The birth of That Forest Feeling

*This was post in March 2022 on Facebook, but I’m moving some posts to this blog.

I have been quiet for a while, in kind of a cocoon, like many of us I think.

Two years ago on my birthday, you may remember I started to share my journey of recovering from this pesky chronic illness that had derailed my life-as-I-knew-it. I was certain that I was in the final stretches of “healing", and that maybe my path could help others. Then two weeks later, the pandemic hit and everything changed, and I didn’t get better. I muddled through most days in what felt like survival mode, like many of us. I got worse. I felt like I had failed, and I was embarrassed and disappointed.

Then last summer, I found Forest Therapy (aka Forest bathing) and through practice and my 6-month training course to become a Nature and Forest Therapy Guide, I learned, ever so gently, that I don’t have to be “healed” to practice it or offer it (and that’s not even the point). I can just be me (and you can be you). We can sit with the forest and notice all its beauty and imperfections and ordinariness and contradictions and maybe we’ll learn to notice our own beauty and imperfections and contradictions with curiosity and compassion instead of fear and shame.

We can remember our deep connection to the Earth, that we ARE nature, and that our well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of the Earth and all its inhabitants. We can realize this in our bones and feel terrified and comforted and motivated and scared and ALL THE THINGS.

For many of us — especially those of us with past trauma, with chronic pain, with anxiety and depression — being in the present moment and noticing our bodily sensations and feelings can be difficult. But nature helps me with this; nature is the great co-regulator. We can learn to notice our feelings, our thoughts, our sensations with curiosity and compassion.

But Forest Therapy isn’t just to help us feel better. With Forest Therapy, we are (re)building our RELATIONSHIP with nature. Not in the way of listing off all the ways you’re a perfect environmentalist, or that you know the scientific names of all the plants, but in an embodied, FEELING kind of way. Like noticing how the dried grass blowing in the wind feels like a wave hello from your cousin. Or noticing how the feel of the moss on a tree trunk feels like a gift from a friend. And wondering, deep in your body and your heart, how you might offer them a gift, or say hello, or be their friend.

I believe this kind of cultural shift of seeing nature as our kin (like Native Americans and so many indigenous people around the world did and still do), will spur the kind of technological, lifestyle, and policy changes necessary to allow humans to live on this planet a little longer.

So, yeah, becoming a Forest Therapy Guide is pretty much my attempt (in my own little quiet way) to save the world, myself, and humanity --no big deal hahaha.

I’d be honored if you’d join me.