Nature Therapy

Many people find that spending time outside greatly helps with depression, anxiety and stress as well as promoting general health and wellbeing.

Nature Therapy is slightly different from traditional therapy as it takes place outside. It’s helpful if traditional therapy feels a bit daunting or intense - it can be more of a walk and talk. Walking can be a very helpful way to explore what is going on for us as it helps to process our thoughts, sit with emotional tangles and come up with new ideas. It provides movement, exercise and connection to our bodies as well as grounding us to the landscape. Rebecca Solnit’s famously wrote that “we think at three miles per hour.” In nature therapy we can also work with nature in a creative way, focusing on natural objects and phenomena that draw your attention to help explore any thoughts, feelings and physical sensations that arise in response to what is going on around you. It can be a more expansive way to work where nature, as well as the therapist, can be the container for difficult emotions. It’s also very special when we explore and share the experience with another as it helps to open up new avenues for self-exploration.

It’s such a joy for me as it combines my two truest passions. Being in the natural world is where I feel most liberated, peaceful and happy. It is deeply restorative for me and I find it always calms my nervous system, it has helped me work through many challenges and difficulties. I have a true love of the sea. I swim all year round and do a lot of diving in the warmer weather. I walk my dog Izzy every day, through woods, coastlines and beaches and enjoy foraging and making things from my findings.

   Why Nature Therapy

Many problems we face are part of not having evolved to live how we do and being very disconnected from the natural world; in our homes, the food that we eat, the work that we do, how we spend our time and how we travel.

Erich Fromm wrote “The soil, the plants, the animals are still man’s world and the more the human race emerges from these primary bonds, the more it separates itself from the natural world, the more intense becomes the need to find new ways of escaping separateness.” We close our minds and fill the gap in our lives, all sorts of artificial stimuli grab our attention and hijack our dopamine reward pathways but which often leave us feeling empty and unfulfilled.

Developing a relationship with nature can help us to feel more interconnected and less alone in the world. We can experience awe, wonder, hope and beauty. It can help us feel more in tune with the seasons and the elements, to draw on this to help us make sense of and organise our own thoughts, feelings and emotions. But also, nature is impassive; it doesn’t care about our job, our house, or who we are - we’re not competing for recognition or worried of how we will be received. It’s transcendent; an older, slower and grander dimension. Developing a relationship with nature can help us in our struggles and help us develop a deeper, meaningful and reciprocal way of living. 

     Practicalities

I offer therapy outdoors in East Lothian. If this is something you think might be of interest to you please feel free to get in touch. Before we begin our work outdoors we will firstly have a session face to face or online, this is a chance to discuss practicalities such as location so we can take into account any physical needs and accessibility as well as contracting to a more public way of working. There may be more discomfort involved as we experience the elements. It’s important to wear suitable shoes and clothing appropriate to the weather.