Generate and Grow Connection

A nature-based approach dissolves the artificially constructed separations between mind, body and spirit; between humans and nature; it returns us to a deeper wisdom that can prepare us to meet the challenges before us.

What is a Nature-Based approach to Counselling?

A nature-based approach to healing, health, growth and deep relational living is not something new. It’s been practiced as long as humans have existed; you could say we’re wired for it.

At Generation Farms our “nature-based” approach includes ways of being in relationship with the natural world that are older than memory and are combined with current modern-day stories and science. Within a supportive context each person is offered opportunities to open further to his or her own ways of knowing that are deeply wired within.

This approach as practiced at Generation Farms is about heart and relationship, meaning and expansion; it’s about each person finding their next step in a way that does not override the whispers, subtle cues, and messages that have been all but forgotten or drowned out or exiled by a fast paced life, distractions, habits, judgments, and/or trauma. It provides time to remember how each of us is nature; intricately interconnected with all the other life forms on this planet; and it links each person to the innate health within and around us.

What It Looks Like

There is not just one way to practice a nature-based approach and knowing about something is different than doing it. It is possible, however, to say that at Generation Farms we offer a variety of reflective and active nature-based or nature-informed exercises that provide safe contexts for each person to explore the challenges and desires that are current in their life. Our nature-based practices are relational processes that are inclusive, experiential, present moment focused and, wherever possible, integrative. While there can be commonality in what people draw out of these processes, a certain diversity also emerges because it is experiential, therefore drawing forth something different from each person, even when they are engaged in a similar activity.

Nature-Based Core Principles

At Generation Farms the connections with others, the earth, and ourselves is central to what we do. That means we include an ethic of care and consideration for our environment – air, water, earth – the plants, seasons, animals, as well as ourselves (including our physiology) in our decision making and through the actions we take.

Some of the core concepts that guide our work include:

Core concepts

Senses were our first language
We’re never not in relationship
Power of attraction is wired in (as is the health in our system)
Embodied listening can lead to deeper care for self, others and the earth
We consciously participate in a dynamic unfolding process that is deeply interconnected with what is within and around us.
We work at the edges where separations between mind-body-spirit or human and nature have the opportunity to dissolve and/or transform

Who would want it and why

At a personal level, nature-based practices offer many people greater well-being, increased health, more clarity, deeper ease and ability to care for self, others and the earth. They may be particularly helpful if you are experiencing:

Attention exhaustion,
Feeling overwhelmed perhaps by trauma, perhaps by the events or pressures within your family, workplace or organization,
Fear, paralysis, or numbness about the health of the earth;
Life transitions and looking for clarity,
World weariness
A sense of being stuck, shut down, or lost.

If you are looking for something beyond traditional counselling and learning approaches, then returning to the oldest of all relationships – your relationship with the rest of nature – may help you to hear or remember your deeper wisdom, clarify and renew what you hold as important and valuable, and identify how you want to move forward.