David Roland Author

03/07/2025

Join me Saturday 12 July for a face-to-face session on writing trauma. This trauma-informed workshop is designed for writers and memoirists who seek to explore and express personal or witnessed trauma with care, skill, and authenticity. Through guided writing exercises, reflective practices, and thoughtful discussion, participants will learn how to portray trauma, healing and post-traumatic growth, and maintain emotional well-being while writing difficult truths. Ideal for those ready to tell powerful, honest stories that tap into vulnerability and resilience.

Learn how trauma shapes memory, language and narrative, and how to write the arc of post-traumatic growth in memoir and story. Book your place .

12/10/2024

Of late, I've been watching hiking videos of people walking in places I haven't been to and Harmen Hoek's videos are special. For me, they become a meditation because he does what writers call 'show don't tell' and he doesn't overlay the videos with heavy handed music and highlights nature sounds as much as possible. This is from his recent trip to the Rocky Mountains in Canada and today I met a Canadian at a tree planting who told me about hiking in Canada outside of Vancover, including how to use bear spray! The photography in Harmen's videos is phenomenal.

Video sponsored by Garage Grown Gear. Check out my gear picks here: https://www.garagegrowngear.com/collections/harmens-ggg-picks.► Supported by Enlightened ...

10/10/2024

What I particularly like in this article is how the author identified a particular walk for its rich sensory possibilities and that she and her companion's attitude was to seek solitude and active connection with nature for its mental health and physical benefits. She's nicely identified many of the elements that are thought to contribute to these benefits.

Research suggests that our minds benefit from our encounters with aspects of nature – be it cold water and calming scents, or vivid colours and certain types of landscape – and Kielderhead ticks all the boxes

09/09/2024

Fascinating study of Turkish family caregivers of cancer patients and the part hope and age play in the potential for posttraumatic growth. The results suggest that caregivers who have greater hope, see suffering as transformative and are middle-aged to older show greater posttraumatic growth. The same effect was not found for younger caregivers. The researchers suggest that a mediating factor could be the Islamic belief that suffering can be part of God's plan. Whether one holds a religious concept of the purpose of suffering it remains the case that, "According to hope theory, when faced with adversities such as caring for a cancer patient, individuals can uncover their latent strengths, develop new skills and abilities, and utilize their existing resources in novel ways. Logotherapy posits that caregivers can reframe their experiences with cancer patients as opportunities for love, compassion, and personal growth, thereby creating a positive narrative around their patients’ suffering. This positive reframing may shape caregivers’ perspectives and enhance their levels of hope by focusing on the meaningful aspects of their caregiving role."

Cancer is a deadly disease that affects millions of people worldwide and is a source of great difficulty, stress, and trauma not only for patients but also for their caregivers. The physical and emotional suffering that patients experience by patients can lead their caregivers to cope with constant....

13/08/2024

Green Room discussion before our event Animals: Us and Them at the Byron Writers Festival with Laura Jean MacKay, Peter Singer and James Bradley, with me, Chair. We'd already had email to and fro prior to the day but this was the first time we caught up in person. It's always delightful and a little surprising to meet writers in the flesh when you've only seen their profile pictures before. This session was recorded by the ABC and I hope they broadcast it because it was an illuminating and engaging discussion. Laura's embodiment of a mosquito and how she came to find the mosquito voice for 'Animals in That Country' was delightful.

12/08/2024

What a delight it was to share the stage with Julia Baird in flight as she spoke about her hunger for grace in today's world. She even appreciated my humour!

30/07/2024

I will be interviewing Peter Singer, James Bradley and Laura Jean McKay at the Byron Writers Festival, Saturday 10 August 9:15 AM
in a session titled: Animals, Us and Them
"Whether as pets, companions, aids, property, or food, animals are deeply linked to human beings. Join prize-winning novelists James Bradley (Deep Water), Laura Jean McKay (Gunflower) and ethicist Peter Singer (The Buddhist and the Ethicist) to discuss how we depict animals in literature and value them in our lives."
Three marvellous writers and thinkers. Currently I'm enjoying the panoramic work Deep Water about the role of oceans and their inhabitants since the formation of the earth to the present.

24/07/2024

Are you a forest bathing guide or guide in training? You are welcome to join me and others from the Australasia region to meet and discuss what we are doing and how we can embrace our activities together. I will be hosting this meeting for the first time and hopefully can get the tech working satisfactorily. Starts 8 pm Sydney time Thursday 25 July.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcpf-mtrT0iH9GP8s3BZTbYzasqUkO4dIHe

16/07/2024

This is an ancient Brush Box tree that has been dated at over 1000 years and it is still going. That is about 12 human lifetimes. I was privileged to lead a group of 20 on a forest bathing walk that ended with a sit spot around this tree that has survived countless storms and a nearby landslip. It is hard to put into words the majesty of the presence of a being like this.

04/07/2024

How can forest bathing and nature connection benefit team leaders to decrease stress, restore mental attention and improve mental and physical wellbeing? I cover these topics in my interview with Jan Terkelsen from People Leaders.

https://lnkd.in/gm4DEYpi

04/06/2024

It is not helpful to downplay the effects of trauma but equally, we want to see the possibilities for growth.

June 13th is National Posttraumatic Growth Day. It's a day to transform our struggles into strength and our pain into purpose. You can help change what the w...

27/05/2024

Wonderful to see Forest Bathing for wellbeing and accessibility for People with Disability being championed at such a high level as the Chelsea Flower Show in London. We can take heed of the design principles and intentions of a creation like this and incorporate it into public facilities and personal spaces.
"Designed by the first-time exhibitor Ula Maria, the garden was inspired by the ancient Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, which means being calm and quiet among trees, breathing deeply and observing nature. She was inspired by a birch grove, and filled her space with dappled light and the sound of water, bringing in more than 40 trees and running a water rill through the middle. Banks of woodland flowers and grasses included foxgloves, cranesbill geraniums, snowy woodrush and wild strawberries."
Maria designed the garden for the charity Muscular Dystrophy UK to demonstrate how nature connection could boost the mental health of people with the disease.

First-time exhibitor Ula Maria scoops best in show for garden designed for muscular dystrophy charity