Don't Step on the Bluebells

Caitlin Cockerton - Healing through the Wilderness (#038)

• Amanda Parker • Season 1 • Episode 38

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When was the last time you truly connected with nature? Not just a quick glance at a tree or a rushed walk through a park, but a deep, intentional engagement with the natural world around you?

In this soul-stirring conversation, wilderness guide and coach Caitlin Cockerton reveals how nature serves as both mirror and medicine for our inner landscapes. "Healing is remembering who we truly are," Caitlin explains, highlighting the dual meaning of both recalling our authentic selves and literally "re-membering" or putting back together parts that have become disconnected through life's challenges.

Drawing from her journey from academia to business consulting to leading transformational wilderness retreats, Caitlin shares practical wisdom on how anyone can access nature's healing power. She guides us through simple yet profound practices like sensory awareness walks, where we progressively engage each sense to drop out of our analytical minds and into embodied wisdom. "Somebody will fixate on a mountaintop, and another person will fixate on a broken-down tree that has new life springing out of it," she notes, explaining how what captures our attention in nature often reflects our internal preoccupations.

For leaders and teams, Caitlin's approach focuses on four pillars: mindful self-awareness, empowering collaboration, creative adaptation, and sustainable stewardship. These experiential learnings in natural settings create lasting changes that intellectual exercises alone cannot match. For entrepreneurs and founders battling isolation, nature retreats offer both personal restoration and meaningful connections with peers facing similar challenges.

Whether you're seeking personal transformation, leadership development, or simply a deeper connection to yourself and the world around you, this episode offers a gentle reminder: slow down, create space, and listen. As Caitlin beautifully puts it, "You too are nature - an incredible natural system with all the wisdom built into it to help you interact, connect, adapt, evolve, and find your way."

How to Get in Touch with Caitlin:

Join the Women Healers Collective - An international community for Women Healers to connect, learn, and elevate their impact.


PLUS, Here's How You Can Take Charge of Your Personal Growth

  1. Are you a women healer tired of trying to do it all alone? Join the Women Healers Collective today!
  2. Dive even deeper with this episode's Show Notes
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Caitlin Cockerton:

Somebody will fixate on a mountaintop, and another person will fixate on a broken down tree that has new life springing out of it, and yet another person will focus on some tiny little micro detail. You see, then, this process of okay, why is that important to me? What's going on right now, that is a metaphor in my life or in my personal work, is relating to what I'm looking at and why I'm looking at it. It allows this kind of real gentle inquiry.

Amanda Parker:

Welcome to Don't Step on the Blueb ells, the podcast where personal healing and transformation take center stage. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and I'm a fellow seeker on the podcast where personal healing and transformation takes center stage. Join me as I delve into the stories of gifted healers, guides and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations. Listen in as they share their practical wisdom to enrich your everyday life and don't forget to hit subscribe and never miss a new episode.

Amanda Parker:

Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Blueb b ells. I'm here with the incredible Caitlin Cockerton and we're going to be speaking all about healing with nature and all of the incredible work that Caitlin's doing to guide people really through their inner and their outer wilderness. So Caitlin's a coach, a facilitator, a retreat guide who really works in this intersection of personal transformation, of leadership development and blending in the natural world. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you today, especially as nature is blooming all around us. So thanks for joining us, caitlin.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Thanks so much, Amanda. I'm really happy to be here.

Amanda Parker:

It's really an appropriate time and I always find it funny the timing of these conversations and also when the episodes are launching, because, like spring is blooming in London, the flowers are coming to life. Everything that I consider in London about seasons is like the muddy season and the not muddy season. We're officially in the not muddy season, so we can actually enjoy that nature around us.

Caitlin Cockerton:

It's so nice. I mean, I used to live in London and I remember spring, just feeling that aliveness, and everybody comes out and starts taking off their layers and they're like there's life again.

Amanda Parker:

I remember from my days living in Germany. I used to just look at all the humans becoming sunflowers. They'd leave their house and the first time the sun was like really coming through again, everyone would just stand with their eyes closed, facing up towards the sun.

Caitlin Cockerton:

It's so good, we need it, right. I mean, I feel like spring is actually in many ways, the proper entry into the new year, into the, the new cycle, and it's that reminder that everything that was barren and dry and, you know, seemingly dead in the winter, it had all, all of this inside of it. Right, just waiting for the right moment, waiting for that new cycle. And I love seeing just the beginnings of spring too, like the first buds coming out and you're like, oh, it's coming, it's coming. And then now we're in that stage where like, oh, spring is here, it's loud and clear, right, like the birds are loud, the blossoms are out, you can see the pollen in the air, like everything's stirring. And it's beautiful because I feel our energy is doing the same. Right, we are all going, oh, okay, I'm coming to life, I'm stirring. Like, yeah, there's a real palpable energy shift in spring. That feels really positive and really alive.

