‘When I started looking at all of this, I did have that presumption that everyone can access nature. Nature is there for everyone, and unpacking that unconscious bias is really powerful and really important, and recognising, wow, I didn't know that, but now I do know that. And, I'm going to try to do something about that, because that's really important to me’

Ruth Geddes, coach & supervisor with a passion for equity

‘Is outdoor coaching an accessible and equitable practice?’

Driven by the threads of nature, equity and outdoor coaching Ruth Geddes posed this question for her Masters research project at the University of East London despite considerable personal and professional discomfort. Her conversations with coaches and clients revealed the gap which exists with seen and unseen, spoken and unspoken conscious and unconscious needs. She invites coaches to ponder the following questions:

• Who may feel excluded from my coaching practice and why?
• How could I be proactive in adapting my marketing and coaching practice to increase accessibility?
• When looking around a local nature space, see it with fresh eyes. Can everyone access this space? If not, why not?

The roots of her mantra ‘informed by psychology, inspired by nature’ can be traced back to a wee village on the east coast of Scotland with fond memories from the beach, rock pools and sea. Ruth is on a mission to spread awareness on equity, inclusivity, safety and belonging within the outdoor coaching realm.

Bio: Ruth Geddes is a Positive Psychology practitioner with an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, a Senior Practitioner Coach accredited by the EMCC and an accredited supervisor. Her research explored barriers to participation in outdoor coaching, with a particular focus on accessibility and inclusion.

Ruth’s coaching integrates evidence-based positive psychology with nature-based approaches, helping people reconnect with themselves and nature through the often-overlooked magic of everyday outdoor spaces.

Alongside her coaching practice, Ruth works in Higher Education as a Wellbeing Team Manager.

Her work is informed by psychology, inspired by nature.

Ruth Geddes Coaching

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Resources:

Conceptual article in Journal of Positive Psychology - Outdoor Coaching – an Accessible and Equitable Practice? Ruth Geddes, MSc., Alison Bishop, PhD - Journal of Positive Psychology Coaching (JPPC) Vol 3, 2026

Dr Alison Bishop

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

'In 2018, I had a spinal injury. I just stopped making artwork for, about 18 months, I was completely stuck. I couldn't… couldn't do anything. And funnily enough, when lockdown came, I sort of became unlocked. I don't know what it is. I think it was because I felt I wasn't the only one trapped indoors. I wasn't missing anything, because there was nothing to miss anymore’.

Tracey Falcon, Life Coach, Artist Educator and Wheel Chair User

Artist and creative life coach Tracey Falcon joins us from Whitstable, Kent where she lives with her youngest son, dog and a steady stream of refugees. In 2018, her spinal injury prompted an inner search to redefine value within herself and discover ‘who she is’ and ‘what she does’. How she navigated this huge life transition and relationship with grief is a testament to her perseverance and determination. Tracey speaks openly about the challenges she faces as a wheel chair user from accessibility, vulnerability and her enemy otherwise known as mud.

Discover the pun behind her business name ‘Still Life Coaching’ and her strap line based on the concept of ‘lemonading’ that brings an element of playfulness and resilience into her work. Plus, the influence of philosophical enquiry that enters her coaching; ‘what do I think I know?’, ‘why do I think know it, and can I be certain? If not, then what other possibilities could there be?’ From tadpoles to prosthetic tree limbs our conversations are filled with metaphors, perspectives, possibilities…

Bio

As an artist educator working in galleries, museums and even in a forest, also teaching at universities, Tracey creatively worked with vulnerable groups and individuals, igniting curiosity and connecting to places, people, objects and ideas.

A spinal injury in 2018 limited what she can now cope with physically and subsequently had to rethink her career. She learned a great deal through her major life change experience. A disabled, single parent, she is no stranger to a struggle. Drawing on this and her creative project work helping people gain confidence and problem solve, she decided to retrain, first gaining two counselling qualifications and then as a life coach. She has a passion for nature, especially trees and continues to make art.

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Facebook

Instagram - Still Life Coaching

Instagram - Tracey Falcon

Instagam - Treesee Falcon Artwork

Resources

Disability Rights UK

Moving Social Work

The Polyphony

Give Us a Shout - text 85258

Refugees at Home

The Conversation Agency

Blog – Lemons and Lemonade

Concept ‘lemonading’ from research by Shen X and Crawley Z (2025) How does playfulness (re)frame the world? Evidence for selective cognitive and behavioral redirecting in times of adversity. Front. Psychol. 15:1462980. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1462980

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

‘I had no hope of recovery, I didn't understand what was happening. I felt very out of control and powerless in my own life. I couldn't really see what the future would bring.’

