do not want us breathing
• 2:58
  in the fresh air. They do not want anything that's going to be healthy to us.
• 3:02
  So there's a lot of fear mongering that goes on. And I recognize this during
• 3:07
  the whole pandemic, the 2020 nonsense, anything that got you outside into fresh,
• 3:12
  clean air was forbidden. And it's still going on today.
• 3:16
  Oh, you're going to get robbed. You're going to get murdered.
• 3:19
  The chances of it actually happening is actually pretty small and especially in the outdoors.
• 3:25
  And not to say it will not happen, But the chances are so, so low And if you
• 3:30
  are just very mindful of your surroundings You're not going to have anything really happen to you.
• 3:37
  I agree. I think it really comes
• 3:40
  to a matter of like safeties when you're committed to doing a 14er alone.
• 3:46
  That might be a little, you know, unless you have the right stuff.
• 3:49
  It just depends on the length and experience that you have, too,
• 3:52
  because if you're not really an experienced hiker and you try to do like a six
• 3:56
  mile hike alone with barely any water, I mean, there's there's factors that play into it.
• 4:01
  But a two-mile hike in the woods 20
• 4:05
  minutes from your house is completely fine like nothing it
• 4:09
  was like a very very very slim chance that anything will happen
• 4:12
  to you you know yeah it's
• 4:15
  very slim and yes we are talking like
• 4:18
  those quicker hikes right close to home because uh many people don't even realize
• 4:23
  all of the nature the trails that are probably right in their own backyards
• 4:28
  and we just fail to see them because all we want to concentrate on is getting
• 4:31
  in a car and driving on the roads, dealing with traffic, dealing with people.
• 4:35
  But there's so many little tucked away places that we're just so unaware of
• 4:40
  that are so close that we don't have to get a backpack, you know,
• 4:44
  for a 30 day, you know, hike or something, or, you know, to live off the land
• 4:48
  for, you know, some time.
• 4:50
  We can enjoy nature right in our own backyards and it's entirely safe.
• 4:55
  I mean, know your environment too as well. I mean, that's the other thing.
• 4:58
  I mean, if you know where you're going is unsafe because there's people hanging
• 5:02
  out or whatever, that's a different story.
• 5:05
  But yeah, we need to find that solitude, that peace alone that we don't really
• 5:11
  get all the time because we're stuck at work dealing with other people. We need that escape.
• 5:17
  Absolutely. I agree. And I've never really been scared of hiking alone.
• 5:24
  Like I never really have.
• 5:26
  There have been times where I've been in the woods and it got dark and I was
• 5:30
  like, oh, this is kind of scary, but I like being alone. Prefer it.
• 5:36
  Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. And,
• 5:40
  I've been in the woods in the dark myself. And there were a couple of times
• 5:45
  when I did, you know, kind of wander off the path and I found myself lost.
• 5:50
  And I think the only fear you really have is, okay, how long before I find my way back?
• 5:55
  How much, you know, survival do I really need? That's the only things you really need to fear.
• 6:00
  I don't want to throw this out here just because, but I'm also a big supporter
• 6:05
  of the second amendment.
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  And I think everybody should be armed and it's not just for
• 6:09
  people you know it's in the wild there's
• 6:12
  always a chance of an animal too you know
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  even the small cute little furry ones once they're rabid it becomes a whole
• 6:19
  game changer because you do need some sort of protection but those are the only
• 6:22
  things you really need to fear but this absolute fear of walking outside the
• 6:26
  house just to enjoy a moment of solitude you really hit it and you know that
• 6:31
  nail right on the head and i really enjoyed listening to that.
• 6:36
  Societal agoraphobia yeah that's the
• 6:39
  perfect word for it yeah we are we want to close the
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  door shut all the windows just shut the whole outside world off because
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  of fear because what we then do is then trap ourselves in this solitude where
• 6:49
  all we have is social media television and those are the things that are feeding
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  the fear within you know your head and it does it starts to build up to the
• 7:00
  point where you fear opening up that door,
• 7:03
  opening up that window, because the outside world now is a scary place, when it really isn't.
• 7:07
  It's actually a beautiful place, and you can really enjoy it.
• 7:11
  So, Sierra, your hikes, I mean, they're local too. You got, obviously,
• 7:15
  a walking path close by to you, right? Mm-hmm.
