The Practice of Healing in Nature

Nature has an incredible power to heal. If you’ve ever taken a walk in the park to clear your head, strolled under the trees, sat on the beach, taken in the refreshing air, or tended a garden, you know how restorative time spent in nature can be. Especially when dealing with trauma, physical or mental pain, nature can be a healer, friend, and counselor, guiding us back to wholeness.

Surrounding ourselves in the rhythms and shapes of nature can be transformative and healing. From Ayurveda, the ancient healing tradition of India, to your physician, everyone recommends spending at least twenty minutes in nature every day. Doing so allows us to experience the wonder of our existence with all our senses. Nature enables us to shift our attention beyond our egos and recognize our inextricable connection to the universe.

As children, we had a sense of connection and an innate fascination with the natural world around us. We’ve experienced openness and freedom that only nature exposure could provide. But, life somehow took us away from the soft grass, gentle breeze, and warm sun and made us live in a very different jungle altogether – the concrete one.

Although life is a glorious adventure of our souls, it often involves pain, struggle, and trauma. This, I could dare say, is an unavoidable thing. We all face challenges and have negative life experiences that leave scars. Some scars are so deep that they can numb us, leaving us stuck in our trauma.

Our bodies keep the score, and when we can’t take it anymore, we just want to run away from ourselves, jump out of our own skin. Dissociation is one of the typical and uncomfortable symptoms of trauma. People who experience dissociation chronically feel unsafe in their bodies, they ignore their gut feelings and shut off everything around them. Simply put, they learn how to hide from themselves.

If trauma and its symptoms can be summed up as the act of hiding from oneself, then, in my opinion, nature has the opposite effect. Engaging your senses and focusing on the natural surroundings is a wonderful way to ground yourself in the present moment. Grounding in nature is an easy way to bring yourself out of the re-traumatizing rumination, flashbacks, and dissociation.

Life Hurts, Nature Heals

In the early eighties, a researcher visited a local suburban hospital in Peoli, Pennsylvania. He came there to collect information about patients who had undergone gallbladder surgery and were recovering in a row of rooms facing a courtyard. Such surgery is generally uncomplicated, and most patients recover in one or two weeks. However, the researcher wondered why some took longer to recover and whether differences between hospital rooms could be the reason for their longer stay. Some hospital rooms were faced onto a brick wall, while others faced a small stand of trees. Apart from the view, the rooms were identical.

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