Tracey Robinson, Coach, Occupational Therapist and Post-partum Psychosis Survivor.

From occupational therapist turned coach and founder of Mother Nature Coaching Tracey is on a mission to raise awareness about postpartum psychosis. This severe and sudden though treatable mental illness effects 1 to 2 in 1,000 women in the days or weeks after child birth. She openly shares insights into her personal experiences with mania, exhaustion, hallucinations, disassociation and overwhelm as she narrowly avoided being sectioned after the birth of her first child.

This unexpected shift from NHS service provider to mental health patient gave her valuable insights that led to her role as an ardent change maker within the system. Her work helped introduce the recovery approach to mental health and peer support within countrywide specialist perinatal mental health services and maternity transformation programme.

After a period of burn out she recently re-trained as a coach and stumbled across ‘walking and talking’ coaching. Over the last eighteen months she’s intuitively followed her desire to deepened her connection with nature and support mothers who’ve experienced mental health issues during their maternity leave.

Please note: At times our conversation is difficult and emotionally charged. Please take care of yourself if you’re feeling emotionally fragile or vulnerable. The following organisations offer support:

Samaritans: www.smaritans.org / 116 123​

Action on Postpartum Psychosis Charity: www.app-network.org

Bio

Tracey uses nature connected coaching to support women returning to work after they've experienced mental health issues during maternity leave. Before setting up her own business Mother Nature Coaching in 2025 she worked in the NHS for over 30 years. She is a mental health occupational therapist who progressed to senior leadership roles in service improvement programmes across mental health and maternity services. Her passion for this career was driven by her personal experience of postpartum psychosis.

She is a trustee for Action on Postpartum Psychosis a specialist national charity who raise awareness of the illness and provide support. She has told her story in the media to raise awareness and trained as a peer supporter. Tracey’s journey into coaching and nature connection was a response to workplace burnout alongside managing perimenopause symptoms. She now balances her work with spending reflective time outdoors in local woodland and travelling to mountains and lakes whenever she can.

Linkedin profile

Mother Nature Coaching on Facebook

Charity: Action on Postpartum Psychosis

Resources

Jane Lloyd - Postpartum Psychosis Advocate

Coaching Outdoors Podcast

Dr Annette Bauer, London School of Economics

Animas Coaching Programme

Coaching Outdoors Getting Started Programme

Lesley Roberts

Jackee Holder

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

‘The bees started as a hobby, completely separate to work, but you know, I was also sitting outside my office one day, noticing people coming and going, and the buzz, and coming and going through a small door in a big office, and inside it's busy, and inside there's lots of communication and amazing products, and instead of honey, it was cancer medicines.

And I just started using the bee metaphor at work to help have better conversations. To help have conversations about communication, or conflict, or diversity, or decision making’ - Philip Atkinson, Found Hive Logic and Beekeeper

From a chance encounter deep in the forest when Philip stumbled across the infamous Alsace Bee Club lessons from the hive unexpectedly infiltrated across his life; then work. His work shifted from being employee 767590 for twenty-five years within a multi-national company in Switzerland to building his own consultancy and coaching business ‘Hive Logic’ - though with hindsight admits ‘Hive Emotion’ would be more appropriate.

Steeped in bee metaphors our conversation draws analogies around change, teamwork, skills, diversity and inclusion and more. Philip regales stories as a beekeeper with an emergency swarm rescue at Basel airport and the annual Honey Day harvest otherwise known by his children as the ‘stickiest day of the year’. He then strongly advocates for our individual responsibility on how to protect this vital keystone species within our world.

Bio: Philip Atkinson is a leadership team expert and organisational coach and shares his wisdom of his two great passions together in his book, Bee Wise - 12 Leadership Lessons from Inside a Beehive. All proceeds from the book go directly to the charity Bees for Development.

As a beekeeper, Philip lives in Alsace, France and loves to spend the summer tending to and observing the precious bees and spending the winter learning, reading and writing about them. Throughout the whole year, Phillip supports leadership teams and leaders to grow and develop. He is the founder of Hive-Logic Coaching and Communications. The company is run like a collaborative beehive and they support senior leaders and teams at multinational organisations to perform at their best with coaching, training and facilitation.

