Nature As Immediate Healing
Written By Jenna Cohan
Nature as Immediate Healing: How the Senses Open a Path for Trauma Recovery
The ocean taught me what it meant to actually feel calm. As a child faced with an overwhelming amount of adverse experiences, calm eluded me. I did not live in a safe house as a child and the daily instability became ingrained in my experience. During my adolescence and young adulthood I rapidly began to realize that being in nature, offered me a sense of peace and restoration that being with my caregivers could not.
The marine biologist and oceanographer (as well as personal hero of mine) Sylvia Earle has said: “Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home."
This reflection illustrates the deep emotional and psychological connection to the ocean available to all of us. A profound way to access a sense of peace and belonging.
One of the most remarkable things about nature is that it doesn’t ask you to be show up in any particular way. You don’t have to explain yourself to a tree, a breeze, or the shift in tide. Nature meets you through your senses—right here, right now. For those of us touched by trauma, nature does not demand that we tell our stories.
For trauma survivors, this immediacy can be profoundly healing. Trauma often pulls us out of the present, leaving people caught in cycles of hypervigilance, flashbacks, or emotional numbness. Nature, in its sensory simplicity, offers a different invitation:
Sight — The shifting light through leaves, the sight of a heron lifting from a pond, or the vastness of a horizon can help orient the nervous system to safety and beauty.
Sound — Birds calling through the morning or waves rhythmically meeting the shore can regulate breathing and heart rate, inviting a sense of steadiness.
Touch — The coolness of river water over your hands, the rough bark of an oak tree, or the weight of sun on your skin can reconnect you to the physical body in a gentle, grounding way.
Smell & Taste — The scent of rain on dry earth or the taste of an oyster right from its shell can stir moments of joy, memory, and aliveness.
These sensory anchors help shift attention from intrusive thoughts or dissociation into direct experience. Over time, this repeated return to the present can soften the grip of trauma, creating moments of safety where healing can take root.
In ecotherapy, the goal isn’t to “escape” into nature but to allow the living world to co-regulate with your nervous system—much like a trusted companion would. A forest, a garden, or a single patch of sky can offer wordless reassurance: You are here. You are alive. You are more than what happened to you. You are not alone.