A friend recently taught me about Japanese Forest Bathing Therapy. It involves spending time immersed in a forest environment with a mindful focus on using all senses to connect with nature.

Josephine walked down to the stream in the early afternoon with her bookbag and the supplies she needed for the afternoon: a bottle of water, a snack, her phone, and a journal. It was a struggle for her to walk down there, but she needed to do it because it made her feel free and gave her a sense of accomplishment. Her legs were weak and tired when she got down to the stream. Luckily, there was a stump for her to sit on. She considered it her safe space whenever she was down at the stream. Sometimes, she wondered how secure it was because right across the stream, there was a pasture of bull cows that looked scarier than they were

Some people prefer the ocean and beach, but Josephine didn’t feel safe or comfortable there.  Her peaceful place was by a stream in the woods. Being surrounded by a quiet, beautiful nature gave her the peace to express herself.  The trees, birds, and wildlife were accepting and understanding, and they let her just be herself and express all she had within her, judgment-free. Sitting on her stump, she could quiet the voices in her head, allowing her to listen to her music and write what she felt in her heart.

Josephine would spend the whole afternoon sitting on her stump with sun rays beating down on her. It got warm there, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Josephine was blessed to have the life Josephine had. She had cerebral palsy but the kind that she could be independent with some help. Whenever she walked down to the stream, she felt very independent because her house was on top of a hill, and to be able to walk down the mountain, she had to go slow and hope that her cerebral palsy could handle going without having spasms that could make her lose her balance and make her fall.

She would sit on the stump the whole afternoon, listening to music and writing in her journal. She was out in nature. Josephine was more of a woods/sitting on a stump-person. Oh, she didn’t mind talking about a walk on the beach or even sitting on the beach on a cool night, but to spend the day sunning on the beach wasn’t Josephine. Josephine sits at the edge of the woods on a stump, looking at the stream and longing to be a part of nature. Her family always had weekend homes in the woods, so the woods just felt like home to her. Josephine felt comfortable talking to the trees, sharing her feelings and thoughts, and knowing the trees would honor her privacy. 

When Josephine wrote in her journal, she would write her dreams. The dreams of her not having cerebral palsy. She was always into music, and her dreams would reflect that. Most days, she would go so far in her dreams that she would get lost and not find her way out. In Josephine’s dreams, she doesn’t have cerebral palsy, so living in them was a haven for her. Josephine’s life desired to be a songwriter and music producer. She would go so far that often she would forget which world she was in – reality or her dream world. Josephine thought this dreamland was the best place to live because she didn’t have to deal with her challenges and felt free there.

Josephine didn’t understand that while she was happy and living the best life in her dream, she was jeopardizing her life. The more she got lost in her dream world, the more she lost touch with reality. Physically, she was present,t but mentally, she was in her fantasy world.

Living this way, she lost all hope of what she could accomplish in the real world. By spending so much time in her fantasy life, she lost time that could be spent gaining independence. As wonderful and peaceful as it feels to imagine life in a perfect world with an ideal body, the time spent on dreams that could never be fulfilled means that the attainable goal can’t be reached.  How much better is it to work with her support system on realistic goals for the best possible life in this world?