Rewilding Humans

We wake up to alarm clocks, not because we’re rested, but because we’re required to. We rush through breakfast, if we bother with it at all, and dive headfirst into screens. We scroll, we skim, we absorb nothing. On some days, we don’t even look up at the sky. This is the rhythm we’ve come to accept. This is what we now call normal.

But it isn’t normal. We’ve just all silently agreed to pretend it is.

Carl Jung once described modern life as soulless, and he wasn’t being dramatic. He was simply telling the truth. Because somewhere deep inside, we feel the ache too. We sense it in our bodies, in our tension, in the low hum of anxiety that follows us through the day. There’s a part of us that knows this isn’t how life is meant to be.

Think about how we respond when we see an animal caged, living in a zoo or performing in a circus. When it paces in tight circles, withdrawn, anxious, cut off from the environment that once allowed it to thrive, we instinctively say, “This isn’t right. It doesn’t belong here.”

But how often do we extend that same compassion to ourselves?

The truth is, many of us have built lives we can’t breathe in. We’ve normalised burnout and glorified being busy. We reward the hustle and overlook the harm. We push through our exhaustion, override the quiet signals from our nervous systems, and call it drive. We call it ambition. We call it success.

But so much of what we admire in modern culture is actually a trauma response. Hyper-independence isn’t strength, it’s often a survival strategy. Being constantly busy is not a sign of importance, but a distraction from what we’re afraid to feel. Our obsession with productivity is not rooted in passion, but in scarcity. It's a wound passed down through generations, dressed up to look like ambition.

We’ve been domesticated, trained to ignore our instincts and abandon our bodies, all in the name of progress. We've been taught that rest is lazy, that slowing down is weakness, and that self-worth must be earned through effort. We’ve learned to disconnect from the very things that make us human.

What’s deeply human is rhythm, slowness, community, connection, rest, and play. And yet, when we try to reclaim any of these things, we feel guilty. We feel like we need to justify it. We say things like, “I need a break,” or “I’m taking time for my mental health,” as if being alive in a human body needs a permission slip.

But you don’t need permission. You don’t have to earn the right to exist. You were never meant to prove your worth through output. You are not a machine.

Rewilding isn’t about abandoning everything and living off the land. It’s not about disappearing into a forest or becoming someone else. It’s about remembering who you were before the world told you who to be. It’s about returning to yourself.

And yes, life is full. We have jobs, children, ageing relatives, health challenges, bills, real responsibilities that can’t be ignored. Most of us can’t just escape the system we’re in. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless.

A few hours outside, away from the constant noise and pressure, can be enough to change everything. Nature holds something we’ve forgotten, a rhythm that matches our own, a kind of honesty we rarely allow ourselves. It helps us breathe differently, see clearly, and reconnect with parts of ourselves we’ve been taught to suppress.

It’s not a luxury. It’s medicine. Nervous system repair. A return to truth.

Because when we step away from the demands, from the static, from the striving, we start to hear something far more ancient, our own natural pace. We reconnect with the part of us that doesn’t need fixing, improving or perfecting. The part that simply is.

That is rewilding.
Not just being in nature, but coming back to your nature.
Not just getting outside, but getting back inside yourself.

If you would like to spend some time unplugging I offer one to one sessions where we can walk, talk and learn how to slow down. Contact me today for more details.