Connecting with Ground

Connecting with Ground:

Nature-based Interventions for Working with
Trauma, Attachment & Nervous System Regulation

A 5-Day non-residential experiential training for Therapists, Coaches, Educators and Healers

Do you have a hunch that being outside would benefit your clients’ mental health and well being?
Have you been in a situation where your client’s or student’s emotional dysregulation was beyond what you felt confidently trained to handle?
Would you like to be able to understand and articulate the neurophysiological benefits of relationship with the natural world to your clients and students?
Do you seek more tools and a greater trust in how to effectively incorporate the natural world into your work with anxiety, depression, trauma, attachment issues and overall nervous system regulation?
Do you want to feel more confident in your partnership with the natural world as a co-therapist in working therapeutically with others?

If one or more of these apply to you, read on. . . .

Course Description

To be human is to have experienced stress, loss, disappointment, heartache, and in many cases, trauma. Along with their hopes, dreams, and current goals for working with you, participants of therapeutic and educational programs arrive with a plethora of previous positive as well as challenging life experiences. Therapeutically, clients typically come with a desire to attain more health or to relieve symptoms. Understanding the brain and the nervous system’s role in remaining stuck in stressful somatic and emotional habits versus opening the pathway into states and habits of greater ease and flow is the key to long-term change.

For many people, cultivating relationship with the natural world can be a healing, grounding resource both in the moment as well as long-term in stress management and trauma recovery. The natural world is a living being that is non-judgemental, unconditionally present, does not take things personally, and has the capacity to support our human nervous systems to slow down and be present to the moment. Once in this state of greater regulation and coherence, the brain and body moves into a state to better integrate learning, and to automatically begin to unwind stress and move toward a greater state of health.

In this 5-day, non-residential, nature-based experiential intensive we will focus on the basic theoretical underpinnings of trauma and nervous system regulation and attachment as well as explore a wide range of mindfulness-based nature interventions for managing stress and trauma symptoms that may arise within counseling and educational programming. Through a combination of didactic and experiential methods, we will explore interventions for dealing with anxiety and nervous-system dysregulation, as well as an understanding of how these interventions support longer-term trauma resolution. Participants will have the opportunity to deepen their own relationship with the natural world and will be empowered to draw upon this connection to inform their work with others.

Course Objectives

Through lecture, discussion, and experiential opportunities, you will:

Gain an understanding of the basic neurophysiology of stress and trauma.
Be able to identify more subtle stress & trauma responses when they are happening with clients.
Learn and experience a plethora of Nature-based interventions that support coming in the present moment, grounding, anxiety management and nervous system regulation.
Learn how to create and assess appropriate nature-based interventions given participant symptoms as well as the context of the program one is working within.
Understand the role of Mindfulness and Body-mind connection in the facilitation of nature-based interventions;
Explore the practices of: sensory awareness, direct relationship with the natural world, metaphor, expressive as well as contemplative interventions within Nature to support nervous system regulation;
Deepen your own relationship to nature, as a foundation for providing nature-based interventions for others.