The Healing Path: Lessons from the Forest

As a child, I was happiest in nature, especially when I visited my grandmother in her off-grid home deep in the redwoods near Santa Cruz, where I spent summers with the freedom to simply be part of the living world around me. I will forever hold the deep, earthy scent of the redwoods—the shadowed welcome of gentle giants—and the comforting sensation of being one with the trees.

I didn’t know it then, but what I was experiencing has a name.

In Japan, it’s called Shinrin-yoku—forest bathing.

Forest Therapy is not a new idea. But it has become a formal practice, one that’s now studied, respected, and offered as medicine in countries around the world. Also called sylvotherapy, it's not a technique, but a practice of slowing down and allowing the forest to help you.

The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries coined the term Shinrin-yoku in the 1980s, which roughly translates to “forest bathing.” But this is not about water. It’s about immersion—being fully present in the living world of the forest through your senses. Shinrin-yoku has become a respected part of public health in Japan. Doctors may even prescribe time in designated healing forests as a way to prevent illness, reduce stress, and regulate the nervous system. Entire networks of trails have been established not for hiking, but for healing—often accompanied by trained guides who facilitate a process of softening, sensing, and slowing down.

Forest Therapy is not exercise. It’s not about reaching a destination. It’s not even about nature education.

It’s about remembering you are part of nature—not a visitor.

Letting the trees, the moss, the air, the birds, the silence—all become part of your sensory field again.

It’s a return.

A slowing.

A deep and ancient kind of listening.

While the experience of Forest Therapy is often poetic and personal, its benefits are also measurable. Japan has been leading the scientific research on forest bathing for decades, and what they’ve found is clear:

Spending time in the forest changes our biology.

• Reduces cortisol levels: Just 20 minutes of slow, mindful time in the forest can significantly lower the stress hormone cortisol, which is linked to anxiety, inflammation, and chronic disease.

• Boosts the immune system: Forest air contains natural plant compounds called phytoncides—aromatic molecules released by trees that have been shown to increase the number and activity of natural killer (NK) cells, which fight infection and cancer.

• Lowers blood pressure and heart rate: Being in the forest helps the cardiovascular system relax, reducing strain on the heart.

• Improves mood and focus: Studies show that forest immersion improves mood, reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety, and enhances attention and creativity.

• Regulates the nervous system: Forest Therapy supports parasympathetic nervous system activity—the “rest and digest” response that counters the chronic activation of fight-or-flight.

And perhaps most importantly, it works without effort.

You don’t have to “do” anything in the forest.

Just being there, slowly, with all your senses open, is enough.

As a somatic guide, I see Forest Therapy as one of the most natural and accessible ways to reconnect with the body. When we’re in the forest, we don’t need to talk about regulation—we feel it. Breath deepens. Shoulders drop. The senses wake up. The body begins to reorient toward safety—not because we forced it to, but because the land itself invites it.

Here in Hawai‘i, we are fortunate to have a unique forest ecosystem unlike anywhere else in the world. And within that, the cloud forest is its own rare sanctuary—elevated and alive with birdsong and filtered light.

It’s not just visually beautiful—it’s felt.

The air is soft. Moisture gathers on your skin.

Moss grows thick along branches. Ferns unfurl beside your feet.

The forest doesn’t shout here. It whispers.

When I guide Forest Therapy, I begin not with goals, but with permission.

Permission to move slowly.

To not be productive.

To let your eyes soften, your breath return, and your body speak without needing words.

Cloud forests are often referred to as “water towers of life” because they capture moisture from the air. In the same way, women often arrive carrying invisible weight—fog they’ve been moving through for years. Something quiet happens here. The fog inside and out begins to lift.

There is a sacred spaciousness in the forest I’ve never found elsewhere.

The Japanese call this Ma—the space between.

It’s in the silence between footsteps. The pause between breaths.

And it lives here in this forest. You can feel it when you listen.

In a cloud forest, even time moves differently.

It doesn’t push. It invites.

Most women I know are carrying more than they show.

They are over-attuned. Over-extended. Overwhelmed.

And still, they keep going.

We’ve been taught to measure our worth by how much we can hold, how much we can help, how strong we appear under pressure. And even when we crave rest, we don’t always know how to rest. Not really.

Because real rest doesn’t come from a nap or a screen break.

It comes from being in a place where nothing is expected of us.

Where our nervous system can finally downshift and stay there.

The forest offers this. Especially for women.

The forest doesn’t need you to be cheerful, grateful, or strong.

It doesn’t ask for a single thing in return.

It just receives you.

And in that receiving, something ancient in us exhales.

Our breath slows.

Our mind softens.

Our body remembers what it feels like to be safe.

In somatic language, we call this co-regulation—but the forest doesn’t use that word. It just does it.

Tree by tree. Root by root.

You are met. Held. Reminded that you're not alone—not in your feelings, not in your fatigue, not in your healing.

And when this is done in the presence of other women, the healing multiplies.

You feel it when one woman exhales, and the whole group softens.

You see it when someone speaks aloud what you didn’t know you were holding.

You remember that sisterhood isn’t something to earn—it’s something we return to, together.

There is a kind of nervous system safety that only happens in the company of kindred women.

In the silence between words.

In the shared knowing: you don’t have to do this alone.

There’s nothing to prove.

No striving.

Just you. And the earth. And the quiet companionship of women remembering the same thing:

We are meant to heal together.

And the forest already knows how.

I don’t teach in the forest. I listen with you.

Forest Therapy, as I offer it, is not a tour. It’s not a workshop. It’s not a lesson.

It’s a slowing down—together.

A gentle container where I offer invitations, not instructions.

You might be asked to walk slowly. To notice texture. To let your gaze soften. To pause. To rest. To sit with a question—but only if you want to.

The forest is the real guide.

I simply hold the space so you can hear what it’s already saying.

There is no agenda. No need to be interesting, wise, or profound.

This is a space where you can stop narrating your experience and just have it.

And because we do this together—in silence, in witnessing, in soft circle—something very old begins to stir.

We start to remember that we are part of a living system.

That the trees are not background, but relationship.

That being seen, even wordlessly, by another woman… while being held by the land… is a kind of medicine we’ve needed all along.

With the trees,

Michelle

Learn more at wildwomenhawaii.com