If you, a loved one, or colleague is in the greater Seattle area and would like a personalized forest bathing healing experience, I’d love to connect! In addition to supporting your individual holistic wellness, forest bathing is a fantastic group bonding experience, serves as a nourishing activity for a friends weekend or pamper party. Additionally, it teaches children the art of learning with nature, creates a healthy outflow of teen anxiety, is a great relief from stress and burnout, and allows elders to avoid loneliness. Please fill out this form so I can create a catered, holistic forest bathing walk experience beneficial for you or your group.
Join my Meetup group to stay in the know for public-facing walks: NW Washington Forest Bathing (Shinrin-Yoku).
Forest bathing is the art of immersing yourself in nature to rejuvenate your mind, body, energy and to activate nature’s healing benefits. Yasei values that our health, sense of purpose, and overall well-being are directly related to the efforts we do to support the forest – the practice considers that we and the forest are “one” and that through this presence a genuine, harmonious energy balance that mutually enhances both the individual and the natural world exists. If we invest in the health and growth of the forest then the forest will invest in us. You can consider the medium of exchange being a “life-force”.
The practice of yasei shinrin yoku differs than forest therapy. While both practices include spending time in nature and gaining the healing benefits, yasei shinrin yoku focuses on your relationship with the sentient world. When we “consume” nature without regard for it, we aren’t realizing the full potential that nature can provide for us. When we create a “relationship” with the natural world, we will achieve the ultimate in health and spiritual benefits. All relationships = giving, receiving and respect.
By immersing ourselves in nature and experiencing the forest through all of our senses, we can reap the many benefits of forest bathing: Ease tension, lift fatigue, remove depressiveness, increase cardiovascular and respiratory health, reduce stress, ease anxiety, support immunity, increase connection to self, others, and the natural world.
This form of nature-based healing was developed in the 1980’s in Japan where nature deficit disorder had been on the rise, just like most other developed countries. Nature deficit disorder describes the human costs of spending less time in nature. Yasei shinrin-yoku is an integral part of health care in Japan and South Korea. Qing Li, a medical doctor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo and one of the world’s experts in forest medicine and immunology proved that forest bathing stimulates the activity of natural killer cells and anticancer proteins, thus strengthening the immune system. In South Korea, there are at least 40 “Healing forests” which serve as systems and spaces for forest bathing and forest therapy. The Baekdu-Daegan mountains are covered in lush forests and filled with aromatic hinoki trees, or Japanese cypress’. These mountains and forests are the inspiration for their National Forest Plan with the goal of “realizing a green welfare state, where the entire nation enjoys well-being. The forest welfare program was divided into 7 stages based on the human life cycle in order to reach a vast variety of people.
I too serve a variety of people and with a holistic approach. Connection to nature is one of the pillars of vital health and I weave in tie in all aspects which promote our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Our relationship with the natural world influences our wellness greatly.
Yasei shinrin-yoku practitioners and guides provide participants with a connection to wilderness therapies, nutri-ecopsychology, energy work and methods to grow meaning and purpose in one’s life. (“The goal of ecopsychology is to awaken the inherent sense of environmental reciprocity that lies within the ecological unconscious”) Practitioners and Guides lead participants through soft exercises, meditation, breath-work, and exploration in the forest where sessions end in discussion and personal visioning.
Join my Meetup group to stay in the know for public-facing walks: NW Washington Forest Bathing (Shinrin-Yoku).
My forest walks are unique in that they include elements of herbalism, holistic health, medical qi gong, integrative wellness and life coaching, psychedelic integration work, Chinese Medicine, and more. I offer public walks, individualized healing walks with 1:1 clients as part of their wellness plans, and private group walks. I have the privilege of guiding clients on Friday mornings from 9:30 am – 1:30 pm at the gorgeous Bow Sanctuary in Bow, WA. Meetings typically begin in the healing house and end in the healing bamboo forest, in the Japanese gardens, overlooking the koi pond, sipping tea in the tea room, under a willow tree, or even in the middle of the labyrinth. I additionally provide forest bathing guidance via Zoom.
Schedule a free 15-minute discovery call to see we are a good fit. We’ll take some time to get to know each other and answer the questions or concerns you may have.
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Serving NW Washington in-person and globally via Zoom.
Disclaimer:
This information is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute the rendering of or a substitute for diagnosis and treatment by a healthcare professional. This information should not be relied upon or used as a substitute for a consultation with health, physical, physiological, mental, or other professional advisors. Anyone wishing to use this information should share it with his or her healthcare provider before embarking on any therapeutic program. It is your responsibility to discuss any alternative or natural remedy with your healthcare provider before using it to make sure it is appropriate for you.
