In his book The Wounded Storyteller, Arthur Frank talks about how most people think that life is linear and progresses in a long, smooth line. However, for one reason or another, things can happen in our lives which make us feel that our stories are broken or we feel silenced or injured in some way. When we experience a loss of a loved one it can feel as though we have had a limb amputated or as though part of us is missing.
Healing Through Nature
It’s often said that being in nature can help to heal you: the kind of observations that we make in nature, indeed the benefit we can gain through interacting with the plant life and wildlife around us can be really restorative. We can also start to connect better with others. After a health crisis where my mother was in hospital in the summer, I’ve started to walk in nature with some of my family members who I haven’t been able to communicate with for years. We have tried zoom and we have tried email, but these methods haven’t been sufficient to our needs.
That’s because there is insight that can be gained only through meeting in person and being in nature at the same time can allow one to have a perspective on the range of human emotions that can so easily be disguised. So, despite everything, I am finding it beneficial to share space and time with people I share a past with, despite the seemingly impossible hurdles to such an engagement. It’s the only way to really be heard and to listen.
The other benefit of walking and talking is that it helps get us out of our addiction to social media and the idea of digital hyperconnectivity, which, as Roger Brubaker tells us in his forthcoming book, Hyperconnectivity and its Discontents, can threaten to limit our horizons rather than extend them.
Who or what do you not want to share space and time with? Could it be that they would be the best people to share space and time with?
To mark Mental Health Awareness this month, I interviewed Christel Trøstrup PhD, narrative therapist, who offers her top tips about the benefits of walking and talking in nature. Why not sign up for my newsletter (which is free), so you can get all the latest videos and updates about my offers. I would love to share videos like this with you too. You can sign up to my mailing list below. A short extract of the transcript is below – to read more just sign up to my newsletter.
Walking and Talking with with Christel Trøstrup PhD
In this interview I talk with Christel Trøstrup PhD, a narrative psychotherapist who believes in the power of walking and talking in nature as a healing process. She believes that to be in dialogue with someone you need to be honest and being in nature helps bring about that honest dialogue. She says walking and talking is easiest when you are one-to-one and when you have a specific goal or question in mind.
Elizabeth from NLC: Christel, I am so happy to welcome you to my Narrative Life Coaching Interview Series. I am going to introduce Christel first.
Christel Trøstrup CT): I am a Dane so you may hear some diverse English words. We were talking about narrative and when you are interested in narrative there are many ways. So you could pick one narrative or another. When you are interested in narrative you have it with you all your life. Even though I am a narrative psychotherapist with a PhD I believe that I have been interested in narratives all my life, so I am just lucky that it has also been a part of my work life as well.
EI: When you say you have been interested in narrative your whole life, what aspect of narrative have you been focused on?
CT: I am originally a nurse and when people become ill they often have stories that break, they live with stories that have been broken. Arthur Frank talks about this in The Wounded Storyteller. Most people think that life is a long line [linear] and that everything is going to be ‘ok’. But when people get ill some of their narratives are wrecks as well. I am interested in stories that have been broken and stories that are silenced. This is the case in the health care system. The thing is, the way we treat people when they are ill, doesn’t necessarily make them better. That’s why I believe that some of the narrative work we do as therapists and in research, is very healing for these people. That’s a way of grasping the whole ‘I am ill’ situation.
EI: What do you offer through your programme?
CT: My programme is called Narrative Walking. I really agree about having time off and needing a break. The people who come to me have met with some kind of stressful event and then they need a break in order to reflect on their values, their job and their family or so on. It’s usually quite big things that are connected to their values…. {sign up for my newsletter below to read the full transcript and get the latest videos and information about what NLC can offer by clicking this link.)
Warmly
X Elizabeth Rose
