New approaches for healthcare professionals
What do you do when you want to address a problem that's huge in scope, and you have limited resources? I aim to pilot test creative solutions, using the assets and expertise I have, and linking with partners to provide what I lack. This approach has worked well in evolving the Woodland Resilience Immersion programmes at Hazel Hill Wood.
It's clear that years of overload are really taking their toll on health professionals: so much that it's now possible to talk about burnout and overt stress. However, it's also clear that health professionals have extremely limited time to explore new approaches, or to apply them at work. And any new initiative needs to build on their modes of assessment, and their frames of reference. So, in brief, here’s what a Woodland Resilience Immersion offers:
- A chance to de-stress and hence open to fresh insights: your own and others'
- A range of simple, brief interventions which you can use in daily work, which only need a few minutes
- Ways to use Nature connection to resource yourself at work
- Methods and space to explore raising resilience for your team or organisation
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Deep Adaptation
and climate change: an Update
Recent months have seen rapid growth in awareness of the urgency of climate change, and more active moves to respond to it. The most visible and widespread of these responses in the UK is Extinction Rebellion. There has also been a rapid rise in the number of people involved in exploring the topic of Deep Adaptation, especially through participation in a range of Deep Adaptation Forums which Jem and his team have set up. You can see an updated version of my blog on Deep Adaption with relevant links here. |
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Book Blog:
Your Brain on Nature An ET view of earth
By Eva Selhub and Alan Logan
 This is an important and exciting book in my view, as it gives extensive research validation for the natural happiness approach, and the aims of Hazel Hill Wood as a natural learning centre. This will be a longer blog than most, because I’d like to highlight the main insights from the book.
This book was first published in 2012, and could not have been written even ten years earlier. It’s only very recently that research is emerging about the effects on our brains and bodies of the much longer time many people spend in screen world – smartphones, computers, televisions etc.
Good research on the benefits of time in nature is also surprisingly recent. The authors are both doctors, who teach at Harvard Medical School, so their views have some authority.
Your Brain on Nature offers extensive research support for the many benefits of time in nature, including stress reduction, physical health and creativity. Forests are a particularly positive natural setting, and the book quotes research from Japan on the benefits of Shinrin Yoku, or forest bathing. click here to read full blog
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VIDEO RESOURCE
Try the Tree Test
Click below:
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Events Update
APRIL
Climate Change Consciousness 20-26th April, a major gathering at Findhorn Foundation.
See more at www.CCC19.org Alan will be leading a workshop:
BEYOND RESILIENCE The future outlook calls for more than resilience - perhaps Deep Adaptation. We’ll explore how to help those most impacted (e.g. resource-poor nations and disadvantaged communities everywhere), through community building, spiritual resilience, and Nature. Alan will offer insights based on his project, Seeding our Future, which explores these issues for individuals, community groups and public services.
JUNE
Woodland Resilience Immersion for GP's JUNE 10-11
The impact on GP’s of prolonged overload, and the stress of facing ever-rising demands with shrinking resources, needs creative responses. This Woodland Resilience Immersion offers a different way to gain new insights and skills, to raise your resilience and nourish your wellbeing. See more here.
JULY
Seed Festival, Hawkwood College, Stroud. July 20-21
GROW YOUR OWN HAPPINESS: Wisdom From Nature
Imagine cultivating your wellbeing as an organic gardener tends their land. This session in Hawkwood's magical market garden shows you practical ways to apply organic growth to yourself: for example, composting stress, nourishing your roots, valuing your wild margins. It draws on Alan's twenty years' experience creating an organic farm and the conservation woodland at Hazel Hill Wood. See www.naturalhappiness.net
TOOLS FOR COMMUNITY RESILIENCE In the years ahead, strengthening local communities will be crucial. This is a chance to learn from many communities through Alan's research, and share your insights. We'll explore practical approaches drawing on Alan's Future Conversations project, which is running pilot programmes around the UK using facilitated conversations and skills training to help communities handle both local issues and climate change. See www.futurescanning.org
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Alan's Article
In the Journal of Holistic Healthcare
Learning super-resilience from nature: Systemic responses to systemic overload
Picture this scene: deep in a Wiltshire wood, a group of hospital doctors are sitting around a campfire. It’s dark, and there’s profound silence in the forest around them, broken by owls calling nearby. Slowly, the doctors take the risky step of opening up in front of colleagues: talking about feelings of overwhelm, exhaustion, the pressure to be superhuman that they put on themselves, and that they sense from patients. It’s tempting to be heroic, but where is the place for emotions and uncertainty? click here to read on... |
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NEW Initiative:
Planet support meditation
Alan writes:
Avid readers of these newsletters will recall that issue 29 explored views of earth's troubles from beyond our planet. This has led me to start a new meditation group with fellow-author and pioneer Sue Brayne. It will involve a half hour mediation each Sunday evening, and potentially a monthly Zoom call. If you would like to know more contact me: progress@workingvision.com
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