Meet Nina
I’m Nina, a qualified nature facilitator and an eco-therapist and eco-depth practitioner in training, based in Oxfordshire.
I’m in my third year of formal professional training at the Natural Academy, an established, UK-based institution recognised for providing accredited vocational training in ecotherapy, nature-based practice and eco-depth psychology.
I grew up in Ghent (Belgium), a lovely and historic city, with very little awareness of the natural world. Fast forward two decades and my husband and I got lucky enough to call Exmoor our home for seven years. It’s there, on this ancient land that I found a refuge from my daily mental struggles and from the demands made on me as a new mother. I inadvertently came into nature connectedness: each time I went out for a walk on the moor, in the woods or on the south west coastpath, beauty stopped me more often than not. I slowed right down and began to notice textures, patterns, ‘things’ that grew here (without actually knowing them by name), the way the light fell on this day, how the mist changed the whole scenery,… It encouraged a sense of belonging in me and it felt like coming home.
Over the years I became very familiar with the landscape and grew a relationship with the other-than-human world. Nature became my sanctuary. I felt I could finally channel my sensitivity into something worthwhile. And the fact that I didn’t grow up with nature only fuels my childlike wonder, excitement and sense of discovery as an adult – I still see and discover so much on each of my walks.
Alongside my training, my practical approach is rooted in extensive personal experience navigating mental health, motherhood, neurodivergency and PMDD, while learning to connect with the natural world. I found that my own mental health issues steeply declined the more connected to nature I felt.
‘Nina With Nature’, my professional practice, grew out of a desire to get others to experience what it’s like to ‘come home’. As I grow into this new role my practice is slowly taking shape and I’m proud to bring together my sensitivity to beauty, my innate reflective and empathetic personality, my endless curiosity into people’s psyche and its workings, my training and my lived experience of nature’s restorative power into a format that is accessible to all.