• 7:19
  And those walks that you have, it's a form of meditation, is it not?
• 7:25
  It is. It is, because you're very present.
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  Because you're alone, so you're just kind of focused on what you're doing,
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  how you're feeling, and where you're going.
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  You're not worried about what this person is saying or, you know what I mean.
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  You're not worried about entertaining someone else.
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  It's just you and the trail, basically.
• 7:46
  Right. It's fine. I enjoy hikes with other people as long as we're all in the same mindset.
• 7:52
  But at the same time, yeah, you still can't get that 100% solitude that you
• 7:59
  really want when you are trying to entertain somebody else.
• 8:03
  So you had also had another little discussion on sleep and sleep relates all
• 8:11
  to this, because if you are going to go out on a hike, any kind of hike,
• 8:15
  and me, myself, a lot of my hikes, once I reach a destination,
• 8:19
  I do lay down on the earth.
• 8:21
  It's grounding And I wind up taking a nap,
• 8:25
  I've never had a problem I've never had an issue with that There were times
• 8:28
  I did fall asleep And then when I had woken up I had seen the vultures circling
• 8:33
  around over my head So that's probably the only thing that I ever really had difficulty with,
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  But our bodies need sleep.
• 8:44
  And I think we're all on cycles And when we're at work
• 8:47
  doing an 8-hour shift A 10-hour shift 14-hour shift
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  when do we get to sleep when do we get to relax and i
• 8:54
  know this affects you and i could tell that you know
• 8:56
  because uh i even just trying to schedule today
• 9:00
  to do this recording it was a matter of hey i didn't get a good night's sleep
• 9:05
  so my sleep schedule is kind of weird like some nights i'll sleep eight hours
• 9:10
  some nights i'll sleep five and then take two naps but if i'm tired i just go
• 9:15
  to bed. I'm not fighting my body.
• 9:18
  And that's a big thing. We like to fight our bodies and do things because we
• 9:23
  feel like we have to. No, we don't.
• 9:26
  If we're tired, we can just take a nap unless you have something you have to go to or whatever.
• 9:31
  But if I'm tired when I get out of work, I'm going to take a nap.
• 9:37
  Yes, I do the same thing. I've actually set it up now. As soon as I get home
• 9:41
  from work, first thing I need to do is take that nap.
• 9:45
  We do need to recharge our bodies because sitting at work all day and doing
• 9:50
  all the mundane tasks that, you know, our bodies really weren't designed to do.
• 9:54
  It takes so much out of us. And in order to enjoy anything that we do outside
• 10:01
  of work, we need to have our full attention, not just mind, but our bodies too
• 10:06
  as well. And we cannot achieve that without the rest.
• 10:09
  And I was learning that our bodies work in cycles, kind of like 90 minute cycles,
• 10:14
  90 minutes of sleep, 90 minutes of awake, 90 minutes sleep, 90 minutes of awake.
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  And of course, like I was telling you, we as human beings, we fucked it all
• 10:24
  up because we want to put all of these obstacles in our path,
• 10:31
  working and, you know, responsibilities and a lot of things that we as human
• 10:38
  beings never really were presented with before.
• 10:40
  It's just this here, we have to work for a living now.
• 10:44
  And that takes all the energy out of us because we weren't meant for that.
• 10:48
  We were meant to do tasks, but we were meant to do them in shorter bursts and
• 10:53
  then getting proper amount of sleep, which then also falls into proper diet too as well.
• 11:03
  Your diet, um, I, you're right. So obviously you have to have a diet that's,
• 11:12
  uh, you know, for that, right? Yes.
• 11:15
  Yes. So I not saying I never eat fast food, but very rarely as like a treat and I stick to the same,
• 11:25
  basically the same meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or just breakfast and dinner or whatever.
• 11:32
  I don't really eat snacks or junk food unless it's a treat.
• 11:36
  I don't keep chips in the house. I don't keep like cookies or anything like that.
• 11:41
  There's this raspberry Danish thing that I get from Aldi's when I go.
• 11:45
  And it's like the best thing ever. And it's gone in like two days.
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  But after that, I don't really, I don't get anything else.