Website: www.hive-logic.com and www.beewisebook.com

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Facebook

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

So, you have this extraordinary psychedelic experience, which it's usually, like, what the hell is going on? I don't know what any of that means. And then being able to process that is crucial. Unless you want to do it just for fun, which is okay, but if you want any real juice out of it or change, integration is what is needed. And I'm quite convinced that bringing nature context into the integration process is possibly the most powerful way of doing it’ - Adrian Harris

From the hotbed of psychedelic research in Exeter Adrian joins us to trace the roots of his relationship with mushrooms that started for fun in his early twenties; then shifted into a more spiritual arena through ritual and paganism.

A chance encounter with the book ‘Psychedelic Renaissance’ lured him along this pathway and led to the job of his wildest dreams as the Director of Ecopsychology at the Synthesis Institute. Within this role he embedded nature connection practices to support the longer-term integration of psychedelic experiences. Our conversation touches on the complex realms of clinical trials, evidence, ethics and the law with a dose of animism along the way.

Bio: Adrian’s life is a journey through spirituality, activism and academia founded in what makes us human; embodiment and ecological belonging. That led to ecopsychology and training as a somatic psychotherapist. He began to facilitate nature connection workshops and later became Lead Editor of the 'European Journal of Ecopsychology'. Training as Physical Intelligence Coach came next, increasingly with nature as the ground of practice. He’s also worked in psychedelic research and continue to explore how that medicine dances with nature connection.

Much of this is distilled into his book that offers a offers a simple pathway to what the title promises: 'Nature Connection: Remembering Wholeness'. His current project is ‘The Way of Wholeness’, a nature-based, embodied approach to coaching. The journey continues!

Website: https://embodiedpathways.org/

LinkedIn

YouTube

X @dradrianharris

Instagram @dr.adrianh

TikTok @dr.adrianh

Resources

Book: The Psychedelic Renaissance: Reassessing the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in 21st Century Psychiatry and Society by Dr Ben Sessa

Book: Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

Book: Science and Spiritual Practices by Rupert Sheldrake

Conference: Breaking Convention

LinkedIn: Sam Gandy

Synthesis Institute

University of Exeter – Psychedelic Studies

The Psychedelic Drugs Trial – BBC

Profile: Dr Rosalind Watts

ACER Integration process

Profile: Jon Young

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

‘This is the only planet in our solar system. And in the universe that we're aware of, as of right now, that actually harbours life. Life as we know it, at least. And we've looked, trust me. I know the people who are looking and have been looking, and they haven't found it yet. This is like a really big deal. Life is here. It may not be anywhere else. And if that's true, why wouldn't we design with life at the very centre of everything we do? And not just human life. All of life, because we're not the only ones on this planet’ - Sarah DeWitt

Happiest surrounded by trees Sarah DeWitts feet touch the ground in Washington D.C where she places planetary health at the centre of her work and life. Held within deep winter our conversations explore her recent regenerative sabbatical where she consciously chose life over work. She purposively stepped away from her chosen career trajectory where she experienced censorship, reorganisation and being offshored to live in alignment with her true passion and purpose.

Story-teller at heart Sarah shares a snap shot of our planet observed from above in her seventeen-year career at NASA. Inspired by the iconic ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image and her time alongside people who work with the stars her perspective spans into the cosmos and beyond with an inherent systems approach.

Sarah challenges the wider accepted constructs of our business world based on financial compensation and utterly derails the concept of work-life balance. We touch on the endemic scarcity mindset that unconsciously underpins the coaching profession and how the seemingly divergent trends of AI and nature offer the opportunity to connect and converge.

Bio

Sarah DeWitt is a systems change leader who guides individuals and organizations through major seismic shifts. She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach, Certified Forest Therapy Guide, Washington DC Master Naturalist, and 2025 With Life Fellow in regenerative leadership. With degrees in geology and science documentary filmmaking, plus two NASA exceptional service medals for her efforts in science communication, Sarah has made it her mission to centre planetary health in her work and her life.

As a life-long learner, she has mastered the art of career reinvention and enjoys helping others make their own big leaps. For over 20 years she has provided a calm presence to leaders navigating high-pressure situations from rocket launches to global acquisitions, emphasising regenerative practices that promote both human and planetary well-being.

