What is Rewilding?
Rewilding, at its core, is the process of restoring something to its natural state; undoing the effects of domestication, control, and suppression. For women, it’s about reconnecting with natural rhythms, instincts, power, and sexuality.
Rewilding and Nature
In ecological terms, rewilding means giving land and ecosystems the chance to heal and regenerate; allowing forests, rivers, and wildlife to return to their natural state. This movement is about loosening the destructive grip of human interference and letting nature express her intelligence. It also encourages humanity to engage deeply with nature, reestablishing a more harmonious relationship with mother earth, and a sense that we are not separate from Her.
Women Rewilding
Rewilding for women means peeling back the layers of control, conditioning, and shame that have been imposed upon the feminine for many thousands of years. Since patriarchal systems have sought to domesticate women, rewilding urges us to come back to our authentic, embodied, wilder selves and to rediscover what it feels like to be fully alive, present, and whole.
Rewilding is achieved primarily through the body
In patriarchal culture, women are often disconnected from their bodies, conditioned to criticize, hide, or ignore them rather than celebrate and trust them. Rewilding invites us to tune in to the body’s natural cues for nourishment, movement, rest, and pleasure. It encourages the radical act of being fully present in our bodies, embracing them with love, and knowing them deeply from the inside out.
Reclaiming Physical Health
Rewilding is a reclamation of how we care for our health. It encourages us to make time for our routine health practices with healthy eating, exercise, rest, and appropriate medical care. It frees us from impossible beauty standards and the pressures of diet culture, leading us toward lifestyles that support our unique constitutions, and honor the beauty of aging naturally.
Honoring Natural Cycles and Hormonal Health
A key part of rewilding is aligning with the body’s natural rhythms—whether through the menstrual cycle, menopause, or circadian rhythms. When we learn to move with these cycles rather than resist them, we cultivate deeper physical, emotional, and sexual well-being.
Healing from the Effects of Trauma and Chronic Stress
Most women carry the strain of unprocessed trauma and chronic stress, which leaves the body stuck in survival mode. Rewilding provides a pathway for regulating the nervous system with various therapeutic practices that lead us to feel safer in our skin and the world again.
Sexuality
A very important part of rewilding extends to sexual health and vitality, and learning to embrace the body’s sensual pleasure as natural and sacred. Many women have been disconnected from their sexuality due to shame, trauma, or societal/religious expectations. Rewilding is about reclaiming pleasure and sensuality as essential parts of the self (and our happiness).
Strength and Resilience
Strength training, endurance activities, and physical practices that challenge the body, build not only physical resilience but also emotional and psychological strength. When women are physically strong, we often feel more empowered to set boundaries, speak truth into power, and claim our most valuable positions in society.
Time in Nature
Outdoor activities like hiking, swimming, rock climbing, and camping offer women the chance to reconnect with wild landscapes and to remember our connection to the wild nature both inside and outside of ourselves.
Rest and Play
True health is also about knowing when to rest. Women are typically exhausted and disconnected from the joy of rest and play. Rewilding invites us to honor our need for downtime and rediscover the joy of unstructured moments. Yoga Nidra, nature walks, meditation, and naps are not luxuries but essential parts of rewilding.
Cultivating Emotional Freedom
Wildness means embracing our full range of emotions, like rage, grief, joy, and ecstasy, without apology. It’s about understanding emotions as part of who we are and learning how to become nourished by their wisdom, instead of being depleted by their repression or lack of healthy regulation.
Empowerment and Boundaries
Rewilding restores a woman’s sense of safety and sovereignty. It means learning to say “no” when needed and trusting our inner voice, instincts, and intuition. It’s about stepping into personal power without guilt or fear.
Reclaiming Connection with Other Women
In more recent times, women have often become more isolated from each other, fostered by competition and comparison. Rewilding creates spaces for women to gather, witness, and support one another, rekindling the ancient bonds of sisterhood and collective strength.
Just as wild landscapes regenerate when left to their natural rhythms, women thrive when we reconnect with our deeper, instinctual nature. Rewilding is a journey of healing, rediscovery, and remembering that wildness is not something outside of us - it is something we have carried within us all along, just waiting to be reclaimed.
ROAR!