My Journey into Nature
How did the forest become my office?
Today, nature is an important part of both my work and my life, but it wasn’t always this way. I am a girl from Tartu, and as a child, my encounters with nature were mostly limited to the courtyards of Karlova and my grandmother’s garden. I was actually rather afraid of the forest and felt no particular pull towards it.
Everything changed in 2004, when I moved to Aegviidu — right in the middle of the forests of Kõrvemaa. At first, the forest felt unfamiliar to me, but little by little I began going there on my own: to pick berries, ski, swim and eventually simply be. I found my favourite places and discovered that spending time in nature helped me connect with myself more deeply.
My first forest session
In 2015, I was still working as a school psychologist. The mother of a ninth-grade boy asked whether we could have our session in the forest. I thought: why not?
In the forest, I asked the boy how he was feeling. He looked at the path we were walking along and replied:
“I am like this path — part of me is in the shade, and a small part is in the sunlight.”
That encounter showed me, for the first time so clearly, the possibilities nature offers in psychological work.
The boy graduated from school. And I had stepped into my future office — the forest.
A new journey began
In 2018, I received a book about Japanese forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, as a birthday present. As I read it, I remembered that forest session from years before and had a very clear feeling:
„I need to learn more about this.“
That was the beginning of a more conscious journey into nature, forest therapy and exploring the ways nature can be used to support people.
Today, nature has become a natural environment for both my life and my work — and one of the most important ways in which I support both others and myself.
My journey into nature did not begin with knowledge, but with experience.
At first, there was a brief encounter. Then a relationship began to grow. And today, it has become a lifelong connection.
Read more about my journey in my BOOK, "Psühholoog. Otse ja Ausalt."
