What is Nature Therapy?
Many hear the term “nature therapy” or “ecotherapy” and think, isn’t that just about spending time outside enjoying nature? How is nature therapy different from how most of us spend our time outside of buildings and cars? Isn’t this just a walk in the woods? Why do I need a facilitator for that?
A couple of weeks ago after telling a community gathering about the work I do, a woman grabbed me firmly by the elbow and said, “Please keep doing what you are doing–it is such important work.” She related a poignant tale about a difficult divorce she had undergone, and how much an ongoing walk in the woods near her home saved her life. Almost apologizing for how short the walk was, she was nevertheless clear and passionate about how much it helped her survive something that otherwise would have been unendurable. She managed, on her own, to pull from the woods a sense of healing that is readily available to anyone at any time.
How did she do this? I believe it is because of the state of mind she was in. But how can we replicate what happened to her without having to undergo extreme difficulty or grief to get there? First, we must understand how her grief facilitated this opening within her.
When undergoing extreme difficulty, we are more impacted by what happens to us. Areas of our brains are highly activated, and some researchers believe, are more responsive to undergoing physical changes. We are raw and open to both the insults and the beauty that cross our paths. We all know how much more sensitive we are in the negative sense when distressed or grieving. But there’s a less spoken of opening that many are aware of when undergoing grief–we hear about this in sessions–how the beauty of life strangely stands out, or hits us in a new or meaningful way. Once when I was in despair about something, I suddenly noticed how beautiful a particular sunset was, so striking that I can still visualize it many years later. I’ve seen many beautiful skies and sunsets since, but for some reason that one stays with me, although I’ve since forgotten what the despair was about.
Researchers working in the area of neuroscience have recorded through magnetic resonance imaging scans how our neurons are more likely to restructure themselves when moving through deep emotions. Diana Fosha comments on this in her work with clients, bringing them into these emotional states regularly to impact and change how their limbic brains regulate emotions (Fosha, 2000). Siegel and others have discovered that trauma is often an opportunity to create an emotional shift in a client, if it can be revisited and reconstructed consciously in the therapeutic setting (Siegel, 2007; Solomon & Siegel, 2003; Wilkinson, 2006).
It doesn’t surprise me that the woman at the community meeting mentioned earlier, and others like her, have approached me with their stories, or how often I hear about epiphanies people experience in nature. Our connection to the earth is essential, and one’s mental and physical regulation depend on harmonizing with the powers of the earth. This makes intuitive sense, and in the future, I believe neurobiologists will be writing in the same way about how not only intimate relationships create healing limbic regulation, but also our ability to create this same kind of intimacy with nature.
There are many ways to create limbic resonance with the natural world. Approaches vary. From hands on wilderness therapy to Jungian Dream work applications, I’ve notice that the strongest current of similarity running through most is an emphasis on slowing down. Watching videos of Diana Fosha and her cohort at work, I’ve seen how radically slowed down the sessions are, giving clients the space and time they need to feel great emotion within a safe connection. Just as a baby and a healthy parent interact, this is not a rushed process. Since the pathways of the brain need time to “wear in,” this can be a slow process. A baby learns to smile by being smiled at many times and hearing the caregiver’s tone of voice. She is exposed to many hours of face to face contact through the actions of caregiving, and this actually builds structures and patterns in her brain (Lewis & Lannon, 2000). Although our capacity to build neural pathways when we are older slows down, our brains maintain the ability to change throughout life.
In the same way, nature therapy seeks to establish limbic connection by ongoing contact with the natural world. One ecopsychologist I know has his clients gaze for a long time at a single leaf, just experiencing the leaf and spending time with it. Another walks slowly with her clients in places where large trees are present, providing opportunities for stopping and sharing the experience of connection with the trees. Still other therapists delve into dreams about the natural world, and build connection that way. I often use writing exercises after time spent outdoors to help clients reflect on their experiences–this also helps them rekindle those experiences when they are unable to access nature. The one thing all these practices do is SLOW the client down, to look and feel. By slowing down nature has the opportunity to enter us and speak to us, so that we can hear what is being communicated to us, and this is the vehicle whereby we can experience healing.
So, a walk in the woods is a wonderful thing, but it’s not the whole story. The woman soaked in grief and loss in the above story was slowed down by her grief and loss. In my moment of despair, I was brought to halt in my life, which enabled me to open, and allowed nature to touch me. But we needn’t always be in a tragic situation for this poignancy to occur. Grief is just one vehicle that interrupts our flow long enough for us to see, sometimes for the first time, the life that surrounds us. Intimacy with anyone or anything requires a slower pace, and speed is often a means used to create distance, perpetuate aggression, or just to avoid intimacy. This is the primary reason that I combine contemplative practice with nature therapy. Meditation on the natural world, walking very slowly, breathing, seeing our surroundings, is elemental in creating the conditions to receive what nature has to offer us. We can speed-walk in the woods a thousand times, go on athletic hikes, bicycle rides, etc., and still miss out on the mental healing nature has to offer.
A yoga teacher once said during a class I was in: “Slow down so you can feel.” She was speaking about our muscles and tendons, but I never forgot the phrase. Allowing ourselves to slow down in nature and open up not only allows us to feel, but also allows an empathic capacity to emerge within us. We begin to feel with nature, feel for nature, and I believe, feel what nature is feeling. I have seen in my own life how reassuring the green world is. My dreams and those of others have shown me how much we are wanted by the green world–and how much this world wants to give to us. I have also felt the pain of how we as a species have taken too much, and how our insensitivity impacts the environment. We are the vehicles through which nature speaks, and many of us who listen have taken up the pen to voice the concerns of earth. This is some of the most deeply satisfying work we can do. We can only get to this receptive place by slowing down, listening, allowing into ourselves the healing that the earth offers, and then giving that healing back, in whatever form we can access.
Fosha, D. (2000). The Transforming Power of Affect: A model for accelerated change. Perseus Books, (No location)
Lewis, T., Amini, F., & Lannon, R. (2000). A General Theory of Love. New York: Vintage.
Siegel, D. J. (2007). The Mindful Brain: Reflection and attunement in the cultivation of well-being. Norton: New York.
Solomon, M. F. & D. J. Siegel (2003). Healing Trauma: Attachment, mind, body, and brain. Norton: New York.
Wilkinson, M. (2006). Coming into Mind: The mind-brain relationship: A Jungian clinical perspective. Routledge, New York.
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