What blue space, green space and a quieter environment can offer when you need room to breathe.
Sometimes you arrive somewhere and notice yourself exhale before you've consciously decided to relax.
That's what Penguin, Tasmania, became for me.
Ocean in front of you. Green ridges behind you. A horizon wide enough to let your eyes travel somewhere other than the next task.
When I relocated to Tasmania, I wasn't searching for a magical place that would fix everything.
I was searching for something much simpler.
Space to be.
And over time, I've become increasingly interested in a question that sits alongside my work as a therapist:
Does where we are influence how we feel while we're doing the work of healing?
I believe it can.
Not because one town possesses special therapeutic powers.
But because our surroundings matter.
1. Sometimes Healing Needs a Change of Pace
For many of the women I work with, slowing down isn't easy.
They are therapists, healthcare professionals, carers and capable women accustomed to holding a great deal.
Even rest can become another task to perform properly.
I've written before about how easily capability, over-responsibility and worth can become intertwined.
Place can interrupt that rhythm.
When you step away from your usual environment, you're temporarily removed from some of its cues:
The laundry waiting.
The emails.
The commute.
The unfinished jobs.
The familiar demands that quietly tell you what needs doing next.
That doesn't mean you need to travel to heal.
Therapy can be meaningful from your own home, and online work can offer accessibility and safety that travel cannot.
But sometimes stepping into a different environment gives us something valuable:
A little more room around the experience.
Try this
You don't need Tasmania.
Find somewhere in your own environment where you naturally feel less hurried.
A beach. A garden. A park bench. Even a quiet corner near a window.
Notice what changes when there's nowhere you immediately need to be.
2. Why I'm Drawn to Blue Space
Living beside the coast has changed the way I think about water.
There's something about looking towards an open horizon that I personally find spacious.
Research offers some support for the broader wellbeing benefits associated with what researchers call blue spaces ~ environments involving oceans, rivers, lakes and other bodies of water.
Systematic reviews have found positive associations between greater exposure to outdoor blue spaces and measures of mental health, wellbeing and physical activity, although researchers also caution that we shouldn't assume simple cause and effect.
That's an important distinction.
The ocean isn't therapy.
And sitting beside water doesn't automatically regulate a nervous system or heal trauma.
But blue environments may provide opportunities for restoration, movement, social connection, sensory experience and time away from everyday demands.
For me, Penguin's coastline offers something even less complicated.
Perspective.
When I look towards the horizon, my attention can move beyond what's immediately in front of me.
Sometimes that's enough.
A little space. A little perspective. A little less effort.
3. Green Space Gives Us Somewhere to Land
Penguin isn't only blue.
There's green everywhere too ~ gardens, farmland, hills and bushland.
Research into green space has similarly explored connections with mental wellbeing.
A systematic review of 26 studies examining pathways between objectively measured green space and mental health identified possible contributions including psychological restoration and physical activity, while also finding mixed evidence for some proposed mechanisms.
In other words, nature appears to matter, but the relationship is more complex than saying green space reduces anxiety.
I actually prefer that nuance.
Because healing isn't a formula either.
A walk among trees won't resolve grief.
A beautiful view won't remove financial stress.
Fresh air won't undo trauma.
But an environment that feels pleasant and manageable may give us opportunities to walk, breathe, notice, rest and reconnect with what's around us.
Sometimes those small things matter.
Try this
On your next walk, resist the urge to make it productive.
Don't count the steps.
Don't listen to the professional-development podcast.
Notice something living.
A tree.
Birdsong.
The movement of light.
The idea isn't to achieve regulation.
It's simply to notice where you are.
4. What Brainspotting Taught Me About Where We Look
My interest in environment also connects with my work using Brainspotting.
Brainspotting uses visual orientation as part of a therapeutic process, with the therapist supporting a client to notice where particular experiences seem connected within their visual field.
That doesn't mean looking at Penguin's horizon is Brainspotting.
It isn't.
But my training has made me much more curious about attention, gaze and what happens when we stop constantly directing ourselves towards the next demand.
