What to expect on a forest therapy walk
Sophie Monkman — Lanaudière, 2023
Forest therapy is a guided experience that is typically 1.5-3 hours long.
The distance covered is minimal, as the focus is on fully being and experiencing “here” versus focusing on arriving “somewhere else”
I guide participants through a series of sensory-based activities called invitations. These are intended to help individuals slow down, drop into their senses, explore, connect with their surroundings, and follow their curiosities.
The walk pulses between individual time exploring, and reconvening with the group in a circle to share noticings. Listening and being heard in this way helps to deepen and integrate participants’ experiences.
The walk ends with the sharing of tea — an infusion of a local native edible plant — and is the last stage in experiencing the forest.
Participants will often feel very relaxed after a forest therapy walk, and many may have a profound experience, realization, or gain meaningful insight about their lives.
Why go with a guide?
There are many benefits to experience forest therapy with a certified guide, here are a few:
Firstly, forest therapy is much more than a stroll in the woods, and is better described as a facilitated therapeutic nature connection experience. This is not only because of the slow pace of the experience, but also because it centres on experiencing what it feels like to be fully here, as opposed to moving through nature to get somewhere else.
Secondly, some of the incredible health benefits of a regular forest therapy practice are due to the fact that the body is fully relaxed, and has deepened into a parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) state. It is in this state that the body and mind can truly be at rest, and therefore heal. This can be difficult to attain when walking alone, as we all have the tendency to get carried away by our thoughts, and ruminate about life’s stresses or problems. As well, the urge to check our devices can be difficult to resist. By simply using our smartphones for a few moments in nature, we disconnect from our surroundings, and recent studies have proven that this can affect the benefits that being in nature has on our mental and physical health.
A certified forest therapy guide gently helps participants tune into their senses, shift their attention to where they are and the life that surrounds them, as well as holds the container of the experience so that participants can fully let go without worry of time, direction, or other preoccupations. As well, guides do not prescribe the experiences that participants should have during a walk, but rather they help to reawaken the inherent nature connection that lies within all of us.
Lastly, certified forest therapy guides do not simply become so overnight. These are individuals who have a profound connection to the more-than-human world, and who have completed their certification with a reputable organization. The certification process typically involves a 7-10 day intensive in-person training followed by a six month practicum, often accompanied by a mentor. Completing this certification is an immense commitment of time, energy, focus, and work, as well as a significant financial commitment. Certified guides are also trained in wilderness first aid, so we are truly ready for anything!
Finally, there is much preparation behind each walk, depending on the group, time of year, location, etc. This curated experience — given the guides training with their knowledge of the benefits of this practice, as well as their own personal nature connection— make it an immensely worthwhile experience.
“Our bodies have formed themselves in delicate reciprocity with the textures, sounds, and shapes of an animate earth. We are human only in contact, and conviviality with what is not human.”