Amanda Parker:

It's a beautiful entryway because as I'm listening to you speaking, all I'm thinking in my head is like wow, this is so healing. And actually I'd love to ask you what does healing mean to you? When you think about what it means to go through that process of healing, or what does that look like?

Caitlin Cockerton:

Yeah, well, I mean part of it, just to link to what I just said. Right, we contain all of this all the time and I think, at the core, healing is a kind of remembering of who we truly are and all that we contain. And I love the duality of the word remembering because it's remembering yes, remembering where I came from or who I am, or what's within me, but it is also re-membering. So putting back together, you know, making whole. Putting back together, you know, making whole. It is about finding those points of disconnection and actually bringing them back into connection, into coherence and integration. And we want to do that within ourselves for our own healing, because all of us, I think we're born naturally creative and whole and beautiful with everything you know, just just sort of born in, in possibility.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And then as we go through life, these parts of ourselves kind of splinter off and they bump into the challenges and the slings and arrows of life and they react to them, they adapt to them, they evolve based on the circumstances that we are put in right and those parts of ourselves. They develop these adaptations in response to harsh circumstances, often in childhood, and that may be a survival mechanism at the time. But the problem is that when that becomes sort of stuck and stays with us as a feeling, an internalized belief or a behavior, and then we bump into it again and again, until the point where we go, hey, this is no longer adaptive, this is no longer how I want to operate from just this part of me, how can I then take that part of me and really understand it and bring it back into my being in a way that is healed, that is part of the whole and that hopefully transforms that feeling or behavior into something that is truly beneficial to who you are and what you're doing in the world?

Amanda Parker:

What a nice distinction of what it actually means to remember. So I often talk about healing in the context of coming back home to yourself and like knowing who you are, which is such a relief. I mean, when we go into that black hole of like not knowing, not understanding, uncertainty, things are cloudy, it's like a really painful place and just giving yourself permission to be who you are, to remember who you are and to live that way intentionally is the most powerful healing that I know, and it sounds like even just the way that you described bringing all those parts like back home, to center, to the mothership, if go constantly fragmented, you know disconnected from nature, disconnected from who we are and how we sort of are naturally supposed to operate.

Caitlin Cockerton:

It is so easy to live from a, from a fragmented sort of just part of us place, and I think the wonderful work of doing internal family systems which I'm not going to talk about today, or thinking of yourself, as you know, this kind of natural being that has parts that need to return to the system that is you, the natural, beautiful system that is you, that's our work, that's our healing work in today's crazy society.

Amanda Parker:

Yeah, I want to help give the context for everyone who's listening about this healing through nature, because that can also mean so many different things to different people, but you have a really beautiful and unique way that you incorporate nature into what you do, so maybe you can share just a bit about what that work looks like Like. How, how do you engage with nature or introduce people?

Caitlin Cockerton:

to it. Yeah, sure, I mean lots of different ways. I guess one obvious way to start is in the retreat side, right? So I run personal development and leadership development retreats in the wilderness in all sorts of beautiful places in Europe mostly, and what that looks like is we are either bringing in intact teams or dispersed leaders across an organization, or I'm running open retreats or, yet again, I run founder retreats.

Caitlin Cockerton:

So entrepreneurs coming out to the wilderness to spend a collection of days to A just slow down, really restore disconnect from the daily life and reconnect to a rhythm that allows them to do all sorts of awesome personal development work right, and we can get into the approach and why it works in nature.

Caitlin Cockerton:

But that's one way, right.

Caitlin Cockerton:

So running these retreats for different audiences and bringing them into nature and allowing nature to be a real partner and catalyst for change.

Caitlin Cockerton:

I also do one-to-one coaching work and quite often in my one-to-one coaching work it might start online and you know we build some foundations, but I love to get people out walking and talking on the phone in nature, in a beautiful place, and then again we bring nature in as this kind of third partner into our, into our dynamic, and it allows them a whole new set of tools to take with them to go out into nature on their own and do their own session, their own therapeutic work. So that's another beautiful way that I like bringing nature in. And then I'd say the final way is I create bespoke programs for my clients in particular, like female founders who are working with me for a longer period of time, and they will do a combination of one-to-one coaching work and these sort of intensives in nature where we go to a beautiful place for three or four days and really do a deep dive for three or four days and really do a deep dive.

Amanda Parker:

What do you think that nature brings into that?

