Mindfulness in nature.

Karen Liebenguth has been working with individuals, teams and groups for 12 years, using green spaces, mindfulness and coaching to foster personal and professional development, mental resilience and wellbeing. Karen was one of the first people in the UK to start coaching while walking in nature after finding that both she and her clients get far better results outside rather than sitting indoors.  

Karen became interested in linking the threes areas together after she suffered some mental ill health herself. Around fifteen years ago she was heading a team for a corporate company but received very little line management support. She was suffering from anxiety, sleeplessness and a lack of confidence and needed to do something about it. A friend suggested she look into meditation and from that she thought abouttraining as a coach herself. She signed up for weekend coaching event and that was the start of her new career and setting up and running her own business.

Nature is really the space in which Karen prefers to work with her clients and this goes back to her childhood. She always had a deep connection with nature and is grateful to her mother who was a nature lover and took Karen and her sister on bike rides and walks, Her mother was a single mother who worked full time so the time they had was limited but the time they did have was spent outside and this really helped when life wasn't easy. 

Being in nature supported Karen’s own mental health so when she started coaching and working with clients, she wanted to bring nature into work so they could benefit from it as well. Over the past few years there has been a large shift towards different types of outdoor coaching but there is a lot of evidence to show that being in nature is good for us. We all know what it feels like when we go into our local park or into our back garden. We feel different because we come from nature, it’s our place of origin. The pandemic has put the benefits of being in nature on the agenda for both mental and physical health. E. O. Wilson coined the term biophilia hypothesis, the idea that we have an innate attraction to seek connection to the natural work. It is also well documented that spending time in nature reduces the heart rate, stress and hormone levels as well as boosting the immune system and reducing feelings of loneliness, isolation and depression.

Mindfulness is a skill that needs application and practice. Karen feels it’s training for the mind in the same way physical exercise trains muscles. She also thinks that mindfulness happens in the relationship between our brain and our environment. It is often talked about as if mindfulness only happens in the brain but neuroscience has shown the brain can change but it doesn’t happen on its own.

Mindfulness is so much more than self-awareness. Its about paying attention to the body, emotions, events, how we relate to other people and our environment. Its also about heartfulness, the attitude we bring to ourselves and others. In any situation we can choose the attitude we bring - whether we are open, friendly, kind, compassionate and respectful or whether we are closed, harsh, and critical. Mindfulness helps bring a non-judgemental attitude to ourselves, our own experience and to other people as well as helping us to get to know ourselves so we understand how our actions impact on other people and our surroundings.

Karen feels that we have to experience mindfulness for ourselves, that we have to come to it because we are curious enough about the idea that it might enhance our life.

You can find out more about Karen and her work at greenspacecoaching.com

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