PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Nature Connection, Mindfulness, and Embodied Practice

Our programs and retreats cultivate resilience and wellbeing for everyday life — through experience, community, and practice.

Challenge

In the modern world, we live and work in ways much different than the world where our hunter-gatherer neurologic systems evolved to optimally thrive.

Then

- Using peripheral vision to scan the world

- Living and working together in tight-knit family groups of dozens

- Periods of intense stress followed by daily and seasonal periods of rest and digest

- Moving with purpose from one task to the next, following rhythms of daylight, our bodies, and the seasons

- Primary stressors are acute physical threats to survival

- Responding to trauma and emotion through ritual, art, music, and dance

- Solving problems through sensory awareness, adaptability, emotional intelligence, and quality of relationships.

Now

- Focused concentration on screens and devices

- Living and working alone or in small groups and nuclear families

- Less intense threats to immediate survival, but constant busyness, marketing, worry, and regret

- Multitasking around the clock with little down time, while often weighing and responding to the same repeated stressors

- Primary stressors from reflecting on circumstances, worrying about past, or controlling the future

- Infrequently responding to trauma and emotion, often in isolation, or through others’ music and art

- Earning a living through specialization in a vocation or task, with work relationships and family relationships often compartmentalized.

Neurological Rewilding

We mix science, interfaith spiritual traditions, and proven embodied practices, with the goals of experiencing life and living into core relationships with authenticity and integrity.

RAIN OR SHINE SENSORY EXPERIENCE. It starts with getting out of repetitive thoughts and into an embodied sensory experience of the world around us. Watching wildlife, smelling flowers, feeling the rain on our skin, moving together in packs, and sharing good food and curiosity are just a few of the ways our programs and retreats help you to listen, connect, reframe, and change.

Outcomes

An emerging body of research shows benefits of mindfulness, nature connection, and embodied practices such as song, dance, art, yoga, meditation, movement, and play for outcomes including:

  • mental and physical health

  • creativity and cognitive function

  • meaning, joy, and satisfaction

  • resilience during illness and crisis

  • generosity and compassion

These studies show that humans are wired for connection and at our best when we are experiencing the joy of daily life, being present to the healing wisdom of our bodies, and having compassion for ourselves, one another, and the world around us. Our programs and retreats integrate research, community, and practice to work towards these goals.

TEACHER TREE. Ever feel overwhelmed and not sure who to trust? Nature can provide perspective to help us listen to our deeper selves. Some of our favorite contemplative practices are based on the science and medicine of trees — in this instance, an elder red oak. Photo: NatureWerks.

Hear from program participants.

  • As teachers, a huge part of our job is to put ourselves in the shoes of others so we can understand their perspective and help them in that moment. And we are supposed to do that over and over. This program has really helped me not just become a vessel that gets filled up with everyone’s worries so I can come back in fresh to the rest of the day or the next kid I talk to.

  • I was struck by how a couple hours per week in nature has significant health and wellness benefits. I see myself as a solar panel that is trying to get the sun, but I’m like a nature panel. And when I can get out, I feel like I’m just trying to absorb it all. I’m more aware of that now, and it’s cool to know the scientific research backing it up. So, I’m just trying to be a nature panel.

  • I appreciated the reminder that neural health is moving between some of the harder stuff, and negative emotions, and the easy or lighter moments of love and connection. It’s holding multiple truths, and we shouldn’t expect ourselves to live always in one place. Being able to move fluidly between them is a really good way to describe the work we do. We want to fix everything, but it’s helping ourselves and our students have a great approach to: This is hard, but we can step out of it and come back to it when we can manage it better mentally.

  • The workshop felt very refreshing to me, every time that we gathered, to step into a space where we can practice stillness and quiet together. I think that is unique, and I’ve been trying to recreate that daily in my own life. In the morning, taking two minutes and being selfish about it and saying, ‘You know what? I deserve just a moment of peace before I start my day.’ And this has helped me ground that practice in science.

  • My takeaway is being more conscious of the interconnections of the psyche, the muscles, the skeleton, the breathing, the heart, the brain. And not just making it an ‘or, or, or, or,’ but combining all these things together in moments. And how individualized this is. You have this foundation, and then find the things that work, that connect.

  • I’ve been paying a lot more attention to really taking care of myself, I’ve found myself being a lot more deliberate. I started going to both a chiropractor and a physical therapist, and I remember when you first came, how much discomfort I was in. And I sit here today feeling very different. Things are better than they were weeks ago. And I notice on a daily basis when things aren’t working, and now I’m aware of why that might be the issue. Now I’m like, ‘I deserve to be taking care of myself. You know, don’t ignore it.’

  • I am getting older, and I have years of ignoring pain. And this has all made me realize that I’ve never really taken the time to take care of my body. So now I’m intentionally taking care of my body in new ways that feels more spiritual than just exercising.

Two Wings

AWARENESS

Embodied experience of connections — to others, to the world around us, and to our selves — in the present moment.

COMPASSION

The vulnerability to be imperfect and get caught up in beautiful, messy relationships that are the essence of real life.

Grounded in Community, Practice, & Your Reality

We are all our own best teachers. Everyone’s practices look different and only work when they synch with our core realities and commitments. At the same time, it’s impossible to live the lives we desire in a vacuum — we need inspiration, connection, and support on the journey. We cultivate and resource your teacher within.

WHAT GIVES? Small and large, individual and collective, adaptable commitments add up to real change over time. Whether a few second pause to breathe, notice something new, walk in the woods, write a feeling, share an embrace, or take a weekend retreat — our courses empower you to craft and prioritize lasting approaches that work for you.