Can you dream of a life guided by inner knowing?
A life where you are alive, vibrant, and walk each day nourished and connected to the wider web of life?
Knowing you have place and support? Then ecotherapy is for you!
The Invitation
Nature-based psychotherapy involves embarking on a journey into your inner psyche using nature as a teacher. It is therapy that helps you make sense of yourself both as an individual and a person that is formed and exists in a wider web of life.
The invitation I offer is to sit with me in an open exploration of how Nature might be a context for meeting yourself. This may be within ecotherapy sessions in Devon, UK where we physically go into nature together, or online if you are further afield.
In the world of people, you might know yourself as “mother” or “CEO” or “yoga teacher”. But there’s more, isn’t there? Nature reveals dimensions of who you most truly are beyond the roles and images society offers us. New, wilder, more ancient and regal parts of yourself may re-emerge. Old problems and limitations may fall away like Autumn leaves. Radical change may take hold of your life.
We can nourish ourselves at one level through a simple walk in the woods, but there is opportunity for so much more.
The work is healing on a level that is beyond any individual trauma you may hold, and establishes a relationship with the natural world where you once more feel a part of it. This is different from knowing on a theoretical level we are part of nature, it is actually the ability to LIVE from this place of oneness. This connection to the truth of who you are and nature as a living conscious being brings the life of aliveness and wholeness we yearn for.
It helps to have a grounded companion on that journey - especially a trained psychologist - to be with you as you discover and embody new possibilities.
While grounded in sound clinical theory, my work is intuitive, relational and transpersonal. I take a holistic approach, with the idea that unification of body, mind, spirit, is key.
“I have seen repeatedly that when we connect to nature we receive compassionate reflections of who we really are, we heal, we connect, our whole being grounds, our mind quietens and our other senses switch on.”
What does ecotherapy look like?
You will have a safe therapeutic space to talk and explore yourself (as in traditional psychotherapy) while simultaneously being helping to connect to the landscape and elements around you in nature. It often involves meditative inner journeys as well as actual or planned engagement with nature on a physical level.
Building a shared understanding of any issues or difficulties present in your life
Getting to know your inner landscape through joint exploration and creating a visual map of the psyche
Building nature connection either directly or through your minds eye. Here your senses will become more attuned, there is an awakening of sorts and a unification of body, mind and spirit.
You will learn to be with nature in a way that honours it, understands its language, and can be open to nature’s mirror that is affirming, instructive and liberating.
We will connect with the imaginal part of you through inner journeying.
You will learn nature connection practices and rituals.
What is ecotherapy and why is it needed?
Psychological therapy is a much needed way to reflect and become conscious about ourselves, our inner longings and purpose, and a way to develop. At at the same time it is, in my view, rightly criticised for looking at us as individuals in a vacuum or at best in a family system, when life is much wider than that. I see ecotherapy and building a relationship with nature as choosing to walk a deep path of healing and reconnection not just to ourselves but to life and the earth. Modern therapy might tell you to ‘think differently’ ‘be more ‘rational’ with your thoughts, whereas nature might hold you in your feelings, whatever they may be, and this experience and the deep knowing that flows from it is the medicine.
Throughout my years as a practicing psychologist I have come to the view that much of our distress, addiction, loneliness, and suffering stems from our disconnection from the natural world, community, and our true selves. We are often working and living in sterile boxed-in environments with white walls and artificial lights, like lab rats pressing the leaver on our phone for more distractions, or buying and consuming more ‘things’ to try to fill our inner empty world. We are often overcome by addictions that reflect our desperation for pleasure and fulfillment and separation from the natural rhythms of the earth. In modern society our brains have generally been wired to become overly mental and externally driven by goals and the fear of judgement from others. This makes us anxious to keep up the pace and depressed when we cannot (which is often the case since the online world projects ideals which have never been further from our realities).
What happens when we are connected to the wider web of life?
The nourishment we receive when we are fully connected to nature is profound, consumerism dies, emotional hunger is met and we learn what satisifies us on a deeper level.
Nature brings both place and presence and when we feel whole we act from this nourished connected place, which leads to reciprocal care for the earth. Through connecting to nature the individualistic view of self that is separate to the earth is cracked open, and gratitude and reciprocity is the natural moving response.
This self-understanding and ability to know and connect to the truth of who you are, brings the life of aliveness and wholeness we yearn for.
“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here”
Our psyche is mirrored in nature, the patterns of our personality, symbols of our lives, and much more
Nature is a mirror that is affirming, clear and guiding
An example; after exploring a person’s relationship with an absent father I may invite them into an inner guided meditation that creates a forest. Here I might ask them to be drawn to the place in nature that represents this relationship. They may be drawn to an Oak tree laden with acorns and here I might guide them into noticing what they are drawn to in the tree and how their body physically and emotionally is changing. From this place noticing begins, connecting begins, feelings arise and are met with what they need. On some level the struggle a person is having is represented by what they notice in the Oak tree or themselves as they notice the Oak tree. For example, the abundance of acorns in the tree might remind them of the abundance in their life, their heart opens and the notice their back feels straight, a sense of ‘rightness’ arrives. The thought that an absent father actually led to them striving, doing, achieving comes, and a sense of surprised appreciation for the childhood they had, including the adversity is present. They notice the scars on the tree, how nature heals, and how the tree is all the more beautiful and strong for it. We stay present to notice if the now understood ‘struggle’ felt and understood begins to transform and if new noticing provides answers of a new way forward.
Nature is our best teacher
