Katriina Kilpi

Nature-Based Practitioner and Researcher

I am not sure what makes people choose their careers, but for me, the driving force has always been a search for truth. And by truth, I mean what feels true inside my own body and experience. That search began as a childlike wonder for the Earth. I was convinced I would study geography. As I learned about climate change, that wonder shifted into environmental sciences, and eventually into activism. My amazement of the living world turned into a focus on protecting “what was left.” Through conservation work, I moved into environmental education, which, through many twists and turns, led me to human well-being. Not surface-level well-being, but a deeper connection with oneself, rooted in self-awareness, connection with nature, and contentment with what is.

Today, I work at the intersection of human nervous systems and the living world, with a focus on how nature-based and embodied practices support regulation, resilience, and real transformation. I am the founder of NatureMinded Consulting, established in 2016, through which I design and facilitate trauma-informed programs rooted in forest bathing, mindfulness-based approaches, and sauna as an ancestral practice.

My academic background is in environmental studies, social sciences, and environmental psychology. Alongside Western scientific frameworks, my work has been shaped by long-term engagement with Indigenous and place-based knowledge systems from the Nordic regions, Hawai‘i, and the Arctic. These experiences deeply inform how I understand relationality, embodiment, and the intelligence of both land and body.

Over the years, I have worked internationally with individuals, educators, organisations, and communities, developing practices that invite people to slow down, restore nervous system capacity, and reconnect with themselves, others, and the more-than-human world. My approach bridges research, lived experience, and long-term embodied practice, with a strong emphasis on safety, attunement, and honest inquiry.

Through my own reflections and sense of wonder, I increasingly realise how much remains unknown. Rather than discouraging me, this fills me with hope and excitement - as a seeker. Through my writing and facilitation, I explore questions such as what becomes possible when we stop trying to maintain what is no longer working, and instead create conditions for repair, regeneration, and deep turning, within ourselves and in how we meet the world. I am glad to share these unanswered questions with other wondering and wandering individuals.