A month ago, the High Fens (Hautes Fagnes) were still on fire.

Around 3,000 hectares of this unique landscape on the German-Belgian border were affected - an area nearly a fifth the size of the Brussels-Capital Region. Copernicus satellite images show the full extent of the damage left behind by the fire.

It has rained since. The summer’s heatwaves have passed. The surface looks calm again. The area is still being monitored, the fire appears to be out. And yet, deeper in the ground, peat layers have still been smouldering, occasionally flaring up again as small pockets of fire.

There is a parallel here that may feel familiar when something in our own lives has tipped out of balance. We react, we slow down, perhaps we take a few days off. The acute symptoms subside - and with them comes the impression that everything is fine again. But if the conditions that threw us off balance haven’t changed, the underlying load can continue to build beneath the surface.

The High Fens, a complex system of bog, heath, forest and wetland habitats that took centuries to form, remind us that it isn’t enough to look only at what is visible. We also need to pay attention to what is happening in the deeper layers.

The same can be true of our own “system”. What has built up, or been pushed aside, over a long period of time doesn’t simply disappear because the surface looks calm again.

I witness this regularly in my work - in a different context, but with a familiar pattern.

What I Notice Outdoors

As a nature-based resilience trainer and forest-bathing guide, nature is both part of my work and the place I spend a lot of my time in.

I accompany people in different situations: carrying a lot of responsibility, navigating change or uncertainty, going through a difficult time, or simply looking for a different way of dealing with everyday demands.

And there is something I keep seeing that applies to many of us: we treat regeneration as something we allow ourselves only when everything else is done. We treat our health and our energy as though they were self-evident and limitless.

We expect our bodies to function. To stay productive. To keep going, even when, over a long period of time, they receive too little attention, rest or recovery.

This rarely happens out of indifference. Often, it is seemingly good reasons that lead us to push past our own capacity. We carry responsibility. Others rely on us. A task needs finishing. A project needs closing. Decisions need to be taken. Deadlines need to be kept and very often, everything comes at the same time.

Especially when a lot matters to us, we can become willing to demand a lot from ourselves. The body will keep up, we tell ourselves. It’ll get quieter later. After this project. After this deadline. After this event. Once this phase is over - then we’ll take care of ourselves.

And as long as we still ‘function’, it is easy to assume that we are fine. We rarely stop to ask what constant pressure is costing us. It is often only when something gives way that we realise how much we have been drawing on - and how much we have already depleted.

A similar pattern can be seen in the way we treat nature. We take the forests, water, soils, landscapes and air for granted. We use what is there because it is there. As long as everything continues to function, we rarely ask what it takes to keep it that way.

Of course, a human body is not an ecosystem and a forest is not a person. This comparison has its limits. But there are parallels they share: Neither our health nor a natural environment is an inexhaustible resource.

Both can absorb only so much pressure. Both need periods of recovery, both depend on conditions that allow recovery to take place. And in both cases, we tend to overlook warning signs as long as things still seem to be working.

I say this as someone who has been there myself. For a long time, I saw my own energy and my ability to get things done as a given, as something inexhaustible. Everything seemed to be a matter of flawless organisation and optimisation. I noticed my body’s signals, but I didn’t take them seriously. Other things mattered more. My health? Sure, I’ll get to it once everything else is handled.

Except there was always something else to handle. And at some point, my resources ran out. My priorities had been wrong, and it took me a long time to admit that and to start changing them.

Nature played a decisive role in that process. There were no obligations, no demands, no to-do lists in the forest. There was space to notice, time to walk, to observe, to think. Nature became a place where thoughts could settle, priorities could shift and change could begin.

We tend to react only once we have lost something: to exhaustion, illness, to what no longer works. Or to a landscape that suddenly isn’t the way we remember it.

We know that we depend on nature. We know that our ability to work under pressure is not unlimited. We understand the figures, the warnings and the wider context and still continue as before. Why? Because knowing is not enough – we need to experience it. Change begins, when something we understand intellectually is complemented by something we have felt and encountered for ourselves.

Nature as a Resonating Space

This aspect is also at the heart of my practice.

In my forest-based courses, I don’t just pass on information or communicate context. I invite participants to experience it directly. Outdoors. In the forest. With all their senses.

Everyone experiences nature differently - and that matters. When we slow down and really start to notice, our relationship with the natural world, and with ourselves, begins to shift.

When we notice the variety of colours, pay attention to scents, sounds, light and textures, and at the same time begin to sense what is happening within our own bodies, nature becomes more than scenery. It becomes a space that resonates back.

Our attention turns outward, and often something inside us opens up as well.

Nature shows us that growth and regeneration take time. That growth is not constant or evenly paced. That activity and rest, change and adaptation, matter in equal measure. That not everything needs to be available all the time. And that resilience isn’t the same as being inexhaustible.

This may be part of why we often feel different in nature. Calmer. Clearer. Less driven. Sometimes, it feels like coming home - to a home that we evolved in and that our bodies and minds still recognise.

The benefits of spending time in nature for our physical and mental wellbeing are well documented in research. But no study can replace the experience itself.

You have to go out and feel it for yourself.

What the High Fens Teach Us

The fire in the High Fens is under control. And still, the question remains: what’s happening in the deeper layers?

One reason the fire in the High Fens was so destructive, apart from the prolonged drought, is that it had been drained over decades to make room for spruce plantations. Economic interests came at the expense of healthy foundations.

When bogs are drained, monocultures are favoured over diversity, and forests are cleared for grazing land, we undermine the very conditions ecosystems need to regenerate and remain resilient.

This also matters for our health. When exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems or other warning signs appear, taking a break can help. But it doesn’t automatically change the conditions that led to the exhaustion in the first place: too many demands, extensive workload, own expectations, too little time to recover.

Those conditions deserve our attention.

Reacting only to what becomes visible on the surface doesn’t go far enough. That means not just quieting the warning signs in the short term but looking at the conditions that put lasting strain on us in the first place: our own priorities and expectations as much as the structures and workflows within organisations.

Performance and regeneration aren’t opposites. They depend on each other. Sustained performance requires recovery - not as a reward after the work is done, but as an integrated part of it.

Beneath the Surface

The High Fens, and the many other wildfires this summer, deserve to be more than news images that fade once it rains. They remind us that what is visible is only part of the story. What smoulders beneath the surface doesn’t disappear simply because we stop looking.

If we want to remain healthy and effective over time, we need to think differently about what makes that possible. The question is not simply how much more we can get out of ourselves, a company or an ecosystem. It is what we and these systems need in order to remain healthy, adaptive and productive over the long term.

How do we find out what sustains us?

One way to begin is to step outside.

Into the forest. Into nature. Not just passing through but really being there. Taking the time to stand still and notice the small things: smells, sounds, colours, light, movement and, in the process, noticing yourself.

This may sound simple, but it can have profound effects. We may begin to see nature’s diversity, her resilience and her vulnerability - and perhaps recognize our own place within something larger.

We are physical beings. We take things in through our bodies and senses far more fully than through intellectual understanding alone. What we experience in nature can settle deeper, giving knowledge weight, meaning and personal relevance. 

A walk in the forest cannot and should not substitute for scientific knowledge, political action or effective policy. But it can complement it, giving what we already know a different kind of meaning. It can make the seemingly abstract more tangible and might strengthen what we value, what we prioritise and what we are willing to act on.

From there, something can begin to shift: how we treat our own resources, how we shape the organisations we work in, how we relate to the natural systems that sustain us.