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  Because what you put into your body is vital to your energy,
• 11:55
  how you perceive your reality and
• 11:59
  your health everything your diet
• 12:02
  is contributing to exactly what you
• 12:05
  put in is what you get out and if you're putting that artificial process crap
• 12:08
  in well you're going to have a very artificial like deli meat deli meat none
• 12:13
  of that i don't have like ham or turkey or anything like that in the house i
• 12:18
  just eat eggs and salmon i don't really do red meat anymore ever um,
• 12:25
  no process stuff like that.
• 12:29
  Yeah, the deli meat stuff grosses me out a lot now.
• 12:32
  I used to be able to just eat bologna out of the package, but now I'm just like,
• 12:37
  I've seen too many documentaries on it now.
• 12:41
  It's like so gross. Yeah. So gross.
• 12:44
  It is. And not only that, but even if you didn't see the documentaries at all,
• 12:48
  your body starts to reject it after a while, regardless of what it is.
• 12:52
  Because I've gone through those cycles too myself, especially with chocolate
• 12:56
  and all. and it completely threw me off.
• 12:59
  You know, my blood sugar levels completely off and I'm considered a diabetic,
• 13:03
  even though I don't believe it, but I just, I shut it out.
• 13:08
  I took away all the sugars from my life. And now if I do have anything,
• 13:12
  even as a treat, if it's sugar related, my body gets physically ill.
• 13:17
  It completely rejects it.
• 13:19
  So rejecting the deli meats, the highly processed food, same thing.
• 13:23
  Even if you knew nothing about what goes in them, your body knows
• 13:26
  that it doesn't belong in your body and it
• 13:29
  does start to reject it yeah you're
• 13:32
  absolutely right with that um i've actually taken on a whole diet of strict
• 13:36
  red meats and it's so far been the only thing that has really enhanced me like
• 13:42
  as far as physically and mentally and you know clarity but a lot of that also
• 13:48
  has to do with the fact that i did cut out a lot of sugars too as well.
• 13:52
  So I think if I ate even just salmons or chickens and stayed away from the red
• 13:56
  meat, I'd still be healthy as long as I don't go back to those sugars.
• 14:00
  So yeah, I wanted to have this conversation with you because it does.
• 14:05
  It brings a lot of meaning to us as human beings, especially people that are
• 14:10
  connected, the collective.
• 14:13
  Hiking, the way we eat, the way we sleep, the way we treat our bodies.
• 14:17
  It's all part of the metaphysical process.
• 14:19
  It's all part of that self-healing journey.
• 14:22
  How often do you do these walks?
• 14:25
  Um, it depends. I wouldn't say frequently, but if I have a weekend day free
• 14:34
  and I don't have plans with anyone, which is kind of rare, I'm going for a hike.
• 14:39
  But if I didn't do boxing, obviously it'd be more because I like to be really physically active.
• 14:45
  Um, so maybe twice or three times a month.
• 14:48
  All right i wish i could go more i just it's filled
• 14:51
  with work boxing and you know everything else
• 14:54
  but i just like to be active in general right and
• 14:57
  i i have the same issues too is like even with
• 15:00
  explore my biggest thing right now if i there's a few places i like to go to
• 15:05
  as far as my exploration and the hikes but it's a short car drive and that short
• 15:11
  car drive is the one thing that just completely turns me off from doing any
• 15:17
  of these things anymore.
• 15:18
  I despise driving so much now that it actually does affect me from doing the things I really enjoy.
• 15:25
  That being said, I do go out occasionally though.
• 15:29
  I think I'm probably about the same couple of times a month.
• 15:32
  I like to go out, hit the trails, explore, take it all in, But I like to do
• 15:38
  it when my body feels like it needs it.
• 15:43
  So rather than doing it all the time, when I feel like I just got to break away
• 15:47
  and I need to recharge, that's when I go out.
• 15:50
  That's when I can overdo it, too. You certainly can.
• 15:53
  You can do things to boredom, you know, even how much you enjoy if you're doing
• 15:58
  it every single day and you're seeing the exact same thing every single day.
• 16:03
  Yeah, you get bored of it and you can overdo it.
• 16:07
  You said you lived in Pennsylvania? I'm in Pennsylvania, yes.
• 16:10
  They have really nice hiking trails, right?
• 16:13
  Mm-hmm. It's very foresty.