Caitlin Cockerton:

experience that you don't get otherwise. I want to say two things. I want to build off two points. One is that nature is just this incredible mirror to us. We ourselves aren't nature, but when we go out into nature, our subconscious does all of this beautiful meaning making as we allow ourselves to go to the things that interest us the most. So one of the exercises I'll always run with people is to go out to walk in silence, to find, you know, a beautiful resting place, and then to say, all right, scan the horizon and just allow yourself to naturally pause and rest where your imagination wants to go further right.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Or you know you want to build a story around that, and you know somebody will fixate on a mountaintop and another person will fixate on, you know, a broken down tree that has, you know, new life springing out of it. Or you know, and yet another person will focus on some tiny little micro detail, and you see, then, this process of okay, why is that important to me? What's going on right now? That is a metaphor in my life or in my personal work, that is relating to what I'm looking at and why I'm looking at it, and it allows this kind of real, gentle inquiry. It's not like too confronting and it's a great way to get people started into personal work because it's not like okay, here, here's the work, let's go. It's sort of this gentle mirroring that nature provides for us.

Caitlin Cockerton:

I'd say another thing that nature provides is just a whole host of benefits. Right, there are studies that basically tell us nature decreases anxiety, it improves mood, it increases creativity and our ability to problem solve In a team context. It helps us become more adaptable, more creative and more collaborative as well. And then, finally, you know, this experience of doing development work in nature just reconnects us to ourselves, each other and the natural world, and it helps us think I want to take care of each of those systems. I want to take care of my natural world, and it helps us think I want to take care of each of those systems.

Caitlin Cockerton:

I want to take care of my natural system because I too am nature. I too am in need of all of the things that makes my natural system thrive. We, as a collective system, are in operation and we need to take care of each other in a particular way, and we definitely need to take care of our world better, you know, and we, we take care of the things that we stop to notice and cultivate a connection with. So I'm deeply passionate about, you know, the bigger picture, uh, piece as well, go out into nature, because we all need to care more about our natural systems at every single level that's so beautiful, as you're talking and describing.

Amanda Parker:

I can imagine sitting there in like a resting place, as you say, and just connecting to whatever it is that's in front of you that catches your attention or creates a sense of awe or wonder and allows your mind to just run off wherever it wants to go. In that daydreaming, in that creation, and there's also this sense. I mean you mentioned how nature's mirroring what's happening for us or within us, how it is a great mirror for us and, as you're describing, that working collectively, being collaborative, being creative these are things that nature just is and does and doesn't have to think about it. It just does that. So, by allowing ourselves to really immerse in that wonder of how that all works and what's possible in nature that, like we never would have imagined is possible, helps us reconnect to those pieces of ourself as well.

Caitlin Cockerton:

A hundred percent right, like it's this great empathic, compassionate, neutral witness to what is going on inside of us.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And what's amazing is no matter where you are in nature as long as you're in a wildish place you will be able to find almost everything right that you could be contemplating or struggling with or coming up against.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Right, like, nature is amazing. We have all of this beautiful harmony that might be happening in one part of the ecosystem, you know you have things interacting and constantly moving and changing and adapting for the benefit of some little part of this ecosystem. And then, in another area, you might look and you might see something that was really disruptive, something broke, lightning hit, you know, and all of a sudden there was this enforced change on that context. Okay, then how does that context, you know, evolve and respond? And then you can have something you know totally, totally different, like, okay, let's look up at the mountains, these things that have been around for millions of years, slowly moving and changing and inviting our interest in all sorts of different ways. You know, I just think almost no matter what you're going through in your personal growth journey, if you take that into nature as a context and as a partner and as a friend and mirror, you're going to have an interesting kind of dialogue.

Amanda Parker:

It's also a really important reminder, I mean, for someone like me who is prone to overthinking and planning and like really getting stuck in my head. So if I have new ideas, I want to execute on them, I want to bring them to life, I want to like get into the weeds on doing, and very often I mean sometimes that serves me and sometimes it's just like total overwhelm and I can no longer even see clearly. And just taking even a half an hour to go walk in the park or go walk along a stream, I suddenly feel my whole nervous system relaxing. I feel myself being more grounded, like maybe something that felt so incredibly stuck just disappears, like it's just not stuck. The clarity is just there.

Caitlin Cockerton:

So obviously, Totally so it can invite you to that next step or that different perspective that you need, right. So you're describing okay, I'm completely in the weeds, I'm in the thick of it, and maybe it's interesting you go into a forest and you feel the intensity of its kind of denseness and that mirrors where you are. But then you move through and there's a clearing and you get an incredible view and you're like ah, I just need to keep moving. And then there's a clearing, and then we get to a whole new perspective and now I see where I am, I see where I've come from and now I can see the new horizon and I see where I'm going and I'm going to take that path. That's what's calling me, you know.

