Meet Kat Novotna | Forest Therapy Guide, Founder of EcoNIDRA™

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kat Novotna and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kat, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
What an interesting question! The topic of work life balance has been with me for almost 20 years now, ever evolving and changing.

When I started my own business 20 years ago, I was so passionate about it that my life was pretty much all work, with little opportunity for rest, community or what we call free time. Once my body let me know loud and clear that this was not the way we were designed to live our life, I started my quest for more work-life balance by making sure to find deep rest in nature, forest bathing, yoga nidra and other practices. Balancing a busy schedule with these very effectieve self-care practices has helped a great deal and allowed me to live a life of vital energy, creativity, stable mood and inner calm.

It took another couple of years for me to realize that this is really just one part of the equation though. The other part meant to address some deeply engrained habits, beliefs, behaviors and patterns like being an over-achiever, chronically over-scheduling myself, trying to do as much as possible every single day, deriving my sense of self-worth from how much I can contribute to the wellbeing of others, perfectionism etc. What helped me to change these habits was when I became a mother. As a mother, I feel deeply in every cell of my body that I want to be fully present in my interactions with my son, and that I want him to grow up in a Slow Family, where instead of constant Doing and Thinking, there is time for Being.

At this time, I’ve arrived at a point where I can say I’m living a slow life while doing the work that I love which doesn’t even feel like ‘work’. I’ve freed myself up with the realization that I do not need to label some parts of it as ‘work’ and other parts of it as ‘life’, just like there are no useful and useless activities. They are equally Life, and they seem to stay in balance naturally, when approached this way.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
EcoNIDRA™ is a deeply relaxing practice for the mind, body, and emotions that helps us reconnect with ourselves and with nature, so that we can use the freed up energy to realize and do what we were born to do in this life.

The practice has profoundly deep relaxing and re-energizing effects, with one session being reported to have the effect of 3-4 hours of deep sleep. Certified EcoNIDRA™ teachers all around the world spread this practice online and offline to those who need to recharge their batteries, regain their mental, physical and emotional well-being and feel connected to themselves, others and nature in a deep way again. This is happening through the teachers’ network and via the EcoNIDRA™ app! Apart from deep relaxation of the entire ecosystem of the body-mind and the sense of connectedness with their inner nature and the whole, EcoNIDRA™participants are sharing experiences like long forgotten childhood memories or nature experiences in distant countries, meetings with all kinds of personal guides or family members or even out-of-body experiences.

The practice is very accessible and easy to be integrated into everyone’s life, with either an early morning session to set the tone for the day, a lunch break to refresh, an after-work session to mark the line between work and private life and being able to be fully present for our loved ones, or a night session just before bedtime to support good night’s sleep.

Relaxing our nervous system deeply, and reconnecting with ourselves and with nature turns out to be a necessary step in improving the quality of our life, work, relationships, habits and more.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’d spend the whole time with nature, from areas where nature is more abundant to little parks and even single trees spread around the city. Visiting a place by focusing on its nature rather than the traditional sightseeing points of interest creates a special bond with the land and very unique experience for everyone involved.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to these people, mentors, teachers, friends and organizations:

The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy with founder Amos Clifford
Eckhart Tolle as my teacher of presence
Don Miguel Ruiz and the Toltec Wisdom
Sari Telpner and Ankie Teurlinx as dear friends and consultants, colleagues and co-visionaries
Dragonflies who inspired me to create the practice of EcoNIDRA ツ

Website: https://linktr.ee/econidra

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waybackhome_kat/       

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kat-novotna-723b71166/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/econidra

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-SGaKMFUINkfBzqhpZxlWA