Ecotherapy
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Ecotherapy East groups and retreats
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Individual work in the natural world
Scroll down for individual sessions and counselling outdoors
Sebastiana offers therapeutic and nature-connection workshops in Suffolk on the meadow she stewards with community under the umbrella of Ecotherapy East.
How can you start to hear the deep call of nature, and the deep call that lies within your heart? Do you remember what the animals did during lockdown when people stayed at home? The animals and birds came out to play in the empty streets. This is what happens to our minds and hearts when we slow down and let go of our usual ways of being. Mindfulness starts to slow down our habits of mind and body. Being away from our daily routine helps the process, and our best teachers are the birds, the animals, the grasses and the sky. Something wilder starts to emerge, our ears start to hear a deeper song. Our work is to develop the ears to hear this song.
Events in 2024
30% of our profits from the workshops we run go to Ecotherapy East, CIC, who are increasing biodiversity on the 12-acre Church Farm meadow in Bramfield, Suffolk. We planted and have been looking after over 500 native trees, wildflower patches and we have a pond we manage. This takes time and resources. We offer land-tending days to the local community to provide opportunities to care for the Earth and be part of a project that makes difference. Your money is supporting the wildlife on the meadow as well as our facilitators. Find out more about our land tending activities here.
Over several years of working on our inner world in and with nature we have developed a way of working that, while helping ourselves to heal and grow, also honours our deep relationship with the more-than-human-world.
In the retreats and workshops we lead we have woven together threads from our work as therapists, teachers of mindfulness and self-compassion courses, as well as our personal time in deep relation with the natural world around us.
In our work over the years we have noticed what works and have settled on 3 main elements in the process of unfolding true Self in Nature.
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Nourishing and calming the mind with mindfulness and self-compassion
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Entering the imaginal state with nature connection- taking ourselves in our mindful state into relation with other-than-human beings in particular practices opens us up to insights, as well as deeper connection.
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Four Directions/ Wild Mind work with map of wholeness/our inner resources and what bocks us/our woundedness. When we have spent time opening ourselves up in nature, we can do particular work internally to help ourselves heal and grow. Questions like: Who am I really? What do I need to do next? What is holding me back? can be addressed specifically with exercises we facilitate.
Past Events
Wise Nature
FREE online Ecotherapy TASTERS
On Zoom
Monday 12 and 26 September - 7:30-8:45pm
In the taster you will:
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Learn what is Ecotherapy and its benefits
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Meet Ecotherapy East and find out what we do
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Explore Ecotherapy practices that can be done indoors:
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Four elements mindfulness meditation
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Tuning into all our senses, a gateway to nature-connection
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Connecting with more-than-human world via imagery
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Inquiring into a life question with the guidance of the more-than-human world
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Wise Nature
Connecting Deeply with Nature and Psyche
Ecotherapy Retreat
Friday 21 July to Wednesday 26 July
Weekend or 5-day option
Tuttington, North Norfolk
Camp or sleep off-site
"I experienced a huge and powerful shift during this retreat. There are many unhelpful parts of ourselves that we are so familiar with but can’t seem to change, no matter how hard we try.
Getting to know them using guided techniques in nature, allowed me to move through grief and sorrow into absolute joy and to lovingly accept them, as the first step towards positive change."
At the height of the year, we offer you an invitation to pause and gather in a creative community and take your place as part of the ecosystem of meadow, woodland and river. We will meet nature within and without, in the hope of knowing ourselves and nature more deeply.
As we walk the land and meet those who live there, we will explore the four directions and elements, taking note of the connections we make as we share circle time. From this contemplative, regenerative space we will get to know our inner world and welcome ourselves in our wholeness. The aliveness, beauty and wisdom of the natural world will allow our deeper selves to guide us on this adventure as we tune into what is alive and emerging in us.
The retreat will include:
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Nature-based Four Directions work, embodying our wholeness, our innate resources and healing what blocks us- exploring our inner ecosystem
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Fostering our own sense of deep nature connection, tapping into our natural wisdom, imagination, sense of belonging, and presence
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Letting the natural world guide us
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Finding our place in the web of life - exploring our ecological selves
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Nurturing and calming mindfulness and compassion practices
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Engaging more deeply in all our senses, including the imaginal
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Movement and other expressive practices
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Digesting our experiences with creativity (creative writing, mark making, scupting) and sharing in group
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Generosity - sharing together in community, gaining support and insight
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Periods of silence to increase our sense of connection and rest
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Evenings round the fire with poetry, songs and stories, sunset walks, sauna, river swim
FACILITORS:
Sebastiana Black is an ecotherapist, Internal Family Systems therapist and a Mindful Self-Compassion teacher. She has been running expressive arts groups since 2010 in the UK and Europe and ecotherapy workshops in East Anglia since 2019. She is the co-founder and director of Ecotherapy East social enterprise and feels passionate about community development, actively contributing towards regeneration of the natural world and healing our disconnection from nature through our own inner work. She enjoys running in the wild, tending trees, chanting, poetry and meditating with her parts.
