Adventure | Learning | Wellbeing

Being outdoors, spending time in nature or enjoying Adventurous activities can produce fantastic opportunities to have fun, reflect, play, develop, learn about ourselves, and experience amazing things and places.

The original concept of using the outdoors as a vehicle to rehabilitation, development and learning has been around since the late 1970s and has become an academic and therapeutic concept we now call Adventure Therapy. 

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." Sir Edmund Hillary

 

What we do

Simply put, Inward Adventures uses  Adventurous activities, nature and the outdoors to create opportunity to learn new skills, grow and develop, all while having an Adventure and having fun!

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What is Adventure Therapy?

Adventure Therapy is the use of nature and the outdoors to support the development and growth of people. It helps people to understand and overcome issues around cognative, behavioural, social or affective disorders. 

It uses tools such as goal setting, decision making, achievement and accountability while in a live environment. It can reinforce positive learning and behaviour all through practical experimental learning.

We know that the word "Therapy" can put a lot of people off...we want to reassure you that Inward Adventures is not clinical and simply uses the concepts and lessons taken form studying the subject to best support people on their amazing journeys.

 

How does Inward Adventures use Adventure to develop people?

We use the outdoors to provide the experiences and opportunities to learn and develop, in amazing ways, in amazing places. We use a mindful and wellbeing approach to all the activities we delivered.

We focus on three specific areas, Adventure, Learning and Wellbeing.

 

Our Adventures are opportunities to take on a challenge, further develop skills and develop yourself practically and emotional.  

 

We provide Learning opportunities which are courses such as our introduction to navigation, indoor climbing or letterboxing. We even offer accredited qualifications such as the National Navigation Award Scheme course. These courses focus on learning and developing hard skills and always provide the opportunity to reflect and learn more about yourself, push your limits and create new goals and achievements too.

 

We also understand that we live in demanding, complex and stressful times, and we often need time and the opportunity to explore and maintain our wellbeing. We offer Digital Detoxes and Mindful retreats, providing the chance to really ground yourself, learn new things and to reflect and take forward what you have learnt and apply it into your day to day lives. 

 

This is what separates us from other outdoor organisations. 

We truly believe "You Are The Adventure" and so we can support in the development of the hard skills while embracing the life lessons and soft skills. 

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What are the benefits of being outdoors? 

 It is no myth many of us are searching for the best work / life balance, we are becoming more entwined with our technology such as smart phones and we want everything as soon as we ask for it, including our food, shopping or items we order online.

Mental health issues are rising, obesity is becoming more and more common and many of us think or feel like we have no time to ourselves anymore. Where can we possibly fit in sometime to be outside?!

"It always seems impossible until it is done", Nelson Mandela.

Ask yourself one question. How much do you want to keep doing what you are doing and getting what you have always got?

There are hundereds and hundreds of benefits for spending sometime outdoors. Sometimes it is the biggest challenge to find the time to get there but once you do there are huge rewards!

• Nature and the outdoor environment can help us to reduce our stress and anxiety levels, allowing us to focus better and be more productive. 

• Spending time in the outdoors can help to reduce our blood pressure, lengthening our life span naturally and preventing serious health complications.

• Spending time outside with friends and meeting new people and engaging with real people instead of social media apps can increase our ability to relax, learn social skills and create positive relationships.

• We learn more about ourselves, where our boundaries are and we can become more self-aware and self-confident.

• We can challenge our boundaries and push ourselves to become even more than we think we already are.

• We can learn how to overcome adversity and challenging situations, we become more resilient, and we learn to support others in achieving this too.

• We can have real world experiences away from screens, social and general media and other distractions which can have a negative impacts.

• Our moods and feelings become more positive.

• We can become more open and emotionally aware of ourselves and others.

These are just a few of the benefits we can experience from spending time in nature and from having Adventures, if you don't believe this come and give it a go, play with the concept and let us know what you learn. 

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Adventure | Learning | Wellbeing 

Adventure means something different to each one of us. Some may think an Adventure is scaling dizzying heights to summit a huge snow capped mountain in the Himalayas. Others may think it is canoeing great flowing rivers through deep lonely forests of Canada. For some it may be a walk through a beautiful local woodland and witnessing gentle trees swaying in the breeze or spending time in a local park listening to bird song.

We use a range of Adventurous activities as a vehicle to support development of people be it with hard skills such as learning to navigate to better enjoy their own Adventures or with soft skills such as overcoming anxiety or building their self esteem.

 

 "Once you stop learning you start dying" Albert Einstein. 

Inward Adventures is built around using the outdoor environment as a way to learn and experience yourself.

We strive to support your learning by providing opportunities to experience yourself in the amazing setting of the outdoors, be it in a beautiful woodland while on a retreat, or climbing a mountain in Scotland or further afield. We believe You Are the Adventure, and your true potential is just waiting to be recognised, by you. 

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We live in a time where we may focus our attentions on negatives rather than positives. We can even talk to ourselves in a negative way. When was the last time you told yourself you're doing well, or that was a good job, or you're an amazing person? The repetitive self talk creates our paradigm and we become a product of what we tell ourselves. 

I wonder, if you were to talk to yourself and others with positivity, just for one day, how would you be different? What would you say to yourself? Want are your barriers right now?

Through spending time outdoors, in nature or through Adventurous activity we want you to find yourself, recognise your true potential and to achieve amazing things! We believe the ideas of time in the outdoors can have amazingly positive impacts on our wellbeing, both physically and mentally. We want to help you recognise this too.

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"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." Thomas Jefferson.