Kayla Weber + Her Relationship with the Outdoors
Who is Kayla Weber
Kayla is a woman who helps others overcome their greatest challenges. She runs her own company “Nurtured by Nature Forest Therapy” and is a certified Forest Therapy Guide, she also has her certificate as a grief recovery specialist through The Grief Recovery Method. Her combined talents present a very unique path to healing, alongside nature. She currently helps people move through grief in a conscious way, as well as helps them move mindfully through nature. She resides in Vail, Colorado, but works her magic throughout the greater part of the state. Visit her website sftjgriefsupport.org for more information and to find out her upcoming forest therapy walk schedule.
An Outdoors Rx Interview: This post is sponsored by Marmot.
Interview conducted by Holly Mandarich
Photos Courtesy of Kayla Weber
+ Tell me about what you do?
“What do I do? I take people, most of the time in groups, (i've done it with 1:1s) somewhere into nature. I do this in many different places. I've conducted my practices on Gore Creek trail, which is a paved path by river, to places like Tennessee Pass which are in the backcountry. When we’re farther out in nature, I guide people ideally for 2.5-3 hours. I like participants to have the most full experience possible. The format in which this can be done varies based on allotted time, group size, and setting. Usually we’re in a wooded area and we start with a series of invitations to help people tune into their senses, so they drop out of their head and into their body. I then deliver a few more invitations that foster the connection of the participant back to themselves and the natural world around them. The specific sequence of the invitations helps participants’ minds drop into a liminal space. Dropping into a liminal space just kind of means that you’re not thinking of the world in the normal way that we tend to with the hampster wheel of to-dos, you drop expectations, and you’re able to explore the world in a more childlike manner. You tap into the curiosity that we all still have and begin to notice the little things again. You begin to have a different experience in the natural world than you would rather than just going out by yourself. The number one saying we have in the forest therapy guiding world is: The forest is the therapist, the guide just opens the doors.”
+ What’s an invitation?
“An invitation is just that, something I invite you to do. It’s a small action that’s offered for you to take, but the experience is yours so you don’t have to participate if any particular invitation doesn’t resonate with you. These actions vary immensely from walk to walk and guide to guide. They’re small actions your guide will invite you to do to help foster that connection that is so important for our time outdoors. Some are much more complex than others. A simple invitation example would be ‘Wander out and find a place that calls to you and get comfortable there, we'll be here for about 20 minutes.’ Not telling people what to do, you instead let them listen to their body. They then tap into their intuition and use their body radar to see what they are drawn to. Some people lay down, some people are comfortable standing, some sit quietly for the duration. The feedback I get time and time again is always ‘I wish it was longer’ initially some people think ‘what am I going to do for 20 minutes?’ They start fidgeting, then they play with rocks, draw pictures in dirt, notice leaves, but people always come out wishing they had longer! Then we hold ‘council’ to let everyone share what they experienced after each invitation. Sometimes people notice things that other people don’t. Some people will notice smells or sounds, and some people will spot interesting things like bird’s nests that others may have missed. It can open your eyes to all this other stuff that’s around you. It allows everybody to include their own ingredient into the collective soup of what the experience was, it makes it so much more rich. To that point, it also creates community and connection on a deeper level of human beings face to face.
It's such a simple concept and so monumentally necessary right now.”
+ What do the outdoors mean for you? What feelings do you experience when you recreate outside in your favorite way?
“For me they mean a lot more than just recreating, they are a sense of coming home. They make me feel like I'm supported. I play outside in all different capacities. It’s interesting being married to somebody who looks at the outdoors as a means for exercise, my husband wants to go fast, keep his heart rate up, have purpose - whereas instead for me, it's about going out into nature and just being - dropping back into my body. It makes me question what it means to be on this earth, it allows me to tap into noticing the little things, and at the same time looking at it allows me to reflect on the big picture. The feelings I get when I’m outside recreating and being in general, always come back to a sense of home and a sense of support.”
+ What do the outdoors mean for you in regards to your physical health?
“My physical health is incorporated in so many different ways in the outdoors, I don’t have a routine with the outdoors, I use them all the way from - breathing under a tree to nourish my body at the cellular level - to - climbing 14ers, to feel my muscles, and to feel myself pushing my physical limits. For me it depends on my mood, whatever i'm needing is what I seek - does my body feel like it wants to be pushed right now, or instead does it feel like it needs to be held at the cellar level. So I base it on what I need and what my immediate surroundings have to offer.”
+ What do the outdoors mean for you in regards to your mental health?