Website: www.sarahldewitt.com

LinkedIn

Instagram

Resources:

Image: The Pale Blue Dot

Location: Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens

Training Provider: The Forest Therapy School

Training Provider: With Life Fellowship

LinkededIn Profile: Melanie Choukas-Bradley

Online Workshop: Seasons of Need: Regenerating Ourselves and Our Planet (28 Feb & 1 Mar 26). $20 Discount with code: NEED26

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

‘Once I got to Europe that was it. I felt like I was coming back to older roots than the roots I was born with. My grandparents came from Europe, and although if they were alive, they would have thought it horrible that I'd left the New World to return to the old one. But I was…that was the right direction for me’ - Karyn Prentice

Karyn Prentice left her childhood roots in Los Angeles to study in Paris after being unexpectedly orphaned at the age of sixteen when intuitively she knew would never return to live in America. Her adopted homes of Normandy and Cambridge now offer the space and place to live and breathe with the natural ebb and flow of the five seasons. She encourages us to awaken our senses through the additional season of ‘Late Summer’ based on Chinese Medicine and Native American wisdom which brings additional depth, richness and metaphors into our lives.

True elder in the last quarter of her life Karyn reflects on the bold desert nature of her youth that held her grief, her life long love affair with Paris and invitation to ‘Take Courage’ based on the beer adverts that captivated her attention during her first visit to England. We trace her professional journey training as a transpersonal psychotherapist and coach in the early 90s, influenced by the work of Dr Susie Orbach and the decision to take her practice outdoors.

Bio

Karyn was born in the United States and left there to move to Paris. She has been living and working in the UK and Europe ever since.

Karyn has run her own learning and development consultancy since 1995 and has worked with corporate businesses in the UK and abroad as well as with not-for-profit organisations and in higher education. She has been a coach for 25 years and a coaching supervisor since 2008, working in French and English doors.

Her book ‘Nature’s Way, Designing the life you want through the lens of nature and the five seasons’ (2020) draws upon the huge resource and inspiration of nature for many years bringing discovery and learning to the coaching and supervision arena with creative approaches and restorative practices. She has delivered ‘Nature’s Way’ workshops to international audiences evoking the seasons as a metaphor for creative thinking and soulful well-being .

Karyn collaborates regularly with fellow creative Elaine Patterson. Their deep and richly varied programmes: ‘Cultivating and Choreographing the Rich Tapestry of Wholehearted Creativity’and ‘Bridging the Unknown form Role Work to Soul Calling in Later Life ‘ draw participants from many parts of the world.

Website: www.fletcherprentice.com

LinkedIn

Instagram

Resources

Book: Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Book: The Signs by Tara Swart

Dr Susie Orbach

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com

"It's deepening into…an apprenticeship, it's deepening into a love affair, it's deepening into friendship. It's so kind of nuanced and colourful. It's difficult to put into words. But I'm opening like a flower.

The more time I'd spend with nature, not just in nature, but, like, really being in conversation with nature, and listening which is an ongoing practice, it's just been extraordinary, the impact that it's had on my life. I don't quite know where it's going. I don't really want to, but it's… the magic and the mystery of it all continues to unfold" - Hamish Mackay-Lewis

Somerset based purpose and wilderness guide Hamish Mackay-Lewis joins us with a blend of autumn and spring energies held gently within his life and work respectively. We trace his lived experiences being lost on the journey of life where comparison can be poison to the soul; then enchanted by a twinkle in eye that led him to a ten-day meditation retreat on the Sunshine Coast in Australia and much-needed balm to soothe his soul. We dance between the past, present and future; then settle into his need for stillness and a simple life.

From an innate desire to belong, seek familial approval and adventure that led to the British Army, his gaggle of unruly inner children parented by a brutal and unskilful teenager and his desire to play with playfulness Hamish exudes a deep connection to the natural environment, universal consciousness and spirit.

About

Hamish is a purpose and wilderness guide who helps people find belonging both in themselves and in the natural world. He believes that land and people are medicine for each other, and that wisdom is found in the immediacy of our lived experience.His journey from serving in the British Armed Forces to guiding others into nature and purpose has given him a deep understanding of what it means to feel torn between the life that feels secure and the one that’s quietly calling you to be more fully yourself.

Drawing on ancient and indigenous wisdom, embodiment practices, and contemporary psychology, Hamish helps people cultivate the courage to be radically honest with themselves and invite greater depth, aliveness and adventure.

He lives in Somerset and seeks out wilderness whenever he can. He loves nothing more than witnessing the moment someone rediscovers their own wildness.

Website: www.hamishmackaylewis.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/hamishmackay-lewis/

Substack: https://substack.com/@hamishmackaylewis

To find out more:

www.rootedrisingpodcast.com