• 16:16
  It's not like city-like in Pennsylvania. I drove through it a few times when
• 16:21
  I was going to Colorado, and it didn't seem city-like.
• 16:24
  It seemed very evergreen and stuff.
• 16:27
  Yeah, there's a lot of it. I mean, there's a lot of rural areas,
• 16:31
  even like where I'm in, but most of it is very forest. There's a lot of state
• 16:37
  forests. There's a lot of county parks.
• 16:39
  So there's always greenery somewhere that I can go to. Is there a national park in Pennsylvania?
• 16:46
  I don't believe that there is off the top of my head. I don't believe any national
• 16:50
  parks. Yeah. But it's all state. It's a pretty state though.
• 16:54
  It is. Yeah, there is a lot of green. I can literally disappear for a few days if I wanted to.
• 17:00
  It is that good where, yeah, you can go into, you know,
• 17:05
  even locally even like no more than 10 15 minutes away
• 17:08
  i can hit um a forest area or even
• 17:11
  a county park that's big enough where you can literally just go
• 17:14
  overnight and kind of get lost for a few days if you want that's
• 17:17
  how i feel about connecticut too like there's a lot of hiking trails
• 17:20
  and waterfalls hole in
• 17:24
  the wall trails that are just around i lived
• 17:27
  in massachusetts for a really long time and there was not
• 17:30
  much unless you were in the berkshires all the
• 17:33
  way out west the western side of the state yeah
• 17:37
  because where i lived it was like an hour from boston so it
• 17:39
  was all just like noise it was all noise there was hiking trails but there was
• 17:46
  one mountain in like a 50 mile radius that people hiked and it was small and
• 17:52
  i literally did it like 25 times because i lived there so it got old not a lot of waterfalls um.
• 18:01
  I guess there was hiking trails, yes, but it just, I like Connecticut a little bit better.
• 18:07
  That's just my opinion because it has the beach and you get the hiking trails.
• 18:12
  Gotcha. Yeah. A little bit of everything. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 18:15
  Yeah. I remember. I was in the Bronx, New York. That's where I was born.
• 18:20
  Spent a lot of my life there. And yeah, same thing. It's like,
• 18:24
  you can find beaches, you can find hiking trails.
• 18:27
  It doesn't, and I think there's food too.
• 18:30
  Great food around. Yeah, I haven't had good food since I left, to be quite honest.
• 18:35
  But yeah, people don't realize even if you are in these cities,
• 18:39
  these major metropolises, people don't understand that.
• 18:43
  Again, if you just zoom out on your Google map a little bit,
• 18:46
  you're going to find greenery.
• 18:48
  You're going to find a place where you can spend some time alone with yourself,
• 18:53
  your soul, and actually enjoy something. And that's why your little piece there
• 18:59
  on TikTok really got me thinking about it.
• 19:02
  And it's something now that I'm excited about. So now I know once I get over
• 19:06
  the absolute hatred of driving to occasion, I'm going to go out there and start exploring again, too.
• 19:13
  I have to make sure I leave at times where it's not super busy because that'll
• 19:17
  kill the whole vibe. Oh, yeah. Kill the whole vibe. It's gone. Mm hmm.
• 19:21
  Yeah. One spot I like to go to has been discovered and I,
• 19:27
  It's the parking area fits maybe only six cars. And I never had a problem every time I went there.
• 19:34
  As long as you're not like on a weekend or a holiday or something.
• 19:37
  But now, even on the off days, people found it.
• 19:40
  And people coming from other states, like Maryland, coming into Pennsylvania just to walk their dogs.
• 19:46
  You know, they come and they take up all the parking. They destroy the whole trail.
• 19:50
  And it destroys, like you said, that entire vibe.
• 19:53
  No one's there to enjoy the absolute serenity of it. they're just there to.
• 19:58
  Hey, I just found this place and I'm going to walk my dog here and I'm going
• 20:02
  to take up all the parking and they don't know how to park and I can go on to
• 20:05
  the whole thing with this. I don't want to be negative.
• 20:07
  But I like the fact that I have something that's local that means something to me.
• 20:13
  And again, it's just a car. I can't get there by walking. I mean,
• 20:17
  I could, but it'll take forever.
