Nature Based Therapy

01/06/2026

Sometimes the deepest relationships are not built on health… but on wounds recognising wounds.

Often, two people with experiences of neglect, abandonment, shame or emotional pain find each other and form an intense connection.

One person may cope by over-giving, over-functioning, people pleasing, rescuing or loving harder. The other may cope through control, emotional distance, defensiveness, charm, anger or self-protection.

At first, it can feel profound.

One person sees beyond the armour — the pain, insecurity and wounded parts hidden underneath — and stays. They offer patience, compassion and understanding, hoping love will heal what hurt.

And for someone who has long felt unseen, this can feel deeply powerful.

But here is the difficult truth:

Compassion without boundaries can become self-abandonment.

Empathy can turn into over-responsibility.

Patience can become tolerating behaviour that slowly harms us.

You can deeply understand someone’s wounds and still recognise that understanding does not require sacrificing yourself.

Love matters.

Compassion matters.

But healing cannot happen for someone who is unwilling or unable to face their own pain.

Sometimes the hardest act of love is walking away — not because you stopped caring, but because you finally started caring for yourself too.

If this resonates, maybe the question is not “How do I save them?” but “What part of me needs saving, nurturing and healing?” 🌿

27/05/2026

🌿 Are Mental Health Diagnoses Just Trauma Responses? A Trauma-Informed & Decolonising Perspective 🌿

Many of us have been taught to see mental health diagnoses as disorders that sit within an individual — something “wrong” with a person that needs to be fixed.

But what if we asked a different question?

❓ What if many symptoms are meaningful adaptations to lived experience?

In many systems, diagnosis is based on clusters of symptoms — anxiety, emotional overwhelm, hypervigilance, low mood, dissociation, difficulties concentrating, relationship struggles, sleep disruption, distress, or behavioural changes.

And diagnosis can absolutely have value 💡

✔️ Supporting communication between professionals
✔️ Guiding treatment pathways
✔️ Validating experiences
✔️ Helping people access funding, care, and support

But diagnosis alone rarely tells the whole story.

A trauma-informed lens invites us to shift the question from:

❌ “What is wrong with this person?”

To:

✅ “What happened to this person?”

From this perspective, many experiences begin to make sense.

🌊 Hypervigilance may have helped someone stay safe in chaos
🛡️ Emotional shutdown may once have protected against overwhelm
🤝 People-pleasing may have preserved connection and safety
🔥 Anger may have been protection
🌱 Anxiety may have developed in response to unpredictability

What we often call “symptoms” may sometimes be intelligent adaptations to adversity, trauma, attachment disruption, grief, exclusion, or chronic stress.

Importantly, trauma does not just impact emotions.

🧠 It can shape biology and nervous system regulation
💛 Relationships, trust, and identity
🌍 Beliefs about self, others, and safety
🌿 Behaviour, coping, and survival responses

A decolonising lens deepens this conversation.

Rather than viewing distress solely as something located inside an individual, it asks us to consider:

✨ Context
✨ Relationships
✨ Community
✨ Culture and identity
✨ Connection to land, meaning, spirituality, and belonging
✨ Historical and intergenerational experiences

Healing, in many relational and Indigenous ways of knowing, has never been solely individual.

🌱 Healing happens in connection
🤝 Healing happens in relationship
🪶 Healing happens through story, culture, meaning, embodiment, and community

This does not mean diagnosis has no place.

Sometimes diagnostic language is useful and necessary.

But perhaps diagnosis is only one part of the story.

Maybe we also need to ask:

❓ What happened?
❓ What helped this person survive?
❓ What strengths remain?
❓ What conditions support healing?

Perhaps mental health care is evolving toward something more holistic, relational, culturally responsive, and compassionate 💚

From:

“What is wrong with you?”

To:

“What happened, what helped you survive, and what might support healing now?”

24/05/2026

🌿✨ Exciting new chapter in learning and healing ✨🌿

I’m excited to be beginning training in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) 🧠💫 — an evidence-informed therapeutic approach used to support people in processing trauma, distressing experiences, and stuck emotional patterns 💛

As someone deeply passionate about holistic healing 🌱, nervous system regulation 🫶, and nature-based therapy 🌳, I was fascinated to learn an interesting part of EMDR’s origin story 👣

Its founder, Dr Francine Shapiro, reportedly noticed during a walk in nature 🌿🚶‍♀️ that distressing thoughts seemed to lessen as her eyes naturally moved while walking through a park 🍃👀 This moment of curiosity sparked what later became EMDR therapy ✨

There’s something deeply meaningful in that for me 💚 — a reminder that healing can emerge through movement 🚶, curiosity 🔍, connection 🌏, nervous system regulation 🫀, and time in nature 🌿☀️

As I begin this training 📚✨, I’m looking forward to expanding my therapeutic toolkit 🧰, deepening my understanding of trauma healing 🧠💛, and continuing to explore how we support healing of mind, body, spirit, and nervous system in compassionate, grounded, and holistic ways 🌻🌊🌳

Growth as a practitioner is a lifelong journey 🌱✨

23/05/2026

18/05/2026

There is a sound older than language.

Before words, before stories, before the nervous system learned to stay alert to survive… there was vibration.

Humming.

Bees hum to pollinate life.
Hummingbirds hum while hovering in stillness.
Humans hum to soothe, regulate, and reconnect.

Research now shows that humming can support the nervous system by slowing the breath, stimulating the vagus nerve, reducing stress, and creating a felt sense of safety within the body.