“For mental health - yes! The outdoors are critical for my, and everyone’s, mental health and they mean so much to me in that regard. I have experienced some of my own deep grieving experiences in the outdoors. When I start to feel like a wave of grief is coming, it literally can feel like the walls are closing in, it can get to a point where it becomes so suffocating to deal with those emotions inside. Nature is a very vast, supportive place to go when you’re feeling that intensely. I was a naturalist the summer my brother died and I was able to spend so much time outside. I was there for work - and was expected to be outside leading nature walks and programs. My office was in close proximity to trails, nature benches and the creek, so I spent hours each day by gore creek in Vail. Through those experiences it was like I was able to feel connected to him, it allowed me to bring intangibles back to a place that almost felt tangible. I remember sitting on this log for hours on end, at Vail Nature Center, I could feel my brother in the sun, see him in the ripples, hear him in the birds that were singing, in a mental health capacity it opened my world up - so that things that were so far away, instead in a way felt closer to me. The word supported, I can’t emphasize that enough, when you as a human feel like you can’t move and you just want to collapse - look around you. ‘Oh there’s a tree, look there’s a stump’ You can fall down and the earth is there to catch you. You have all this physical natural support around you to pull from. I was one time supported physically just because I was crying and hugging onto a tree, for me it felt massive! That physical support translated into emotional support then too, when it felt like there was no one to hold me… The trees had me!
Just yesterday we went on a quarantine walk with Lloyd (our dog), I saw these 3 massive sister Aspens, I just got the urge to go give them hugs! The reciprocity I got to practice through doing so, was moving. What I've learned is to lean into my intuition, which was telling me that I just wanted a hug in these weird social distancing times. I really got the sense that they wanted that hug just as much as I did. The outdoors teaches us so many lessons, the earth gives us so much, and how do we turn that around and show the earth appreciation? What is your reciprocity, mine is as simple as going and giving it a hug!”
+ Have there ever been times that you didn’t regularly dedicate time to yourself outdoors, if so, how did you feel physically and mentally?
“Oh yea definitely, i've gone through times I put unnecessary stress on myself, when i'm working hard to get a proposal done, or marketing materials done, responding to emails, or deadlines that exist in my world, I let those get in the way of taking time to take care of myself to get outside. When in reality I should just take a 30 minute walk, and then come back and be more productive, instead I will just hole myself up in my house, until I can get these things done, I don’t know why I do that to myself. Because every time I take the opportunity to reset my mental thought train outside, I always come back feeling so much better, so much more inspired, and things just flow better. ‘No Kayla you’re in the groove just stay here stay inside, get this done!’ - the stress that I put on myself just multiples, when I deny myself time outside.”
+ Have you ever had an “extreme challenge” in the outdoors where strengthening your mental health helped you move through something.
“One in particular comes to mind, I was mountain biking with Zach and a group of our friends, we were over on Vail Mountain, we went from our camping spot on Vail Pass, then biked up this steep sketchy section to drop down into the backside of Vail. The trail was a really long, really hard, mountain bike ride that I was not ready for, I bonked half way in, I was feeling terrible, I had no energy, I was not feeling strong whatsoever - I kept messing up, slipping and falling, I was miserable, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I wanted to be done, I wanted somebody to pick me up in a helicopter and throw my bike in the trash and never see it again. Having the ability to stop and breathe and look around me I thought, ‘Alright, I am in the beautiful scenery of the Vail back bowls, Kayla you’re still breathing, your bones are not broken, slow down be careful, don’t be a hero, do this however you need to do this.’ I let myself sit down on my bike, and not take proper form, took lots of breaks, and allowed myself to slow down. I was going to get there when I was going to get there. I finished the ride, and made it all the way to Kirby Cosmos for the best beer of my life. I realized that comparing myself to others (and even my best self) was no use and I just had to slow down, put everything into perspective, and keep pedaling.
Another experience comes to mind, I was studying abroad in Costa Rica, and upon my arrival I had realized that I failed to bring appropriate footwear. I brought hiking shoes but they didn’t have ankles, which they required us to have, due to venomous snakes. I somehow missed that on the packing list. I remember I had to borrow one of the teachers boots, which were half a size too small for me. We were getting ready to backpack 10 miles into the jungle, spend 5 nights, and hike another 10 miles out the other side! Rangers met us along the way to help us cross rivers, I remember at one point we had to go up a trail that was so vertical I had to use my hands. We had a week's worth of stuff, plus school supplies and books. Hiking through this jungle - there were snakes and monstrous spiders. We were hiking along and my feet hurt so badly, and you have to remember you're climbing straight up and then straight down, these trails were not for the faint of heart. My toes continuously banged on the front of my boots. After a few miles of this, I could feel something was really wrong, nothing good was going to come out of my feet from this hike. I was in the back of the group, with a girl named Genevieve, she was in a similar boat as me, she didn’t have a buckle on her backpack. So we had to adopt a mentality that we would get there one foot in front of the other. I took so many breaks, to the point where I was wondering if I was going to get there before it was dark. I spent a while ‘creatively walking,’ I had to find different depth patterns, kicking my heels into the ground, I was praying for the uphill, because it didn’t hurt my toes as much. That was the hardest 10 mile hike I've ever done, it was a mentally taxing experience. When I finally saw the shack/cabin - I kid you not I crawled there because my feet hurt so bad, I untied the boots - skipped dinner, took my shoes off, big toe nails fell off, and slept for 14 hours, and then 5 days later had to do it again with no big toe nails. I think back to that hike when I'm stressed out, and know that I'll get where I'm going eventually, and I always know that I'll at least survive!”