Amanda Parker:

So how did it come to be that you started doing this work?

Caitlin Cockerton:

A very meandering path.

Amanda Parker:

Naturally.

Caitlin Cockerton:

I think what's nice is that, yeah, were I to tell my five-year-old self that this is kind of what I'm doing, it would make perfect sense. Doing it would make perfect sense. But the the root there is, yeah, I'm using almost how many twists and turns one has to take to find what was really there right from the start. So I will say I'm Canadian originally. I, you know, was born to two kind of wild hippie parents who were both academics, but they decided to buy a 100 acre farm in the middle of nowhere, in sort of an hour north of Toronto. So I grew up in this beautiful natural environment, right, I had an incredible natural landscape to roam and my parents were definitely kind of advocates of a nature-based free range childhood. I just got let outside the door and I had dogs and cats and horses and you know plenty to entertain myself outside with. And I think that that kind of partnership and at home with and in nature and curiosity about and collaboration with nature is like deeply in my bones. I can immediately just feel at home and anchored, remembering building forts and climbing trees and making little universes and telling stories to myself in nature. Right, that's how I grew up. Then, of course, I went off, became an adult, moved into all sorts of different parts of the world, you know, and other parts of me academic nerdy parts of me got carried away. I had a whole chapter in academia. Then I sort of took a move into business consulting and spent more than 10 years in design thinking and business consulting and innovation, that world. And then I had my own child and I faced, you know, that kind of midlife moment of where am I? Does this make sense? I am clearly in a new chapter and you know, what do I? What do I really want for myself and my family and my daughter? This all came together around the pandemic daughter. This all came together around the pandemic, you know.

Caitlin Cockerton:

I realized I wanted to leave my busy consulting job and the kind of hectic London lifestyle that myself and my husband had been living for at that point, 13 years, and we dreamed about living in the mountains. We dreamed about having a kind of nature-based childhood for our own daughter. We had the Brexit date looming and we decided to make a leap for the French Alps and we did just that and I think at that time this was actually around 2019, I was already thinking about. I really want to get back into nature and I really want to kind of combine the work I've been doing in leadership and team development with being outdoors. Like it was my dream then in 2019 to be doing work that I love doing, but doing it outside. I didn't really know how that was going to work, but I started to run little pilots in and around the South Downs in the UK. I ran a few pilots before we moved to France. Yeah, then it was mid-pandemic. We moved to the French Alps. I was gone from my job then by a few months.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Um, that was really the time for me to lean into coaching, personal development plus nature. And how is this all going to work, you know? But I guess, like anybody trying to find you know their way, but piece things together that are really important to them, you just do that bit by bit, right? And so I began running these little open retreats for my first clients in coaching. And, you know, at this point they were sort of women who were entrepreneurs, like people who were working in corporate jobs, but super entrepreneurial, and maybe they had the desire to break free and go and, you know, live their entrepreneurial journey. But that was the audience that I sort of started with and that I'm still working with today, and I began to run these retreats in the front jobs and then I've been doing that now for five years and it's expanded and changed and gone into all sorts of different directions. You know, now I run founder retreats. I work with a company called Trailhaven and we do much more sort of corporate leadership and team development in nature.

Caitlin Cockerton:

But, yeah, I would say, there comes a point where you go, hey, this is not working for me anymore. There comes a point where you go, hey, this is not working for me anymore. And if I really ask myself, what do I want to be doing? What are the ingredients? What lights me up? What would you know make for a beautiful work for me to do in the world, it is like, okay, these are the ingredients. How do I play with that? How do I begin to test and experiment? And it's still a work in progress, right, like that's where I have been and I know that it's always growing and changing and moving and taking me into little diversions as I keep going.

Amanda Parker:

I think it's a really timely message because I know this is something I experience honestly over and over again, like my whole journey has been that reinvention, like finding the thing, moving through it and then thinking, okay, this is starting to feel a little bit, you know, too confined. What else is there that I want to do? And I know, like certainly for my clients, for plenty of people listening to this this is a really big moment of change for a lot of people who know they want things to be different. They don't really know what that's going to look like yet they might know the relationship or the job or the business something's not quite working.

Amanda Parker:

So I think this story that you're sharing of your own experience is like really powerful, because a lot of people are facing this today and wondering how do I even like, how do I even start to find those ingredients, what do I even need to do to pull those pieces together, to even be able to look at them? And I think just what's coming up for me as well is how do you get through those layers of conditioning and what you should be doing and all the things you've been working hard for, because it's the quote-unquote right path forward the future you, quote-unquote want. How do you even put that aside to start looking at what it is that really calls you? Any advice there that you'd like to share?

