ECO-PSYCHOLOGY
When reflecting on your own healing process, consider your relationship with nature. Many people find being out in nature has a calming effect on their nervous system, stress is reduced, unnecessary worries fall away and a new sense of perspective is restored. For others, nature can be a place of solace or communion with other living organisms during times of grief or loneliness. Nature can be inspiring in its majesty and it’s reflections to us of the patterns and natural laws that govern all of life. The wilderness can also be a place of fear and challenge, bringing forward the aspects of ourselves we are yet to heal.
Western psychology has tended to view people as isolated units that are either well or unwell, placing the responsibility on the individual to heal themselves using the tools available within their one person unit – their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. In the latter part of the 20th century, therapies such as family systems therapy began to view the experience of the individual in the context of their family system, knowing that the system as a whole needed to heal and evolve, not just the one person who presented for help.
Eco-psychology takes this view further and works with the inter-dependent relationship between human beings and the natural world we live in.
“It speaks to the separation from nature that many of us feel, in our lives with air-conditioned offices, hours on a computer, processed food that bears little resemblance to its source, built environments, congestion and little leisure time. “
When running around responding to the various demands and stressors inherent in these lives, it is possible not to even notice a sense of disconnection from nature and corresponding disconnection from your more natural self, who you are when you are at ease and at home within yourself.
Eco-psychology places nature on the agenda as an essential part of any healing, inspiration seeking or rejuvenation process. It says that much of our grief, stress, unmet yearning and sometimes misplaced values stems from a separation from our own true nature, mirrored in our separation from the natural world around us. Healing comes through noticing what we have shut ourselves off from and integrating that back in to who we know ourselves to be. This includes thoughts, feelings, memories, habits, as well as our immediate, felt-sense experiencing of the natural world.
Eco-psychology also holds that as we align again more close with our true selves and true needs, we will become more aware of the corresponding needs of our planet – and find our way to do what is necessary for her own healing and sustainability.