Sometimes when I'm near the ocean, I naturally let my gaze soften and travel.
There's nothing clinical about that moment.
I simply notice that it feels different from staring at a phone, computer screen or list of things I haven't finished.
And perhaps that distinction is enough.
We don't have to turn every restorative experience into a therapeutic technique.
Some things can simply feel good.
5. Place Can Support Therapy ~ But It Isn't the Therapist
This is where I've changed the way I talk about Penguin.
I used to describe the land, sea and sky almost as co-facilitators of therapy.
Today I'd phrase that differently.
The environment can support the conditions surrounding therapeutic work.
It may offer quiet.
Privacy.
Movement.
Distance from everyday responsibilities.
A chance to walk beside the water after a session rather than immediately returning to work.
Those things can be valuable.
But they're not substitutes for the therapeutic relationship, appropriate clinical practice or the client's own resources and choices.
The same applies to some of the more spiritual ways people describe place.
You may hear people talk about ley lines, energy grids or particular landscapes having a special energetic quality.
For some people, those ideas carry personal or spiritual meaning.
They're not established scientific explanations for why a place may feel restorative.
I don't think we need to prove them in order to honour the experience of feeling deeply connected to a landscape.
Sometimes a place simply matters to us.
6. Why Penguin Became My Place
When I moved to Tasmania, part of what I was seeking was a different pace.
I wanted room.
Nature.
Sea air.
Space around my life.
To just be.
Penguin gave me that.
And perhaps that's why it now makes sense to me as a place where I also offer therapeutic work.
Not because everyone who comes here will experience the landscape as I do.
Not because Tasmania heals people.
But because for someone accustomed to being the capable one, stepping outside their usual environment can create an opportunity to experience themselves differently.
You can have a session.
Walk beside the sea.
Eat somewhere quietly.
Watch the horizon.
Sleep.
Think.
Or not think.
You don't have to optimise every moment.
And you don't have to turn the trip into another thing to achieve.
7. Sometimes the Invitation Is Simply: Come Down for Air
There's a phrase associated with Tasmania that has always resonated with me:
Come down for air.
That's what moving here represented in my own life.
And it's increasingly how I think about the experience I want to offer in Penguin.
Not:
Come here and I'll fix you.
Not:
This landscape will heal your nervous system.
But:
Come somewhere quieter and give yourself room.
Room to notice.
Room to feel.
Room to have needs.
Room to explore what's been happening beneath all that competence.
My therapeutic work draws on approaches including Relational-Integrative EMDR, Brainspotting and somatic and relational practices.
For some people, that work may fit comfortably into a regular therapy session.
For others, a more spacious format can be useful.
That's part of the thinking behind offering intimate therapeutic experiences here in Penguin.
A place where the clinical work remains the clinical work — but where what happens around it can be slower.
You Don't Have to Travel to Find a Place That Supports You
Perhaps the most important thing I've learned from living here is that supportive places don't have to be extraordinary.
Your place might be Penguin.
It might be the beach ten minutes from home.
It might be your garden.
A walking track.
A chair beside a window where the afternoon light comes in.
The question isn't:
Where is the most healing place?
Perhaps it's:
Where do I notice that I don't have to work quite so hard to be myself?
That's the place I'd pay attention to.
Because healing isn't only about what we process.
Sometimes it's also about creating enough space around ourselves to hear what was already there.
Safe enough to slow down.
Good enough without performing.
Worthy enough to take up space.
And sometimes, simply enough room to be.
An Invitation to Penguin, Tasmania
If you've been craving more space around your therapeutic work, I offer in-person sessions in Penguin on Tasmania's north-west coast, alongside my online work across Australia.
I'm also developing intimate therapeutic experiences for women who want time away from their everyday environment to engage in deeper, supported work without rushing immediately back into the demands of ordinary life.
Penguin isn't the treatment.
It's the setting.
The sea, green space and slower pace simply offer somewhere beautiful to do the work.
