GROUNDED
“To be grounded is to put our feet on solid ground and put down roots or anchors within ourselves.”
So declares Ruth Allen, a psychotherapist who specialises in taking her clients out into the natural world. She explains how readers can reconnect with nature and, in so doing, become more attuned to themselves and more grounded as human beings. The goal is then to live “bravely and tenaciously”, full of the joy and wonder of being alive.
I confess that I tend to be wary of anything that looks like pop psychology but found Grounded to be full of wisdom and common sense. Allen’s tone is gentle and affirming and her vocabulary almost entirely jargon-free. She addresses a great many of our 21st-century neuroses and, by outlining various ways we can interact with nature, teases out the benefits of plugging ourselves back into our natural environment – even if the only scrap of accessible greenery is a patch of scrubby urban wasteland. And to get readers started, there are some practical yet thought-provoking exercises to try.
Illustrated throughout with glorious photographs of landscapes and wildlife, this book should inspire you not merely to get out into the natural world but also to forge a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with it.
Dixe Wills, travel writer and author