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Calming Activity Possibly Helpful for Those Living With Anxiety or PTSD

 

A few months ago I started watching April the Giraffe, via a live animal camera (cam) at Animal Adventure Park in New York. It had been such a relaxing experience that I missed it when it was turned off. I used to fall asleep watching the giraffes.

I was delighted when I found another website, explore.org, and realized that they had cameras all over the world, including in Africa where I could watch giraffes, elephants, hippos, zebras, and so many more animals in their natural habitat. For the past two months, I have been watching the Africa cams every night before I go to bed. Today, I had my first training session on how to run the cams in Africa (remotely, from my computer at home). It was a wonderful experience. 

Moving forward, I'll be volunteering 2 shifts per week (a shift is just 2 hours) running the Africa cams. Sunday evenings from 10 pm - midnight and Wednesday mornings from 5 am - 7 am CST. It's really perfect for me to help me feel like I am being helpful to an organization I support and to try to bridge this gap when it's so difficult for me to feel safe in the world. It's a lot like how I feel about ACEs Connection. Something I love that helps others, and myself as well. 

Tonight I watched hippos bathing and napping, baby hippos playing, a huge flock of guineafowl eating for over an hour, and some very large bison. Plus there is sound, so you can hear the hippos splashing in the water and snorting at one another, and there are always lots of birds in the background.

If you're interested in watching any of the cams, you can find them at explore.org or on YouTube you can search for explore cams. If you're interested in the Africa cams, here's a link to one of them.

http://explore.org/live-cams/p...nimal-lookout-camera

They are also looking for more volunteers! 

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Jane Stevens posted:

These cams are so soothing! When I lived in Kenya, one of my favorite pastimes was to go to the park near Nairobi, find a herd of giraffe, and just watch them for hours.

Jane, not only are you the most amazing woman I have ever met, but now I find out that you lived in Kenya!! Just last week I found out about your death defying journalism adventures. I want to write a book about you! From ACEs Survivor to ACEs Superstar, and everything else you've done and are doing!  Sending lots of love. 

Christine Cissy White posted:

Leisa:  I have always loved elephants so much. It is so fun to be able to go see a whole bunch of live feeds and to listen to the birds. Even that is awesome! Thanks for sharing.

Are those April-related groups still together? I was amazed at the online community that came out of that and loved how you wrote about it! This is awesome for everyone missing that live feed! Cissy

Hi Cissy, thanks for asking about the groups that were started. They are still going and I've been sharing the explore.org cams with one of the groups on and off for about a month now. The group I started has over 15,000 members now and even though most of the news about April the Giraffe has stopped, we still average about 5-10 new member requests per day. It really seems that there are still a lot of people engaging with one another and the friendships that were formed seem to be holding together. I'm hoping that this new explore.org adventure will give people some more opportunities to communicate with one another in real time. That real time interaction has been hard to replicate or make up for in the Facebook groups. 

Leisa:  I have always loved elephants so much. It is so fun to be able to go see a whole bunch of live feeds and to listen to the birds. Even that is awesome! Thanks for sharing.

Are those April-related groups still together? I was amazed at the online community that came out of that and loved how you wrote about it! This is awesome for everyone missing that live feed! Cissy

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