Rob is an integrative counsellor, supervisor, ecotherapist and expressive arts therapist, working in private practice. He was a participation coordinator and a lead trainer of Mental Health First Aid, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion and Active Hope courses at Mind charity for a decade. Rob has a keen interest in transpersonal and Jungian therapy and offers trainings for NHS psychiatry staff. He co-founded Ecotherapy East social enterprise and enjoys making difference by increasing biodiversity on the land he stewards with community. If not spotting birds in Suffolk Rob enjoys travelling, vision questing and exploring shamanism.
"Such a deep and enriching experience. I feel energized. Lovely open group. Rob and Sebastiana work well together- attuned and contained."
Wise Nature in the City
Ecotherapy and Mindfulness Indoors
2 Sessions:
Thursdays 1st and 29th June, 7:30-9:30pm
The Yoga Tree, 50 All Saints Green, Norwich
£15/£10/£5 - pay what you can afford
Join us in the creative space of the Yoga Tree. Ecotherapy can be very powerful even indoors through engaging our imagination, and bringing natural beings into the space with us. Take a journey into your inner world to find the fire of Summer beginning to bubble within you.
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Explore your creativity and imagination to connect with nature inside yourself
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Grow your own sense of deep nature connection that supports the qualities like joy, compassion, peace, awe and creativity
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Develop a greater awareness of the web of life and your place in it
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Discover the resources and wholeness of your human nature and what holds you back
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Meet the Ecotherapy East team and community
Wise Nature by the River
Ecotherapy workshop
Saturday 10th June, 2-5pm
Norwich Sea Scouts Hall, Lakenham
£20, £15, £10- pay what you can afford
Ecotherapy is all about awareness; Awareness of Nature and Her rhythms, and how they interact with the rhythms of our bodies and minds. In this workshop we will develop our ability to pay attention, enhancing our ability to deepen into awareness of our psyche's movements. The wheel of the year is gradually turning toward the South, where the sun is hottest and our psyche is wildest. Here we can explore our indigenous selves.
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Learn nature-based practices that foster insight and clarity
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Grow your own sense of deep nature connection that supports our exploration of Psyche and Nature
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Develop a greater awareness of the web of life and your place in it
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Discover the resources and wholeness of your human nature and what holds you back
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Meet the Ecotherapy East team and community
Spring Renewal
Ecotherapy and Mindfulness Retreat
Friday 21 to Sunday 23 April 2023
Tuttington, North Norfolk
In April the natural world is gradually unfurling into spring. In this retreat we will tune into this transition and create space to welcome ourselves into the new season. We will explore how calming our minds and opening our hearts to the beauty and wisdom of the natural world gives rise to our own renewal. As we settle, we begin to drop deeper and have better access to our wholeness, allowing us to give attention to parts of ourselves that need relaxing and healing. All this will happen in a safe, supportive environment where we build a warm sense of community and shared intention and practice.
Individual Ecotherapy Sessions- nature-based therapy
The natural world, with its different cycles and seasons, often reflects our own internal world and experiences. Consciously being in nature supports us to connect to ourselves, regulate our emotions, feel more grounded and find what needs attention within us. These environmental opportunities can not be found in a therapy room. Ecotherapy provides a safe way to take your therapy session outdoors, into the natural world and tap into its wisdom and healing potential.
The natural world can serve as a mirror to the challenges we face and guide us to gain insight and the resources we need. Whether we walk or sit, with the help of our senses we can establish a reciprocal connection to nature around us and learn something from it. There are opportunities to be inspired, to feel, express and make sense of. “Everything in nature is unabashedly, unashamedly itself and tends towards wholeness, towards its unique and powerful expression.”* Nature teaches us many lessons; being in nature moves us towards our own wholeness and unique expression.
We can also work with ecotherapy indoors. It involves connecting with natural items, pictures and plants, imagining and visualising different aspects of the natural world and bringing this imagery into your therapy and creativity.
*Ryan Van Lenning
How does it work?
For the first few sessions we will meet indoors in order to establish a safe therapeutic relationship, explore your goals and make sure you feel ready for our outdoor sessions. Together we will decide how often we will meet outdoors. Indoor sessions can serve as an opportunity to process the time spent outdoors as well as to focus on other goals you may have for your therapy.
In an ecotherapy session, like in a counselling session, I will be guided by your needs and process. I will offer ways to bring the natural world to your awareness. I may invite you to become aware of both your internal and external world. You can learn mindfulness and sensory awareness practices that will settle your mind, invite you into a deeper relationship with yourself and the natural world, and create nourishing bonds with your favourite more-than-human beings and natural spots.
I will send you an introductory email before our first session outdoors, explaining where we will meet and other practicalities you might need to know.
I work in a couple of locations in Norfolk and Suffolk: a woodland in an urban part of Norwich and a private field in Suffolk. However, I am also open to exploring other natural locations with you. Please do contact me with any specific questions you might have about this and I would be happy to help.
Benefits:
In this digital age we live in, many people have become disconnected from the natural world. Ecotherapy invites you to reconnect to the power, ease and regenerative potential of nature and heal this disconnection.
Research shows that ecotherapy, and generally being outdoors more, has numerous benefits including:
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Feeling less isolated and more connected
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Decreasing anxiety and depression
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Finding resources in the natural world to feel more grounded and supported
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Calming of the nervous system and lessening of symptoms of ADHD/ADD
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Developing greater body awareness and embodiment
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Finding consolation and soothing when working through grief
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Addressing sensory integration difficulties while awakening the senses
