Hannah McNeilly is a gentle force with a heart deeply rooted in nature. Born in Germany, she lives in Scotland. With a rich background as both a medical doctor and a PhD in Social Anthropology, she bridges the gap between science and spirit.
Her unique journey, from clinical medicine to a profound connection with the earth, led her to become an FTHub Forest Therapy Practitioner and Accredited Trainer Nature Connection Specialist -she offers the 2-day FTHub Nature Connection Specialist course.
“Now I’m in the habit of going into nature every morning for about an hour and just sitting with nature. That really helps me to foreground nature because I think it’s so easy that in our daily lives we go from A to B. We do things and even when we pass through nature it is just a backdrop. I don’t want to see is just as a backdrop. It has become very present in my life.”
“As a child, I felt very connected to animals. I loved watching them. My friend had a little pond in their garden. We just watched the different water creatures for hours… When I was around 10, I joined this group of friends to clean up a local pond once a week. We made it our own. We had great times there, we looked after the pond and we called ourselves The Water Frogs”.
From Medicine to Anthropology
“During my last stay in Brazil for a PhD in Social Anthropology, I stayed with the community in the Atlantic rainforest and that was a very intense encounter with nature. That was really magical.”
“Working as a medical doctor became quite frustrating after a while because I didn’t have much time for asking the important questions. I had like 5 to 10 minutes with each patient. I had to very quickly make a diagnosis and come up with a treatment plan and then send them on their way. And that was very superficial”.
“There was no space for really understanding the underlying problems and tackling them. I transitioned to Medical Anthropology because I wanted to understand how people experience illness and also how health and illness are different in different cultures and the healing practices there.”
“Western medicine is great and evidence-based and a lot of progress has been made there, but also there are some dimensions that are underexplored.”
“That was a really important transition. I came here to Edinburgh for a year to study for a Master’s degree in Medical Anthropology but I loved it so much that I didn’t want to go back to the clinic. Then I did my PhD about religious healing in Candomblé which is an Afro Brazilian religion.”
Connecting with the Body and Nature
“There are structural problems that lead to ill health, such as social inequality. But we also talk about the body, understanding how it is perceived differently in different cultures and viewing the body as connected to nature.”
“That really came in through the pandemic…I needed something to feel good. And fortunately, we have a garden… I trained in somatics and really started sensing my body. That was something I could do at home: noticing my body, what it needed and paying attention to all that… I also realized that in medicine and in academia, in high stress work environments, we neglect our own bodies. We don’t pay attention.”
“Forest Therapy is a somatic experience only that you don’t just walk around in a room and sense into your body but you walk around in a natural environment, or sit there and then sense and connect with them. The natural environment makes this experience so rich… I think that’s my message. We are not machines. It’s not that we are here and nature is over there. We’re nature.”
Forest Therapy for Caregivers
“I signed up for the FTHub training at the beginning because it’s really evidence-based and I am a researcher. It is important for me to do research in that area. I remember the first walk that we did during the training… Oh, I enjoyed it so much. It was amazing…sharing that was so connecting and so insightful that I just thought I have found my people: this is what I want to do.”
“So people in caring professions are not only extremely undervalued and underpaid but also sacrifice a lot, and that is a big burden on their mental health, on their physical health. That’s why I want to work with people who care in these different ways…I want to support them and to give them tools to sense their bodies, to connect with nature, to maybe even change their ways of working so that they’re more sustainable…helping people to step away from stress and overwhelm . That is one of my main goals and that’s what I want to use this work for.”
“I teach courses now to help exactly these people , also educators, teachers, to learn these tools to connect with nature, for themselves as well as for the people they work with. My message is that you’re not a machine, be gentle with yourself.”
Ph: Courtesy Hannah McNeilly
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