Meetings with Nature

Sue Ryall

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I have been a psychotherapist and counsellor for over 30 years, working with people’s  hopes, anxieties and fears about their lives, relationships and health as well as their deepest sense of themselves, their yearnings and their quest for purpose and meaning within their lives.  These days I work therapeutically outdoors in woods, fields and commons. I find that the land and other species can provide a container for the processes individuals are struggling with, and can act as mirrors for us to see ourselves more profoundly.
 

For as long as I can remember  I have always  felt a tug from the land, the sky, plants, birds and animals , finding connection and sustenance by being in nature, watching birds, listening to the wind in the trees...  Some years ago I began to build this way of being into my work, undertaking trainings in Joanna Macy’s ‘Work that Reconnects’, in ‘Nature Based Practices’, and running groups to strengthen people’s connection with the land.  As well as my individual work I run regular groups in the deciduous woods near my home for people to slow down and absorb something of the wildness and beauty to be found there.

 

Inextricably linked to my need for contact with both humans and the other-than-human world, has been a spiritual journey, a reaching for the mystery behind and within the material world. This feeds and deepens my psychotherapeutic work. I have had a Sufi practice for many years and go on regular retreats in Hereford and Iona in Scotland.

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