Caitlin Cockerton:

yeah, I mean, there's lots of day, lots of different ways of approaching that right and I think it's really important to honor what's going on for any one individual right and I know there's some sort of guidance out there. That's like just throw it to the wind and you know, live your best life.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And you know, live your best life. And you know I we're all moving to bali. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that that's right for everybody. So I would firstly counsel people to, you know, really carve out time to listen to themselves, to slow down, to seek out guides and people who aren't advocating for a particular thing or a particular path, but are guides that are helping you tune into yourself your own wisdom, your own answers. Right, it starts definitely with slowing down and listen, like nature can be a huge help, right?

Caitlin Cockerton:

One simple thing you can think about is, you know, close your eyes and take yourself back to a memory when you were in nature at any age in your life and everything felt right for you. You know your body like fully aligned and alive and attuned to your environment. You know your interplay with the environment, just dancing in a beautiful way. Begin there as a kind of resource and reference point and think about how can I create moments in nature that mirror that type of you know, resource place that you have in mind, and how can you go to that place? How can you create that place and give yourself a bit of space to slow down, to reflect, to connect to yourself, connect to the environment, things begin to open up and you will, you know, carry on from there.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And for some people they need to see a coach or a therapist or speak with a great friend and kind of work through what's stuck and where they want to go, and they need a little inspiration or guidance or nudge. And for other people, you can also give yourself that time and space and wait and see what comes up. I think when we wait and we're in constant distraction and in constant motion with the day-to-day, it's very easy not to get the wisdom from within. It's very easy to drown that out. But if you create the space and the time and the slowing down, I actually think you could do a lot of great work on your own Beautiful message.

Amanda Parker:

Everyone listening, do that. Everyone listening, do that. It's really, really powerful.

Amanda Parker:

And in a world where we're told to speed up and keep up and, you know, keep showing up and social media is everywhere, and especially for those of us who have our own business, it's so easy to get caught up in, like the doing of things and the permission to just slow down, to literally just take the time off, like for me, for example, this weekend I just spent the whole weekend in the garden, in the parks nearby, looking at flowers, blooming, and I mean the week then started peacefully, grounded, feeling confident, feeling happy, feeling nurtured, and yeah, I think it's such simple wisdom which it often is. It's like the simplest wisdom that is the most profound. But just slow down and if you have the you know blessing to have nature nearby which even in cities, most of us have some element of nature nearby to remember, to connect with that, that will always guide you to that centered wisdom that you're looking for. Retreat, you don't need to go find a guru, but it is so nice when you do.

Caitlin Cockerton:

But yeah, it is. It's amazing, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm an advocate, that's what I do for a living. Come join me. I'd love to, I'd love to have you and you can go to a beautiful park. You know, in a city right now, you can find yourself walking around slowly, at a quarter of the pace you would normally walk, and allow yourself to be guided towards something that interests you A beautiful tree, a patch of flowers, a nice, you know, fuzzy patch of grass, and then just go and be in that place for a bit, a few big, deep breaths, ground yourself and one simple question Nature around me, beautiful thing that I'm looking at. What would you have me know right now? What do I need to know right now? And just wait, just wait. I mean, it sounds like you're cuckoo in the coconut, right? You just go and ask a flower. What would you have me know? But I'm serious.

Amanda Parker:

You have the right audience for this here. Yeah, I mean everyone for this stuff, but it's there right. It's there right.

Caitlin Cockerton:

It's there because it's in you. It's in you. It's mirrored in what you're looking at.

Amanda Parker:

it also reminds me a bit of um.

Amanda Parker:

So during the coach training I did I believe we trained with the same place, co-active. There there was this one experience I don't remember in which level it was where they had us experience the difference of our pace of walking and they would have us walk either super fast or then really slow, or like speed walking, something in between, and they had us like really change up this pace of walking over the course of I don't know, maybe it was 15, 20 minutes I have no idea how long we were doing it and just observe how we felt as we were doing that and the difference between walking slowly, leisurely, looking around, taking in the other people or the different lighting or trees outside or whatever it was, versus when you were just moving fast and trying not to knock into anyone else. It was like absolutely. I mean, it still stuck with me now. What like seven, eight years later? I still remember that moment. It was so powerful to see the difference between when I'm rushing, rushing, rushing, or like actually allowing things to move slowly.

Caitlin Cockerton:

You're being a human being in that moment right you are alive to the many capacities that you have for being in the world and gathering information when you slow down. So one of the other exercises I would love for people to try is a kind of slow sensing walk in nature. So very deliberately, going sense by sense. And firstly you have to do your visual sense, because that's the most overwhelming one that we're all driven by. Take in the macro environment and very slowly allow your visual attention to come down to the micro level in an environment and really absorb what it is you're seeing, without naming it, without prescribing the meaning, but just see how much detail and information you can take in visually.

