I remember running barefoot around my grandparents’ little holiday house. We held funerals for spiders. I helped put cucumbers in jars for pickling. In the evenings we were scared to walk to the outdoor toilet, but we went anyway, because the adventure (and the need) was bigger than the fear. When it was to warm we laid down under the weeping willow. The campfire warmed my hands at night. We basically did three things: we played, we ran, and we rolled around in the grass.

We didn’t plan it. We didn’t optimise it. We just were.

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Children’s nervous systems aren’t easier because they are stronger. They are easier because children still live inside the moment. No past to process. No future to fear. Just now. The grass under their feet. The sound of water. The warmth of the sun on their face.

And then we grew up.

Now there is work, children, school runs, sport, activities, cleaning. There is the uncertainty that doesn’t go away. There are the news, which rarely bring comfort. There is that particular tiredness that doesn’t come from lack of sleep but from being on high alert all the time.

Who has time to go outside in all of this? To walk barefoot? To hug a tree? To lie on a blanket and do nothing?

And yet somewhere we know we need it.

For me it’s the beach that brings it back. I lie on my back and watch the leaves moving in the trees above me. They rustle, they shift, they make patterns against the sky, and somehow they hold my attention just enough that everything else goes quiet. The laughter around me, the sound of the water, the calling out, in another context these might overwhelm me. But there, under the trees, they feel safe. I feel safe.

I love yoga and meditation too. Movement brings me back to the present, to the moment where there is usually no emergency. And still, so often my nervous system is in survival mode. Because the nervous system is not a switch. You can’t just press it once.

You have to keep coming back.

Nature is special in this way. It doesn’t ask anything. It doesn’t expect performance. The grass is just grass. The tree is just a tree. The silence is just silence. And somehow, if we allow ourselves to be there, the nervous system starts to believe it.

On 12 April we are going to Maxima Park together. Not to do yoga. Not to meditate. Just to be. Barefoot, slowly, together. Like when we were children and we still knew how.

During the afternoon we will use breathing exercises to settle the nervous system, a gratitude walk to arrive back in our bodies, somatic movement to release what we are holding, and mindfulness moments to bring our attention gently back to the present.

Slowly. Kindly. Without judgement.

If you need this too, come with us.

Yes, this is for me! I'll be there!

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