Episode Two: Anna Neubert-Wood, WanderWomen Scotland. Creating Sisterhood in the Wild
Hello, lovely one! I hope you’re safe and well wherever you are. Welcome to the first conversation episode of Prompted by Nature.
We’re currently in week 7 of lockdown here in the UK but just before we entered this liminal space, I spoke with Anna Neubert-Wood of Wanderwomen, Scotland. Anna has been running WanderWomen Scotland Ltd for almost two years, encouraging groups of women to connect with nature through a combination of survival skills and mindfulness. A connector, facilitator, adventurer and wellbeing guide, Anna loves sharing her passion for the outdoors, inspiring others to pause and notice things, inside and out, and re-awaken the inner child. She firmly believes that we are all stronger than we think, and that we are so much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. Empowering and inspiring, WanderWomen has found an international market for re-connecting to self, to nature and to those around us.
I’ve known Anna for a couple years, having initially connected with her through the wonder of the Instagram yoga world. I’ve been following her journey setting up and running Wanderwomen since its inception and am constantly inspired by Anna’s big-hearted sharing and her ability to create and hold space for the women in her groups, whether that be on overnight wilderness camping trips or weekly sea-swimming groups. As she mentions, Anna runs Wanderwomen from her home in Edinburgh, seeking out the wild spaces around her and supporting the women in her groups, many of whom are taking their first tentative steps into these.
In this interview, Anna speaks of how her love of nature came in her early childhood growing up in East Germany in the then divided GDR, the importance of boredom in not just children but adults too and how this creates rich opportunities for our creativity, her dream for Wanderwomen and what she does to ensure that her cup remains full when giving so much to the women in her community. Anna also speaks of her hopes for what these ‘lockdown days’ could lead to, in nature and in ourselves.
It was a wonderful conversation and, for me personally, a real moment of calm amidst the chaos of the early Covid days here in the UK, when no one really knew what was going on but we had an inkling that things were about to change beyond recognition, something we also touch upon.
Please stay around until the end when I’ll give you a little information about the meditation and writing prompt I’ve created in the follow-up to this conversation.
As always, you can find me over at www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on the Instagram squares with my daily writing prompts @prompted.by.nature
Until then, I’m sending you lots of love. Enjoy the conversation and I’ll speak to you soon.