Caitlin Cockerton:

It's very important you do the visual first, because we're all visual dominant. Then you need to, you know, cast your gaze downwards and really soften your gaze and then work on your auditory sense and start listening and try to listen into the many, many levels of things that are going on right now, and you will hear an overwhelming sound. Maybe there's a flight or there's traffic or there's something else, but you will also hear many micro levels of sound going on. You will begin to hear your own breath, your own heartbeat, your own footsteps you know, the insects, the birds, the wind, as it travels across your hair and through your ears.

Caitlin Cockerton:

I mean so you have so much more available in each sense and then just move on. Same with smell, same with taste, same with touch, and you can really do this meditation, slow walking, sensing meditation, over the course of 20, 30 minutes, and it's incredible what we have available to us as sensing beings. This is how we are supposed to be in the world, really like how we're designed to live in nature, alive and attuned with our senses to what's going on around us, picking up all of this information and then following it. So I highly recommend that. And the difference that you're describing in this walk is like well, what happens when I go in and I'm in my logical brain state and I'm like I got to get somewhere? You know you're laser focused and you're moving fast and you know you have to move from A to B and you're really not focusing on a whole lot else, right, A to B and you're really not focusing on a whole lot else, right. But what happens when you slow down and you invite the full range of information through your senses is phenomenal. Like so much opens up, so A, just go out and enjoy that. And I would add one other piece to your exercise, which is just something we like to do in facilitating.

Caitlin Cockerton:

You know, groups in the outdoors, um, to play with the types of language and experiences that people would be doing in the outdoors. So imagine you're out and you're walking and you are a hunter or a tracker and you are stalking something and you are walking very, very slowly, you are making as little a sound as possible, you are tuned into the ground, the trees, any rustling, any sounds and you are looking for something in particular. Like that changes the experience hugely. That's an interesting one. You can also say what if I'm a seeker out here? What if everything around me is actually trying to give me some kind of information? How do I walk around as a seeker Changes your experience so much.

Amanda Parker:

Yeah, I'm ready to go back into the garden now. I guess, as soon as we're done recording, I'm going to go sit in the grass and try this out. Yeah, I'd love to hear just some stories from the wilderness, if you will, of what is actually possible with this work. So I know that you're guiding teams. I think for a lot of people that's really hard to imagine. Like what if my whole team comes together and we go? Like what's happening there, you know, are we worshiping trees? No, what's actually like possible when you bring people together in the wilderness like that? What changes have you seen happen?

Caitlin Cockerton:

Well, the thing I would say is, the whole context provides this incredible experiential metaphor for different parts of leadership that are really important, right? And you know, organizations or different clients will all have different needs, and that's the first step is actually to explore where they are, what are the challenges that they're having? You know, where are they excelling as leaders and where do they need to focus their work? Right? I think one of the easy ways of doing this is I'll credit Trailhaven, because this is work I've been doing with Trailhaven to think about what leadership pillars are really alive to us in nature, and there are four. We say there's mindful self-awareness. You know that ability to really slow down and be present to what is going on. What gets activated in you? What is it that you need to you know, work on and address in nature? We can bring that up. There is empowering collaboration. So being in nature as a group, as a team, is a wonderful experience that invites you to work together to solve challenges. Like, maybe we're going to ask you to navigate from point A to point B and we're going to give you very few resources, and how are you going to do that as a team? That's an exciting exercise, like dropping you in the wilderness, find your way home, kind of stuff. Or we ask you, you know, we teach you a bunch of skills and then we ask you to set up camp, to gather the materials, to build fires, to build shelter to, you know, create an environment that everybody can enjoy for the evening. We, you know we, frequently do solo work. Um, so, having these sort of mini vision quests, uh, for participants outdoors all night, you know, and part of that is a is a real solo experience, like the mindful self-awareness first pillar that I was know. And part of that is a real solo experience, like the mindful self-awareness first pillar that I was talking about. But part of that is empowering collaboration and working together.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And the third pillar that we talk about bringing to life in nature is creative adaptation. Right, I said, one of the things that the research shows is that we're where we become more creative. We become better problem solvers, you know, and we are constantly inspired by the adaptations that nature is showing us. So, okay, if you guys need to work as an organization, as a team, around your innovation, around your creativity, around your problem solving skills, I mean we can throw in all sorts of activities and challenges, both deliberate and just natural ones, that we come across because we're out in nature and it's asking you to be adaptive and creative all the time and you've got to work on that in an experiential way. So maybe it's part of a challenge that you have to gather all of these types of resources, or we are setting people a challenge of getting from one point to another.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And then the fourth pillar is a sustainable stewardship. So we want people to actually believe that they can be responsible agents of positive change in their organizations and in the world, and we want people to go out and, as I said earlier, you know experience, that connection to themselves, to each other and to nature, each other and to nature and to feel responsible for it, to feel like this is worth preserving. This is an important part of my purpose. Yeah, I would say for anyone who's a leader of an organization or a team who's thinking about you know the challenges that they're having developmentally or thinking about how to do, you know an offsite that people will remember and develop from. I can honestly say there is no better classroom for leadership and team development than going in the outdoors, and there's a way of doing it that is inclusive and empowering and beautiful for everyone. You know, we can accommodate every kind of person who is, you know, fearful of nature, through to the person who is?