+ Do you have a personal story, or moment that comes to mind that encapsulates how you feel about the above, and how it's overall been necessary for your health and state of mind? I know you’ve spent time helping others with your Forest Bathing, wondering how you have seen the outdoors impact other’s lives?
“Yea I mean It's more general - nurturing my relationship with the outdoors has allowed me to come home and tune into the lessons that nature has for us, it's the greatest teacher. Leading forest therapy walks, provides perspective for myself and for others. It allows everyone to shine through in council - with so many arrows that point to the heart.
On one of my practicum walks my husband, Zack, had a share in council, he had gone and talked to this tree, noticed all the offshoots that the tree had - tiny tiny little branches everywhere - he got the sense from this tree, that it was sending itself out in as many directions as possible. He shared that he thought it meant that not everything you do has to be perfect and that not everything you do has to land, you just have to put yourself out there and try as many things as possible and see what does land. It made another one of the walk participants cry, seeing the interaction between the tree and the person, and the person and the person, and now I get that perspective too! You get to experience a super cool range of perspectives on these walks, and I get to listen too. As a guide, my appreciation, understanding, and perspective deepens every single time I’m out there.
It’s also been really cool for me to introduce these 30 minute exercises into other normal outdoor experiences. I hosted 3 full moon snowshoe hikes over the winter, crowds were different for every single one. Normally my forest therapy walks range around 3 hours, full on - but these were instead condensed into 30 minute tastes of what forest therapy offers. We’d hike up a trail to where another guide had a fire waiting for us, I’d guide the group through 30 minutes of invitations, then we’d hike back down together. It introduced some aspects about forest therapy to people who otherwise would have likely not participated in an experience like a full length forest therapy walk. To be there and to just feel their appreciation for the experience. It’s like I get to see people come alive outside. It’s so humbling.”
+ With all that being said, how’re you feeling right now, in the pandemic? Are you having any realizations, or moments of gratitude / or maybe even regret. How is this impacting you - right now.
“Right now I am grieving the walks and experiences I would have otherwise been working on putting together, having the restrictions on proximity to one another, we have been advised not to lead walks in person, and I'm so bummed, I'm just bummed. For me personally I have been able to still go outside, I'm so thankful for that. That I have trees in my side yard, I don’t have to go 100 feet from my house to experience the outdoors. I am very thankful that I have trail access without the use of my car. Regarding my own personal healing, I've been leaning into that during this time, trying to really reconnect with my purpose, allowing myself to slow down, but I can’t deny that I have had greif for the things that I wanted to do in this time.”
+ Could you see a future after this all settles, where we collectively move as a society to prescribe the outdoors to people? So say Outdoors Rx?
“That is absolutely a goal for me, it’s a personal goal, but more so a shared goal that was born out of The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, Amos (the founder) talked about this specifically during my training in 2017. His whole goal of creating this training program was to train 1000 guides to take people on forest bathing walks. He at one point talked to Kaiser Permanente and they loved the idea of prescribing people time in the outdoors, they communicated that to make this a reality, they needed trained practitioners in every region that they offered coverage. So his goal came to be training enough guides to get this incorporated into the system. Guides have adopted this as a personal goal for themselves, because they see the ROI that will come from it. So many people don’t financially prioritize themselves, and their well being, I hear things like ‘Why do I need to pay you 30 dollars for you to take me outside for 3 hours’ The personal value isn’t there yet, hopefully people will change their perspective after this, having therapeutic practices like this covered in insurance will be a way to get people to prioritize it.”
+ Anything you’d like to end on
“One thing that’s heavy on my mind and heart... When this is all said and done, people are going to have a lot of grief to work through, and they're gonna have a lot of things to work out in the outdoors, it's going to open up some cool healing modalities. My hope is that people take that seriously and don’t go back to the way we were before. We need to let this planet breathe the same way she helps us breathe. We also need to slow ourselves down enough to hear those inner emotions that are dying to be expressed. If we slow down our human activity we not only help the planet, we help ourselves really tune in to what we are craving at a deeper, human level. I’m hoping people prioritize their relationship to the outdoors as a healing modality much more than most do currently.”
