12 Walks to Wellbeing
The Biannual Restorative Walks Series by Anna Dako
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Upcoming Season - Spring 2021
(March - May 2021)
The Spring 2021 is Calling!
From sand dunes, grassland, heathland, wetland to woodland, Aberdeenshire has it all. The upcoming Spring challenge is to do something good for yourself on 12 Nature Walks in contemplative and creative reflection within our local nature reserves, most within 10-15 mins drive from the city centre! Rain or Shine! Join us this Spring!
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On the Walks we focus on:
- Proprioceptive and interoceptive sensitivity and conscious movement
- Dialogical processes in relation to feeling, sensation, imagination, and functional movement
- Explorations into the inner landscape of the body through sensory awareness and meditative movement practice
- Skills of interoceptive and exteroceptive listening that support sensory homeostasis
- Being in the moment with reflexive voicing of the experience as a form of self-therapy
Contemplating movement to facilitate our own wellbeing is a very intuitive activity that involves all the sensual acuteness, kinaesthetic and proprioceptive awareness, embodied presence and a very open attitude toward listening, receiving, and being with whatever is, internally, externally, always transitioning. It is based on practicing one’s ability to move that emerges from our inner sensing and the visceral phenomena, as well as staying responsive to the external stimuli of the space or landscape, where movement shapes itself as a living conversation, a meeting ground between what is or what comes into being, at any given moment.
During the 12 weekly walks in ongoing Felt Thinking with Nature we will strive to bring all the living and wellbeing-enriching aspects of the natural environment to our awareness and ponder over their deeper meaning as experienced in movement. We will be learning how to give voice the experience and how to build a creative dialogue with the landscape’s distinctive qualities and the environmentally inclusive ‘whole self’.
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Felt Thinking is a body-based way of working with movement in somatic experience of the Self. It is a deep self-inquiry journey which brings the lived connections between Nature and the Self to the fore and which offers new insights to how we are in the world and how to remedy multiple imbalances.
In this series of walks we will be getting to know the three steps of experiential immersion as the creative methodology of Felt Thinking and how to keep discovering different entry points into ecological connectivity in movement and reflection.
You can participate in the whole series as a training course in the method of Felt Thinking or come along to a few to unwind in gentle movement explorations and open, supportive exchange. All welcome.
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When: 9.00-11.00 every Saturday morning between 6th March - 29th May 2021
(See calendar below.)
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Cost: £8 per morning session, if booked separately, or £80 for the whole season of 12 Walks!
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For seniors, £5 per morning session, if booked separately, or £50 for the whole season of 12 Walks!
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Calendar of Walks 2021:
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Sat 6th March - Donmouth Nature Reserve
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Sat 13th March - Scotstown Moor
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Sat 20th March - Balmedie Beach
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Sat 27th March - Hazlehead Woods
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Spring Holiday BREAK
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Sat 10th April - Tollohill Wood
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Sat 17 April - Countesswells Forest
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Sat 24th April - Kirkhill Forest
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Sat 1st May - Arnhall Nature Reserve
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Sat 8th May - Backhill Wood
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Sat 15th May - Tyrebagger Forest
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Sat 22nd May - Brimmond Hill
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Sat 29th May - Drum Castle Forest
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Walks To Wellbeing Online (Audio Guides)
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Alternatively, you may want to participate in the online version of Walks to Wellbeing. For this, you will need to purchase a season subscription, which will allow you to access a series of 24 audio guides​. These will be accessible via a new login to an exclusive members area, which you will be given upon payment. The audio guides will be uploaded according to the in-person calendar for 12 Walks to Wellbeing, with the first 12 audio guides being released every Saturday from 6th March to 29th May 2021 and the subsequent 12 audio guides being uploaded during the autumn season in 2021. In addition, you will also receive an online session with Dr Anna Dako at the end of the season.
​The audio guides will each be approximately 20-30 minutes in length. You may listen to them whilst on your walk in your local area, allowing yourself to be guided whilst you are on location. Alternatively, you can listen to the audio guide prior to your walk and follow the instruction in your own time once there.
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You will be able to access each audio guide at a time once it has been uploaded, allowing you the freedom and flexibility to access it multiple times as well. You may even choose to be guided by them again at a different location if you so wish.
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Cost:
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£160 for the full season of 24 audio guides and a one-to-one online session with Dr Anna Dako.
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For seniors, £120 for the full season of 24 audio guides and a one-to-one online session with Dr Anna Dako.
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12 Walks to Wellbeing forms part of Phase One of the SME in Felt Thinking Course. You may choose to access the walks (in-person or online) as an independent experience, or as part of Phase One of the course. To find out more about the SME in Felt Thinking Course, follow the link below.
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Testimonials:
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It was a delight to accompany Anna on the walks to wellbeing, autumn series. I found the conversations surrounding the walks to be well informed and stimulating. Anna always came prepared with a particular area to use as an entry point into the explorations. The sites were well chosen and each offered something different; all the walks were a wholesome experience. I already spend a lot of time outdoors, but these walks highlighted how important nature is for my own wellbeing. An hour in nature can be as good as any therapist. One is not judged when with nature, one can be just, exactly, as they are in their light and their shadow. Anna is a very present and engaged facilitator and I will definitely participate in some walks again. Shayne
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