Nature Therapy: The Cure Hiding in Plain Sight

For nearly five decades, I’ve watched people wrestle with anxiety, life transitions, chronic pain, and the invisible weight of carrying more than their nervous system was built for. And for just as long, I’ve watched something else — something simple, ancient, and profoundly underused — help them return to balance:

Nature.

Not as a metaphor.
Not as a “nice hobby.”
But as a living, regulating, and deeply intelligent partner in the healing process.

Why Nature Works When Nothing Else Does

Modern life pulls us out of our bodies and into our racing minds. That disconnection creates tension, fear, and chronic dysregulation. In Somatic Therapy, we see this every day — the body ringing alarm bells the mind doesn’t know how to quiet.

But step into an old-growth forest
or feel the ground beneath your feet
or watch a river move at its own pace…

And something remarkable happens:
the body remembers itself.

This is the essence of Nature Therapy — the understanding that the earth itself co-regulates us. Flora, fauna, weather patterns, even the stillness between sounds — all of it works on the nervous system in a way no app, pill, or protocol ever could.

My Path to This Work

People often ask why I lean so strongly toward eco-therapy and somatic work. The truth is simple:

Nature saved me first.

Long before I founded Nature’s Renewal…
before I became a Holistic Health Practitioner…
before years of clinical training, massage therapy, yoga teaching, or my time in the U.S. Air Force

—I learned to lean on the wilderness as my most honest teacher.

Climbing, scrambling, backpacking, sea kayaking — these aren’t just hobbies for me. They are relationships. They taught me regulation, patience, humility, presence, and courage. The mountains and waters didn’t care about my titles or certifications; they cared that I showed up and listened.

That is the same invitation I extend to my clients.

Where Nature Meets Evidence-Based Care

Nature Therapy is not a stand-in for clinical support — it’s a powerful extension of it.

In my practice, I weave together:

• Somatic Therapy for the body’s stored stress

• Eco-Therapy for nervous system regulation

• CBT & DBT to reshape thought and behavior patterns

• Motivational Interviewing to help you move toward what you truly want

• Rite-of-Passage frameworks for profound life transitions

• Reiki & Shamanic Healing for energetic and spiritual grounding

This multidimensional approach helps clients find balance whether they are navigating:

• A midlife crisis

• Retirement

• The fear of death

• Anxiety or racing thoughts

• Low self-worth

• Chronic pain

• Or the unique challenges faced by veterans

The goal is simple: help you return to yourself — not the version society demands, but the one your soul recognizes.

Why “Healing Outdoors” Isn’t Just a Trend

Every tree, trail, tide, and mountain has a quality psychologists now openly acknowledge: the capacity to regulate the human nervous system through rhythm, grounding, and sensory attunement.

When I guide clients outside — or help them connect with nature from their own backyard — they experience:

• Breath that finally drops out of the chest

• Muscles that stop bracing

• Thoughts that slow from racing to whispering

• A quiet awareness that “I am safe”

• Emotional clarity without forcing it

• A sense of belonging they didn’t know they were missing

These are not small shifts; they are biological resets.

Nature Isn’t Just a Remedy — It’s a Returning

Healing doesn’t always require complexity. Often, it requires honesty, presence, and a place where your nervous system can remember the simple truth:

You are part of the earth — not separate from it.

Whether I’m in my Washington office or guiding a retreat deep in the wilderness, my intention is the same: to help you reconnect with the part of yourself that has never been broken.

If you’re navigating a transition, wrestling with anxiety, feeling disconnected from your body, or simply craving peace — you’re not alone. Nature and I would be honored to walk with you.