Amanda Parker:

You said, setting up camp, and I was like, oh boy.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Yeah, yeah.

Caitlin Cockerton:

I mean, let me tell you how many people feel that way when we tell them we're going to be here for the night. But it's such a powerful teacher and people come away with this embodied experience, lessons that run so deep in their bodies, in their memories, together as a team, and they translate it to their, to their workplace, and they translate it to the problems they're trying to solve. But actually, importantly, we didn't go directly to the problems that you're trying to solve. We provided a context that very cleverly allows you to mirror what's going on in your leadership, in your team dynamics, et cetera. And then we say, okay, should we look at that, should we go a little deeper and how could we improve? How could we improve that setting up camp or that navigation exercise or that?

Caitlin Cockerton:

you know, stalking game, or you know, and we, and we learned something very, very interesting about our leadership.

Amanda Parker:

So it sounds like people come into this experience probably. I can just imagine I had my corporate days and I've also done trainings with leadership teams, things like that. I can imagine they're coming and they're like, yeah, okay, another leadership retreat or let's check this one off the box, and then they're actually immersed in this wild experience that they've probably possibly never experienced before, or maybe not since they were kids, and they're basically learning how to interact with the world around them, how to take lessons from all of these life skills, how to collaborate differently, how to build their own confidence, to feel courageous, like. It sounds like it's really, yeah, you're really working on that. I mean, the in speak would be self leadership as well, but really helping people build that confidence and courage within themselves that they can handle this, which also then translates back into the workplace or into their teams or their families or wherever else things might not quite feel how they want them to.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Yeah, I mean it absolutely translates in all sorts of different directions, right when they come out. It's a, it's an experience that may be driven by a team or, you know, a company wanting to bring something to the organization, but I think the impact will be felt in all sorts of ways.

Amanda Parker:

You also told me that there's this element of what you do that's also with founders, and I'm really curious to hear what's possible through that experience. Like, if you're bringing founders together who, yeah, maybe they're struggling to collaborate or to grow, and you actually bring them together into this wild experience, what have you seen happen?

Caitlin Cockerton:

Well, I'm getting ready for a tech founders retreat over this coming weekend, so I'm looking forward to that. So how do I work with founders? So how do I work with founders? One way is that we have a founders retreat where a collection, let's say, eight to ten founders from different organizations come and experience a retreat over the course of four days. We run those here in the French Alps. You're in the French Alps, and what's amazing is founders are usually incredibly focused overstretched, stressed.

Amanda Parker:

you know what's that? Like I don't understand.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Yeah, their eye is always on the next problem at hand and they have to do all of that. And in the face of all of that, they also feel an incredible loneliness. You know, an incredible sense of this is all on me and I think one of the things that's so beautiful about coming together in an environment that disconnects them from their day to day. You know, we are away from the city, we're in the mountains, we're in a beautiful location. We tell everybody to give us their phones. They, you know they, properly disconnect from the day-to-day and they do, you know, a combination of A, just allowing nature to work its magic and kind of slow their system down and do all of that great stuff that it does to our minds and bodies. Be looking at their own personal development work that they have to do, because that then opens up. We firstly drop the energy. Secondly, we start looking at what's present and what are we here to work on. And then, thirdly, those founders are also coming together to be in community, to be in mentorship, to be in peer-to-peer support. They're doing that in this very special container where everybody is letting their cards out, you know, and I think, the friendships that are born in that setting are amazing, you know, and I think the friendships that are born in that setting are amazing, you know. I think that's one of the things that I get so excited about. People come in as strangers and they leave, you know, as friends and collaborators, and they've introduced each other to, you know 10 people the first day that they've all arrived back to their computers, and so that feels like a really positive way for people to come and engage.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And then a second way that I work with founders is those who are also my coachees. So I'll give you an example of a pair of co-founders that I've been working with for several years now. I began working with one of them at the start of their journey in creating a design studio where they were going to move to another city and another country and start something from scratch, and I began working one-to-one with one of these co. -founders. Over time, I also began working with her other co-founder and again over time, I also began working with her other co-founder and again over time, we began to design a much sort of richer and comprehensive set of coaching interventions for them that support them both individually and as a co-founding pair, and so as a pair, they would come out and do you know sort of intensive development piece in nature for three or four days together, and we'd be focused on what is it about them?

