Nature as Co-Therapist: The Quiet Power of Walk-and-talk Therapy

There’s something different about speaking your truth beneath the open sky. The kind of difference that doesn’t need big language, just presence. A slant of light through branches. The crunch of gravel. The steadiness of the land beneath you. These things have always helped people find their way.

Nature-based therapy, or what I sometimes call walk-and-talk therapy, invites the natural world into the healing process. It’s not about trekking through the forest or pushing through an agenda. It’s about letting your nervous system breathe, reset, and feel safe enough to soften. Some sessions involve movement. Others unfold sitting beside a creek or under a quiet stand of trees. What matters is the quality of connection - between you and your body, your story, and the place we’re in.

It's Not About the Walking

Clients often ask what a walk-and-talk session looks like. The honest answer is, it depends. Some clients walk slowly the whole time, letting their body set the rhythm. Others prefer to find a spot early on and settle in. I've met clients who stand barefoot in the grass for most of the session and clients who rest on a bench with a blanket wrapped around their knees.

You don’t need to be physically strong, or particularly outdoorsy. This isn’t exercise. It’s therapy, and you are free to show up with the energy you have that day.

For those living with fatigue, chronic illness, depression, or pain, this can be an enormous relief. There’s no pressure to perform or produce. Just room to be human in a living, breathing world.

How Nature Helps the Nervous System

What happens in these outdoor spaces is supported not just by intuition, but by science. Our nervous systems respond to nature in measurable ways. Research shows that time in green spaces can reduce stress hormones, improve heart rate variability, and support immune function. But beyond the data, there’s something deeply intuitive about how our bodies respond to the woods, the ocean, or even the edge of a quiet park.

For many of my clients, the movement and the setting together allow for more flow in the therapeutic conversation. Emotions can come through without as much fear of being stared at or needing to hold it together. There is less eye contact, which can be a relief when talking about vulnerable things. There is room for silence. There is the soothing rhythm of steps, or the anchoring of roots under a tree.

Nature provides a third presence in the room—something steady, quiet, and alive that is not trying to fix you, but simply witness you.

A Personal Relationship with the Natural World

For me, this work is not just professional. It is deeply personal. Nature has held me in moments of exhaustion, grief, and overwhelm. It has helped me regulate when nothing else could. I know what it means to go outside simply because I don’t know what else to do with my feelings, and to return feeling like my lungs are a little more open, like something in me was met.

My son shares this connection in his own way. He is drawn to moss the way some children are drawn to ice cream. We can’t go for a walk without him filling his pockets with tiny rocks, lichen-covered twigs, or pinecones. At home, we have bowls of stones on every surface. Pieces of bark line the windowsills. Mushrooms are a particular fascination. He can spot them from meters away and crouch down in reverence to study their shape. I have watched him go from agitated to calm simply by crouching in the woods.

That’s nervous system regulation. That’s co-regulation with place.

We are part of nature, not separate from it. The body knows this, even when our schedules don’t.

Clients I’ve Walked With

In my years of offering walk-and-talk sessions, I’ve seen how nature shifts the tone of therapy for my clients. I’ve worked with people who live with chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety, caregiver burnout, and more. In the forest, I’ve watched shoulders drop, voices slow, and eyes lift toward the treetops. One client described it as the first time she felt she could talk about her trauma without feeling trapped. Another said the scent of cedar did more for her anxiety than any meditation app ever had.

These are small things, but they’re not insignificant. They are signs of the body coming into a safer state. They are signs of healing beginning to take root.

Privacy and the Natural Setting

You might wonder about privacy. That’s a natural concern. Before we meet, we’ll choose a location that fits your comfort level—somewhere relatively quiet, private, and not heavily trafficked. I have several locations I return to again and again for this reason. They’re places where we can talk freely without feeling exposed. And if someone walks by, we simply pause, or move to another area. Most people are on their own quiet walks and not paying attention to us.

If weather, energy, or access becomes an issue, we always have the option to shift our session to virtual. Flexibility is built in. The goal is always your comfort and safety.

Come as You Are

You don’t need to be in the right mood. You don’t need a long backstory. You can come in silence, or with a flood of words. The land can hold both. I will meet you in whatever place you are in.

Nature-based therapy is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It is a return to rhythm. It is a quiet invitation to slow down, to reconnect, and to let yourself be shaped by something older and wiser than stress and structure.

If you feel the pull toward something softer, something slower, something real, I welcome you to reach out.

Learn More or Book a Session

Curious about walk-and-talk therapy or nature-based counselling in Langley and the surrounding areas?

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