For the past 6 months, I have been working on getting my certification as a forest therapy guide through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy.  As one of our final assignments, we were tasked with a “harvest project”.  It was supposed to be something harvested from our training through ANFT and it could be literally anything.  

When I considered what it might be for me, I thought about a new website – organized – with all the new walks I was offering, but, I just haven’t had the time to devote to this – it’s coming, just not quite yet.  

And when I think about how I have harvested something – anything – from my life – worth sharing – It almost always comes out when I sit down to type at this damn computer.  Sometimes I don’t even know what it is that I have learned or “harvested” until I see the words I’ve typed.  After writing what I did below, I realized that what I have learned in my six months of training – in my six months of purposeful time and connection with the more-than-human world, is that I don’t have to be without pain to be a valuable part of all that surrounds me.  In fact, maybe it’s my pain that connects me to it and to all of you, even more.

I decided, just about 4 years ago, that I would leave my husband.  That I would take a giant torch to my life and burn it allllll down.  

At the time, I was only working as a school psychologist one day per week.  In the margins of my life, in between taking care of the kids and the house, I was working on building a platform about healing from chronic illness – but when I look back, my mission was broader than that – deeper – wider.  

It wasn’t to talk about chronic illness, but to communicate that wellness living should never be tied to an end goal of “healed”.  When we do that – when we limit ourselves to the dichotomy of “whole” or “broken”, we forget that we can exist as both and that in the healing is where the growth actually is.   

Getting sick was a catalyst to understanding there was no time to be wasted- that I needed to wake up to the things that mattered and stop obsessing over the things that didn’t – maybe even end some things which hurt me far beyond my bladder pain.  

I was full of purpose when I realized there were people I could help in their pain.  I was full of hope that maybe my writing and my podcast could reach someone as lost as I had felt and make them feel a little less alone.  

And then? 

Things spun out. 

The world shut down.  I broke up with my boyfriend…twice.  I lost my best friend and the support group who had carried me through my divorce – the people I thought I would have by my side forever.  The prospect of publishing my book, just kind of died.  My grandma died.  And the job I threw myself back into during my divorce had me so stressed and drained that by the time I got home every night, I just wanted to hide and sleep.  It was a creativity vampire.  If I’m honest, it still is in many ways. 

The people who showed me so much encouragement and love, I realized, could just be… gone.  The inspiration and purpose I held, even as I was leaving my husband, it just seemed like a long forgotten memory – maybe even a story I had made up for myself to ease the pain of losing everything else.

Before I continue, I want to be clear that I know my choices in life are what have led me here – all the joy – all the pain.  I don’t – in any way – want any pity.  Things have also gone right amidst the wrong: got back together with the boyfriend (again- lol) – met some new friends – and then, one day, I was researching this thing called, “forest bathing”…

I had a guest on the podcast who had mentioned it, and I was curious, because, it seemed like there was something that would happen when I spent time outside – a calming, radical acceptance of where I was at – a connection I couldn’t quite explain.  I had worked “time with nature” into a pillar of my protocol for clients, but I hadn’t fully explored why, other than I knew it was where I found healing from my bladder disease, as well as I felt this “something” that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  

When Kristina (the guest on my podcast – you can listen to the episode here) brought up forest bathing, I was interested, but as time went on, I became more and more intrigued, so after a couple hours of internet research, I found the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT), founded by Amos Clifford, also a psychologist.  You can read more about them here.  As I read about the program, I knew it was the next step for me.

There is a phrase used by ANFT: “The forest is the therapist – the guide opens the doors” – This has been incredibly freeing for me.  As a school psychologist, and even as a chronic illness blogger/podcaster, I have felt like I have to have the answers; that I have to guide my teams and my clients to the solution for a student or for their life, and friend!  I don’t always have the answers.  In fact, I often don’t.  It’s always exhilarating when I do – when I find what works – when I actually can help a student or a client, but I’m tired of my ego – I’m tired of believing it’s up to ME to help anyone.  

Forest therapy guiding has given me the opportunity to release all of that, and to trust that there is something that happens when you step into the woods – something truly magical that I have zero control over. 

You can feel it – in a warm breeze, or hear it in a bubbling spring – it’s language is sensory and it’s message is personal and as I’ve learned the “way of the guide” I’ve felt myself fall into something I can trust.  And I don’t trust a whole lot.  Since I’ve started guiding walks, I’ve tried to control – to make sure things go well – but in the end – things never remain under my control and yet, everyone takes from the time outside what they were meant to.  It isn’t up to me, and this is an enormous relief.

Aside from that, there is no place quite like nature that can teach you the beauty of the co-existence of death and life, of joy and pain, of beauty and decay.  It’s a theme that comes up quite a lot, the more you spend time outside: the cylical nature of of all things – the dark within the light – the light with the dark: the yin and yang of life… and death.  

My training has taught me radical acceptance for the journey.  It’s taught me that I don’t have to fight so hard to solve every problem and it’s more than OK to accept that we are all, always just figuring it out – evolving- healing – becoming.  It’s in the “ing” where life actually is. 

It’s ok if we are just are.  It’s ok if you are – if I am.  It’s the beauty of living, actually.  Nature is the one place I feel like I can just be – as I am.  

So – what I have harvested from my training: there is no start or end point.  We are ever evolving, ever a metamorphosis.  There will be things we learn – places of growth – and strategies to get there.  I’m not advocating for staying as we are, but in loving who we are every moment along the way, even as we trip and struggle.

Forest therapy guiding has taught me that I don’t have to have things figured out to be able to provide a path to others to find their own way.  It’s made me realize I can guide without having all the answers, because the truth, joy, and love we all need already exists within each of us – between us – and surrounding us, in the trees, in the soil, in the current of a river, and the blood flowing through our veins. 

We are all connected in our disconnection, and while I can’t promise I’m where I want to be – while I can’t be sure I’m “there” I do know how to be here so much more clearly than I ever did before.

If you’d like to book a walk, send me a message or click this link with walks happening in the next couple of months.  This is your journey – but you don’t have to walk it alone.