• 20:19
  And since I have to take the car there and it's got to be parked,
• 20:22
  there's no other parking.
• 20:24
  And if you get there and it's taken up and you got to sit waiting for park it
• 20:27
  does it ruins the whole entire vibe so
• 20:29
  i get that and that's why i like being alone because once those trails are loaded
• 20:34
  with all the people even though they're not with you you're still taking all
• 20:38
  of that energy there is a happy medium gary where i rather there be some people
• 20:44
  on the trail with me just so i know i'm not completely if i did,
• 20:49
  what if i had a heart like anything could happen right right so there's a happy medium of like,
• 20:54
  I don't want to be on the trail when everybody and their mother is on it.
• 20:57
  That ruins it for me. I'll just turn around and go back. Like,
• 21:00
  I'm not dealing with that.
• 21:01
  And then if it's too dead and there's no one around at all, I get a little creeped out.
• 21:07
  So there's like a, there's a happy medium, I guess, to where having people but
• 21:13
  not having too many people, if that makes sense.
• 21:16
  Me personally, I don't, I don't mind walking a trail that's completely alone.
• 21:21
  But if I'm going for a long hike, you know, you just want to at least be a little bit safe.
• 21:27
  Right. You know, you don't want to hike three miles in the woods with not another
• 21:31
  person in sight. That's, you don't have enough water.
• 21:35
  You know, I guess if you're prepared, yeah, but there's a happy medium,
• 21:38
  I think, with the amount of people.
• 21:41
  Absolutely. Yeah, we always got to find our medium, what it is we're comfortable
• 21:45
  with, because that's the only reason why we're going to do something.
• 21:48
  And we have to be happy with it and we have to be comfortable with it.
• 21:52
  I'm the type where I look forward to going into a woods, getting lost and not being found.
• 21:58
  I find peace with that. You know, I enjoy thinking, oh, wow,
• 22:02
  I'm going to have to now really play survivalist and, you know, get through it.
• 22:06
  It doesn't scare me. It doesn't frighten me. I could care less if the nearest
• 22:10
  person was 50 miles away.
• 22:12
  That's me. And yet everybody has their own way of doing it.
• 22:16
  So yeah, find that happy medium. But the message here is get out,
• 22:19
  eat right, get good rest, and then go out and get that exercise.
• 22:24
  Find that inner peace. Find what, you know, that magic.
• 22:29
  When it comes to meditation, that solo effort for yourself.
• 22:35
  While you can take people with you, sometimes it's best just to be alone and by yourself.
• 22:41
  This way, you can experience the things that are going on in your mind correctly.
• 22:49
  Ciara, I want to thank you very much for taking this time with me and recording
• 22:53
  this here little episode. I'm hoping to have you back some more.
• 22:56
  Absolutely. I enjoy being here and talking to you.
• 22:59
  I enjoy it too. And I enjoy your TikTok. you
• 23:02
  know every now and then man you just hit something that just i
• 23:06
  just like i like getting on there and making points while
• 23:09
  also making people laugh i find the content creating
• 23:12
  to be fun and i think that's why i'm pretty
• 23:15
  good at it i don't see it as like oh i'm
• 23:17
  trying to get followers like it's not about that it's like i'm trying
• 23:20
  to just make people laugh i'm having fun and if
• 23:24
  i do blow up whatever that's cool but it's
• 23:27
  really just about spreading my message and making people
• 23:30
  laugh it's not about like being famous or whatever
• 23:33
  exactly and i appreciate it
• 23:36
  though i really do i appreciate your content and if you're looking for sierra
• 23:39
  it's sierra earth 26 on that's
• 23:42
  me yep that's her sierra earth 26 on tiktok follower uh enjoy her content and
• 23:48
  look for when um you know next time we have you on uh like i said right now
• 23:54
  i'm in this really weird transition phase and i just can't wait till new studio
• 23:57
  is up and i could start doing all sorts of wild stuff,
• 24:00
  but I just like to, you know, get something out there for everyone.
• 24:03
  So, you know, I'm still here.
• 24:05
  And if I could bring somebody new like Sierra on, I enjoy that too as well.
• 24:09
  So again, Sierra, thank you very much for joining me on this and everybody will
• 24:14
  see you again on whatever the next episode I have out for you. Take care.