Wild & Well

FOREST HEALING

Forest healing is a way to spend time in nature that helps one to deepen their connection with nature through walks that enable you to experience moments of deep calm, enhance your creativity and find greater clarity in facing life’s challenges. Through a set of forest games, activities and meditations we reconnect with nature and ourselves.

MAJOR BENEFITS OF FOREST WALKS

Forests are known to have great healing properties for our body, mind and spirit. As humans, we have evolved in nature. It’s where we feel most comfortable. Some of the researched benefits accruing from a proper nature connection are as follows.

• Improves focus and attention span
• Higher creativity and self-confidence
  
• Improves mood and energy levels
• Increases empathy and emotional intelligence
• Reduces stress and anxiety
• Better sleep and mental health
• Fights depression
• Increases awareness and will power to overcome addiction
• Faster recovery from surgery, illness, trauma
• Reduces high blood pressure, lung and heart illnesses
• Boosts vitality and immunity

NEED

In the modern world our connection with nature is reducing drastically. Our hectic lives put a lot of pressure on our body and mind. Stress has been declared a global epidemic and is linked to the six leading causes of death. Over 350 million people suffer from depression worldwide. Chronic illness, anxiety, anger, loneliness are on the rise, even affecting the youth. In order to maintain a healthy society, addressing mental health issues has become a critical need for our complex world.

At the same -me the health of forests around the world is suffering. Economic pressures on communities that live around forests opens the doors
to a range of hostile activities like logging and poaching. Another big fallout is the growth of insensitive tourism, which is bringing many inept people to forest areas. It not only affects the surrounding environment in a negative way but also impacts the local culture adversely.

A simple idea can help us address and reduce these problems. By creating centers of healing around forests and providing job security that depends on the health of the forests we can hope to create an environmentally sensitive collective. This initiative will create ac-ve groups comprising of people across cities and forests, which can act as stewards for a healthier planet.
Your involvement will greatly aid in assisting us to accomplish our goal. We look forward to wandering the woods with you and deepening our reconnect, relationship and respect for nature.

LOCATION

Jibhi Hills & Tirthan Valley – Himalayan Cedar and Oak Forests dotted with rhododendrons, maples, chestnuts and calming meadows amidst gentle brooks & mountain streams

Reconnect Sense Walk

Slow yourself, Know yourself, Grow yourself

The first step is to slow down and be silent. Sense walks enable this process and help us to become more observant and attentive.  Once we have our attention and focus on the current moment we begin to engage more meaningfully with our surroundings and in the process start to reconnect with nature.

Relationships

Calm, Clarity, Creativity

Moving silently and slowly we move from reconnecting to building relationships. We start to engage with our immediate environment through a set of games and activities that help us to develop a more meaningful relationship with nature, with
ourselves and with those who walk with us This whole process makes us more aware of the importance of relationships and the -me and space given to it.

Forest Art Walk, Silent Playfulness, Forest Friends

Reflections

Impermanence, Interconnectedness, Insights

Reflecting on our reconnections and relationships helps us to rebuild perspective and inculcate gratitude and respect.
In this part of the journey we engage more introspectively and meditatively with nature thereby finding some answers and hopefully meaningful ac-on Writing in Nature Photography meditation

Recommended for Families with small kids above 6 years old