Maybe healing is not always something we think our way into.
Maybe sometimes it begins with vibration.
With rhythm.
With breath.

A soft hum.
A hand on the chest.
A moment of returning home to ourselves.

Hum like the bee.
Hover like the hummingbird.
Heal like the body knows how.

Continue Reading: The Medicine of Humming: What Humming Bees, Hummingbirds, and the Human Nervous System Can Teach Us About Wellbeing
https://www.naturebasedtherapy.com.au/humming-for-nervous-system-regulation/

12/05/2026

Not everyone is called to this work for the same reason.

Some people join to integrate Nature Based Therapy into their professional practice and earn certification.

Others feel drawn to the journey for something more personal; a need to slow down, reconnect, reflect, and experience a different way of being.

That’s why the September 2026 intake of the Advanced Accreditation in Nature Based Therapy now offers two participation pathways.

Both pathways move through the same journey: Holistic health, Indigenous-informed perspectives, nature-based mindfulness, creative practices, holistic counselling, and self-care.

The difference is simply how you choose to engage. With only 12 places available, this remains a small, well-supported learning experience.

Applications for September 2026 are now open.
If something in you has been quietly saying there’s more to this… perhaps this is your next step.
https://www.naturebasedtherapyacademy.com.au/NBTAccreditation

12/05/2026

🌿 Applications Now Open – Nature Based Therapy & Wellbeing Program 🌿

What began as a professional development journey for health professionals became something much deeper.

As participants moved through the 12-month Nature Based Therapy (NBT) course, many discovered they weren’t only learning new ways to support others — they were healing, reconnecting, and transforming personally too.

This program is now evolving into both a professional training and a wellbeing journey.

Through gentle, trauma-informed, nature-based practices, participants learn how to reconnect with safety, presence, and self-awareness in everyday life. Small intentional changes — stepping into nature, slowing down, listening inward, creating moments of stillness and connection — often led to profound shifts in wellbeing, resilience, and burnout prevention.

Participants reported feeling more grounded, more functional, and more connected not only to themselves, but also to their families, loved ones, communities, and the work they do in the world.

This is not about perfection or adding more pressure.
It is about remembering simplicity.
Returning to the body.
Living more presently.
Listening to your own inner wisdom. 🌱

The NBT Wellbeing Program supports people to:
✨ Reduce stress and burnout
✨ Reconnect with themselves and nature
✨ Build sustainable self-care practices
✨ Feel safer and more regulated in daily life
✨ Develop greater presence, clarity, and emotional wellbeing
✨ Create healthier ways of living and working
✨ Nurture wellbeing for themselves, their families, and their communities

This program is for health professionals, carers, helpers, and anyone seeking a more connected and grounded way of living.

🌿 Applications are now open:
Nature Based Therapy Accreditation Program

⸻

🌿 Participant Reflections 🌿

“This course changed not only the way I practice healthcare, but the way I live my life. I’ve learned to slow down, reconnect with nature, and truly listen to what my body and mind need.”

“The smallest changes became the most powerful. Spending intentional time outdoors each day improved my wellbeing, reduced my stress, and helped me feel present again.”

“I realised self-care wasn’t selfish — it was essential. I became more available for my family, my clients, and myself.”

“NBT helped me move from surviving to living more consciously and gently. I feel calmer, clearer, and more connected to who I am.”

“This program reminded me that healing doesn’t always come from doing more. Sometimes it comes from slowing down enough to notice what truly matters.”

“The integration of nature, reflection, and wellbeing practices transformed how I view healthcare. It brought humanity back into my work and my life.” 🌿

A pioneering 12-month journey embracing the seasons, deepening your practice, and integrating holistic, Indigenous, and nature-based wisdom into your therapeutic work.

08/05/2026

🌊 Healing Crisis: When Healing Feels Like Falling Apart 🌿

Sometimes when we begin to heal trauma, reconnect to safety, and soften into connection… it can feel like things are getting worse before they get better. 💔

Emotions rise.
Memories surface.
The body aches.
Tears come unexpectedly.
Restlessness, exhaustion, grief, anger, numbness — all may appear at once.

This is often what people call a healing crisis. 🌧️

Not because you are broken.
Not because healing is failing.
But because what has been suppressed for so long is finally safe enough to be felt.

Trauma often lives like water trapped behind a dam. 🧱🌊

For years, the nervous system builds walls just to survive.
Walls around pain.
Walls around fear.
Walls around unmet needs.
Walls around the parts of ourselves that were never soothed, seen, or protected.

And when safety, connection, and healing begin… the wall starts to crack.

The emotions begin to flow.

This can feel overwhelming at first, but flowing water heals more than stagnant water ever could. 🌱

During this time:
✨ Be gentle with yourself
✨ Rest more
✨ Spend time in nature
✨ Create without needing a purpose
✨ Sit quietly with yourself
✨ Let the body soften
✨ Cry if tears come
✨ Breathe deeply
✨ Seek safe connection
✨ Allow discomfort without needing to analyse it

You do not need to “figure it all out.”
You do not need to make logical sense of every feeling.

Healing is not always intellectual.
Sometimes healing is simply learning to stay with yourself compassionately. 🤍

To smooth the pain that was never soothed.
To hold the parts of yourself that were once alone.
To offer safety where there once was fear.

This is healing. 🌿

And like nature, healing has seasons.
Storms.
Floods.
Stillness.
Growth.

Trust the process gently. 🌊✨