What does nature do for you? How do you feel about green spaces or blue spaces (rivers, lakes, the sea)? There is no doubt that access to nature is firmly on the mental health agenda. Plants in the office are recommended by those advising on workplace wellbeing. Gardening is seen as helpful in community mental health projects.
Perhaps you like to run in a park or along the towpath rather than in the gym, or take time to find fresh air to breathe at lunchtime. Maybe you need to get into your garden at the weekend or just go for a walk in the country. But I’ve come to believe that it’s not just being in nature that matters. It’s our capacity to receive it that matters.
The Mind-Body Experience
So my question to you is: what do you experience when you find yourself in nature?
I have a special place I go to often in North Wales. It’s a cottage on a mountain, surrounded by old oak trees and gnarled hawthorns covered in lichen; a stream runs by and the views are stunning. Although much reduced in recent years, there are still owls about, as well as woodpeckers, hawfinches and nuthatches. The landscape is kept walkable by sheep, but the land is no longer overgrazed, so the occasional orchid and wild anemone pop up here and there. Wildlife is starting to return, together with all those insects and plants on which our ecosystems depend.
It Can Take Time to Emerge
It takes me 24 hours to settle into this environment and realise that the things I have forgotten to take with me aren’t that important, and the fact that the people who were there last have broken the kettle or left the fridge dirty does not matter in the face of the feeling of wellbeing that descends. What is this feeling? There is the sense that all is well and, in the words of the mystic Julian of Norwich, “all manner of thing shall be well.” The mind quietens, the body relaxes, and there is no need to do anything. Yet life seems to carry on. Meals are bought and cooked, things are mended, walks are taken, books read, conversations enjoyed, emails answered in the café in the local town (because there is no internet in the cottage), and even the occasional blog gets written.
The Feeling of Wellbeing
This feeling that arises in me is quite general. There is relaxation and aliveness, appreciation and gratitude. My mind quietens and stops needing to be in charge. I see the beauty of the trees, the views and the stream, but I can’t yet feel them as some others can.
Philip Shepherd, author of Radical Wholeness and developer of The Embodied Present Process, describes something much more nuanced and specific: experiencing the exuberance of a rose as the bud becomes a flower, the deep repose of a tree in winter, the playfulness of the well-fed town fox that has just come into my garden. This deeper level of nature connection requires something that is still a work in progress for me – the capacity to receive.
The Body as a Sensor
The body is filled with sensors of one sort or another that monitor our environments all the time — urban and rural, relational and social. The information is fed to the nervous system and influences our neurophysiological state moment to moment, but it doesn’t surface into consciousness without a bit of practice. Developing my capacity to relish and savour what I experience has magnified the effect, so that now it extends beyond a general feeling of relaxation and begins to differentiate. When the weather is calm, I can almost hear the deep stillness in nature — and then in myself.
Developing Receptivity and Sensitivity
I have watched this process in myself regarding touch. Rats and voles who are not well nursed and groomed by their mothers have been shown to have a deficiency of oxytocin receptors when they reach adulthood. So they are likely to have more difficulty feeling the pervasive sense of connection and oneness that this hormone delivers. I have discovered many frozen, numb parts of my body that I had no connection with and that probably lack oxytocin receptors. As I bring these to awareness, my capacity to receive touch has grown and so, I imagine, have my oxytocin receptors.
Supporting This Process
What has helped is a combination of very high-quality touch from a wonderful massage therapist, mindful, gentle, personalised exercises from an Egoscue method teacher, and practising the embodiment approaches I have learnt from Philip Shepherd. I have discovered that the parts of my body that were numb internally do not enjoy demands. They need gentle, kindly, discriminating attention — both from practitioners and from me. And I need to let my attention hang out with the frozen part for as long as it takes for trust to develop, often in the early hours of the morning when I might rather be asleep.
The Rewards
And suddenly, one day, I will feel that frozen place opening and receiving my kindly attention. It is the most extraordinary, deeply touching, vulnerable, delightful experience. Sometime later, I may start to remember why that part of my body shut down. What is going on physiologically, I don’t know, but I imagine there is more circulation in that frozen place, as well as more receptors. There is certainly more aliveness — or “energy,” as alternative therapists would say. There may also be shaking or trembling, warmth, or even the experience of intense cold.
What Receptivity Offers
So, to come back to nature: the process of being able to fully experience the natural world seems to me to be similar. We need to spend time in nature with kindly, undemanding, curious, patient attention — both for ourselves and for the natural world. Sometimes a guide of the sort that Nature Quest programmes offer is helpful. As receptivity develops, we start to experience the qualities of the natural world in a way that gives delight. Nature can only be present; it doesn’t plan the future or regret the past. It is creative and resilient and responsive — not self-serving, controlling or manipulative. And we start to have insight into what is really going on. We sense the ailing tree or polluted river in a way that makes it impossible to create more pollution — and possible to stand up to those who are.
Workshops
If you would like to explore the approaches of Radical Wholeness, join me for a weekend workshop:
Or join Philip Shepherd:
Or, if you have already taken one workshop, come and deepen your practice on an Alumni Day:
Sunday 15 March 2026 – Oxford
Thursday 18 June 2026 – Oxford
I would love to welcome you to any of these workshops.