Caitlin Cockerton:

And working together at this stage in their company's development that they need to work on. And then, of course, we're doing our ongoing one-to-one work as well. Um, but it's a it's a beautiful way to work because you know, there's there's a sense that their development journeys are coming together and staying connected in this regular rhythm, like we're gonna, you know, do this this twice or three times a year and we're gonna spend these four days and we're going to really have any of the conversations that we need to have. We're going to bring up the hard stuff. You know we're going to go away feeling like we're not carrying that on our own, like we've aired it, and then you have their, their parallel tracks of their own, their own journeys, that that are still being supported as well.

Amanda Parker:

So it sounds like people really leave these experiences feeling seen, feeling understood, feeling connected, feeling like clear and grounded in what they're creating and how they're working together. So it does sound like really healing work, especially if you're coming together with your co-founder and, whatever day-to-day challenges or struggles you might be facing, that you're really able to connect and see the work and your partnership in a different way. I can imagine that for solo founders like myself, having those negotiations alone are also important.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Yeah, and I think for a solo founder, it's nice to feel like, as part of your coaching work, there is this like third partner, this third element, which is nature, and you know that you have a set of tools that you can go off and have a quiet sort of moment to yourself with nature and there are answers available in that type of experience. Most coaches, you know we want to arm our clients with a toolkit that they can, that they can use themselves. Right, we, we want to be there as as guides and partners when they need it. But we also want them to go off into the world and, you know, brave the wilderness in their own beautiful ways and use those tools themselves.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Yeah, I often talk to my clients about that particular metaphor. You know, like I am here, we're going to start this journey. We both have, like I want you to imagine, we both have two backpacks. You know I have a set of tools and skills and questions and experiences in my journey out in the inner and outer wilderness and in what I've witnessed with the people that I've worked with in their inner and outer wilderness, and we're going to go on an adventure together, you know, and along this journey, what I hope I'm doing is filling your backpack. I am filling your backpack with awesome tools and resources and ways of approaching new challenges and getting different perspectives.

Caitlin Cockerton:

And going out on your own, you know, is I ultimately want people to feel just well equipped for their own adventures. Right, like and that's that's where this whole like your guide through the internet or wilderness, like a good guide, a good mountain guide is also doing the same thing. Right, like, they're saying this is how we go out into the wilderness, this is, these are the things you need to be thinking about. This is how you can look at and explore nature and the wonder and the beauty that's around you, you know, and a mountain guide is with you for a day or a few days if you're really lucky, but hopefully they've given you some wonderful new tools and I think coaching, at least my version of coaching, shares that kind of metaphor Like, and then I want you to go out and explore your amazing wilderness. It's infinite, you know it's infinite.

Amanda Parker:

So for anyone who's listening, who would love to learn more or get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Caitlin Cockerton:

You can visit my website, which is CaitlinCockertonco, and you'll find all things about Caitlin Cockerton coaching there. You can also find me on LinkedIn. You can find a very infrequently updated Instagram, which maybe one day I will connect to more frequently, but I'd say the best way is to reach out directly. If you're interested in this type of coaching, connect with me over email, connect at Caitlin Cockertonco and we can have a conversation. See where it goes.

Amanda Parker:

Any last words of advice for anyone who's just starting this journey themselves.

Caitlin Cockerton:

Remember that you too are nature. Remember that nature is not just a place that we go and visit in a context that we have to place ourselves in to do optimal personal development, like I've been talking about, but you too are this incredible natural system and you have all of the wisdom built into this incredible system of yours that will help you to interact, connect, adapt, evolve and find your way Beautiful.

Amanda Parker:

Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful glimpse into the work that you do in the way that, yeah, it's such a unique way that you're bringing nature and the wild into people's lives and I can just feel the power of that. So, really, thank you so much for sharing that with us. Caitlin, it's my pleasure. It's been a really fun conversation. Thank you, amanda, and to everyone who's listening, thanks for tuning in to this week's episode and I'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Don't Step on the Blue Bells. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give the podcast a five-star rating wherever you listen, and don't forget to hit subscribe and follow along so you never miss a new episode.

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Amanda Parker

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Caitlin Cockerton

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