Welcome

We know that the world can sometimes feel like a busy, frantic and difficult place.

In response, we are offering a range of activities all designed to ease the pressure, increase your resilience and creativity, and boost your mental and physical well-being.
We’re passionate about what we do because we have (literally) walked the walk and we know how much benefit we get when we go outside and into nature, or inside and into our feelings, and we wanted to spread the love!

Go to ‘Events‘ for details of free taster sessions, relaxation sessions, nature reset retreats and forest therapy sessions. Our monthly(ish) newsletter will have details of all new events as they’re confirmed.

We’re all in it together

We are a Community Interest Company – a not for profit. By attending our events you help us fund those who might not be able to make their way to our services without some assistance. We are particularly hoping to support those with anxiety and depression, those who find it difficult to get into nature, carers, those receiving hospice care, and veterans. If you or your group feel you could benefit from our services, please get in touch and we’ll see how we can help.

It’s a double win – a win for you and a win for our community.
#puttingpeoplebeforeprofits

Relaxation Sessions

Let’s not underestimate the power of relaxation: it relieves strain on the heart, lowers blood pressure, lowers the activity of stress hormones, can help us to manage pain, lessen anger and frustration and improves mood and focus. But so few of us actually take time out purely to relax. We often see it as laziness (there’s always that ‘to do’ list that needs attending to…) but in fact properly relaxing is a great act of self care that puts us in a much better position to deal with our lists and to look after ourselves and other people.
We need to remember to restore our own reserves otherwise we end up running on empty and find ourselves exhausted, depressed and anxious.

Our relaxation sessions are shaped to suit an individual or group and can be active: gentle mindful movement (seated or standing) or passive: guided meditations and/or guided visualisations. They can bring deep relief and rest.

Nature Reset

Our nature reset events will be held in natural environments, usually the woods, a park or the beach and (usually) with an indoor option to weatherproof us. Our intention is to teach techniques for slowing down, deeply resting and reconnecting to the natural world and the wisdom it has to share with us. We can all learn something from the ease with which nature allows the ebb and flow of life, how it recognises that sometimes it’s necessary to be still and other times it’s necessary to be productive but always within the boundaries of what’s normal for each tree, plant, insect or animal. A tortoise being productive isn’t the same as an apple tree being productive – they both have their own unique rhythms, as do we.

We’ll spend time with grounding techniques, with some slow and mindful movement to encourage a re-connection to our bodies, we’ll have opportunities to be creative in a playful, perfection-free way, to engage our curiosity, and to connect to nature and our part in it. Nothing is forced, if you want to sit something out, you’re very welcome to, we simply ask you to bring a spirit of curiosity!

Forest Therapy

How would it be to have an hour or two where no one is making any demands of you?  Where you can be exactly as you are without needing to meet anyone else’s expectations?  An hour or two of turning your attention not to the list of things that forever needs doing but instead truly resting with this moment and with nature as your backdrop?

With forest therapy (also known as forest bathing) we’re gently guided to tune in and engage the senses and to meet nature just as it is. We may discover that it is just as we are – perfectly imperfect – and be able to feel the relief of that. Nature makes no demands of us and there is nothing that you need to get ‘right’. In forest therapy we simply offer gentle invitations to explore…

When we slow down in this way we give ourselves the opportunity to let nature IN and allow it to work its magic.

The Benefits of Forest Therapy

Most of us know that nature is good for us and that spending time in nature makes us feel better, we know that from our own experience and there’s plenty of science to back those experiences up.

However, the positive effects get super-charged when we engage with nature in a slightly different way.   Going for a walk with the dog, riding a bike in the woods or having a picnic in the park can be great fun, but they can also end up being just another job to do, especially if we’re the ones in charge of organising, or a specific outcome is expected (getting our steps in etc.).

The super-charging comes when we slow down enough to let nature IN, rather than just being in nature in order to tick something off a list.  Slowing down can feel difficult for many of us – we live in a world of rush, rush, rush and  ‘got to get on with it’ but then our bodies and minds can suffer – we may end up feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and experiencing anxiety and/or depression. 

This is all backed up by over 40 years of scientific study. When we engage in forest therapy, we get to:

• Improve our physical wellbeing (blood pressure is reduced, heart rate goes down, our immune system improves)
• Improve our mental wellbeing (anxiety and depression are reduced and grief and PTSD can feel more manageable)
• Improve our creativity (disconnecting from multi-media and technology, spending time in an environment that doesn’t require us to keep switching our full attention from one thing to the other)
• Increase our resilience, especially if we make it a regular part of our lives.

Forest Therapy – What to Expect?

The sessions start with a short introduction as we make our way into the trees and that’s then followed by a series of ‘invitations’.  Invitations are our opportunity to connect to nature in a relaxed and easy way, using our senses.  You can’t get an invitation wrong and you don’t have to meet any specific goal.  You can interpret the invitations in any way you like.

There will be between 3 and 6 invitations (depending on the season) during our session and there’s always a hot/cold drink and a snack at the end if you fancy it. 

Most of the session is run in silence and there’s no pressure to perform in any way.  There are opportunities to reflect on your experiences but they’re certainly not compulsory and there’s no pressure to share.

One to One Support

*Sometimes there are conversations that are difficult to have with family and friends, particularly around grief, loss, death and dying.
*Sometimes we just need to offload and put the world to rights.
*Sometimes we know that we’re repeating patterns that aren’t helpful and we feel it’s time to see what lies beneath them.
*Sometimes we just need to feel that we’re really being heard, without judgement.
Please get in touch, we may be able to help or to put you in touch with someone who may be able to help.

Events