Shinrin-yoku Japanese Forest Bathing in Oslo

When taking a trip to Oslo, I ended up doing what I recommend all of my friends do, taking a solo trip.  I'd gone on many road trips by myself, and a few domestic flights to cities for a few days, but never a solo international trip.  Ryan was supposed to go with me, but decided last minute that he couldn't with school, so I forged on alone.

The Oslo Opera House

Living in the city and mainly traveling to other large cities, I've begun to really miss time in nature.  When I lived in Phoenix, I would hike the desert trails and mountains almost daily, and take snowboarding trips to Flagstaff.  I lived in the mountains in New Mexico before that, and often did the same.  While living in Phoenix I also worked for a wilderness therapy program called Anasazi.  It was run by a Navajo family and took troubled youth into the Tonto National Forest where they spent their days hiking, setting up camp, learning primitive skills, working on repairing their relationships with their families (their parents did work with a counselor as well), and making their own food, shelter, etc.  It wasn't a boot camp, and the walkers were never punished, only given natural consequences that nature quickly provides when not setting up their camp, hiking to final destination, etc.  As a "trail walker" I was with them in the Tonto National Forest 8 days on and six days out, the "young walkers" were out there for about 41 days.

 The experience really did change my life, and although I started working there for reasons unknown to me and was scared to death the first few times I went out to work on the trail, I ended up learning to love rather than fear the wilderness in a deep way.  Heading out to trail often gave me an extreme sense of anxiety to be giving up: coffee, my cell phone, and knowing what was going on in the world for eight days.  Yet, on the way back "the real world" actually caused me much more stress and I missed the sense of peace that I seemed to only find when in the middle of no where with a band of "troubled," but always highly lovable teens.  There were many magical moments; howling at the full moon from the top of a mesa on a star filled night with a band of wild teenage girls, taking a mid-day nap in a very hard to access ancient cliff dwelling complete with untouched  Native pottery shards and ears of corn, and pretty much every night ended gathered around a campfire with only conversation and cooking our food in our tin cups to entertain us.  The stories we shared! One of my favorite young walkers was from Dallas and shared many hilarious stories including one about the time he was watching Walker Texas Ranger and Chuck Norris rang his doorbell with his daughter selling Girl Scout cookies.  

With my co-workers at Anasazi out on the trail

As I feel some time in the wilderness is long overdue, I saw a "forest bathing" on Airbnb in Oslo and immediately signed up.  I had absolutely no clue what that meant, but knew I had to give it a try.

Arriving at Ekebergparken I was thrilled to find a beautiful wolf/German Shepard mix named Nala would be joining a fellow forest bather, the guide, Silje, and I.  When traveling (other than my husband haha), my German Shepard Nova is always the thing I miss most, so having a dog with a similar look and vibe put me at ease right away.  I try a lot interesting things, but for some reason still have extreme anxiety when actually starting something different, especially when I know nothing about it and am with new people in a new country.

Sweet Nala

Silje explained that Shinrin-Yoku, or nature therapy, began in Japan in the 1980's when Japanese began to notice a connection between the reduced time people spent in nature and the increase in stress, anxiety and depression in their culture.  Studies have shown spending time in nature to improve a person's immune system, provide emotional healing, decrease blood pressure, improve relationship skills, decrease stress and decrease aggression.  There is admittedly much research needed to be done in the field, but my bias is that there is a lack of funding, because there is no money to be made off of it.   Spending time in nature is easy to do and totally free!

What was different about Shinrin-Yoku was its ability to quickly put me at ease, and to get me to begin living in the moment.  One of the first exercises chosen by Silje was to get us to take a moment facing each four directions, close our eyes, take deep breaths, notice what was different, notice the colors we see with our eyes closed, the smells we smell, and what different parts of our bodies felt like.  By moving so slowly and noticing different things from the same space, but different directions, I quickly felt relaxed, mindful, and transitioned into living in the moment.   

Next up, we were to spread out and walk VERY slowly to a destination on the other side of a clearing, and notice whatever movement we saw.  Although it was a very still and cold winter's day I began to notice little leaves wiggling, tree branches slightly stirring.  So much so that I would saw a couple people approaching in the corner of my eye, and by the time I transitioned to where I thought I'd see them walking away to the other side of me, they were long gone.  By moving so slowly it was if time began to slow down...my mind was no longer in a hurry thinking about what was next to figure out in my travels and all I wanted to squeeze into the day.  Just when I began to get incredibly cold and wished for a fire, I turned over my left shoulder to see that Silje had just made one (not sure how I also was so immersed into slowly looking for movement that I missed that as well).  

She called us over to the fire and after a little warm up had us pick a tree to touch or rest along for a few minutes.  She also said something to the extent of "let the tree speak to you" which I thought was a little weird.  Yet, I immediately felt called to walk towards a large tree a little off to the North.  As I got closer I realized it had stump right beside it that made the perfect seat, and as I sat leaning against the tree on my back on the stump/chair, there were branches that almost formed a hug around me.  Wrapped up in my little tree cocoon I felt more protected, safe and at ease with the world than I had in a long time.  And as cheesy as it sounds, I don't know any words for it; I began to feel that somehow the tree presented me with a new truth.  I often have anxiety about the environment, about all of the plastic and trash I see everywhere, the glaciers melting and forest fires raging.  Walks along the beach stress me out as I often see plastic crocs, hundreds of tiny bottles of shampoo of things that have fallen off a cargo ship, cigarette butts and other trash along the shoreline.  However, suddenly I felt protected by nature, enveloped by the tree, but also like "silly human, nature will out-survive you, even if the world is destroyed to where humans can no longer thrive here, nature will continue on."

Silje called us back to the fire where she had prepared a tea made from Norwegian mushrooms and had figs and chocolates to eat.  We all sat around and shared stories around the fire leaving me with a sense of calm and contentment I hadn't felt in a long time.  The best thing about Shinrin-Yoku was that it was able to get me to a deeply relaxed state connected to nature within 20 minutes that may have taken me a few days to reach on the trail.  

After everyone else left I spent some time wandering the hillside park by myself.  I could see fjords below as well as the nearby mountains and the city of Oslo itself.  Winds would occasionally blow through the trees leaving a light glittery swirl of cascading snow.  Now, when feeling stressed in overcrowded, sometimes aggressive and often loud Miami Beach, I mediate on my Shinrin-Yoku in Oslo moments and am temporarily restored to a sense of calm and peace.