Join The Fall 2024 Online Group Cohort

Mindful Hiking Guide And Retreat Leader Certification

Learn how to plan, sell and facilitate guided hiking adventures and nature retreats that combine mindful awareness, experiential learning and community building practices for building a regenerative future.

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Mindful Hiking Guide And Experiential Learning Facilitator Certification

The World Is Your Classroom

We believe that if we are to build a regenerative future, we need to rewild education and human connection by building nature-based communities.

One of the easiest ways to do this is through guided hiking adventures and nature retreat that connect people with each other so they can learn about the natural world through group storytelling.

Our Mindful Hiking Guide Certification teaches you how to launch, sell and facilitate these kind of educational hiking tours and nature retreats.

This Mindful Hiking Guide Certification is designed for coaches, therapists, health and wellness practitioners, retreat owners and tour guides who want to lead group hikes, nature retreats and experiential learning workshops.

Unlike most other certification programs related to ecotherapy, forest therapy and hiking guide we focus on experiential learning and helping you launch and sell your events so you can build a successful business without burnout.

Whether you want to start a company for hiking tours, add nature retreats to your coaching practice or sell out occasional group hikes and outdoor mindfulness workshops as a side hustle, this Mindful Hiking Guide Certification will give you the confidence and knowledge you need to get started.

Mindfulness In Nature And Peak Experiences

The Nature of Peak Experiences

Mindful hiking guiding involves teaching participants how to tune into their senses, let go of the pre-conceptions of their analytical mind and tap into the effortless awareness of awe and wonder.

In the program, you will learn 7 different kinds of mindful peak experiences and how to facilitate them in groups.

While so much environmentalism and climate politics focuses on guilt and shaming people into action, we believe we must restore our childlike awe and wonder for nature and develop a spiritual ecology where we create a regenerative future living in balance and harmony with nature again.

Mindful Hiking Guide And Retreat Leader Certification Works

Here’s what we be covering in this live 8-week group cohort program held on Zoom:

Flow Water

1. Eco-Mindfulness Training And Shifting From Head To Heart

Learn the foundations of mindfulness, flow states and the psychology of peak experiences as they related to experiential nature-based education, mindful hiking and deep embodiment in the natural world.

You will get guided practices for how to facilitate each of the 7 mindful peak experiences by helping people let go of analytical thinking and shifting into immersive states of heart-based knowing and immersive feeling.

2. Experiential Learning And Facilitating Group Storytelling

Apply the Kolb experiential learning model and learn how to facilitate group storytelling to create interactive group learning experiences where people get to know each other while learning and collaborating together.

To build your confidence you’ll get to launch and facilitate your first group hiking experience to apply what you learn and you’ll learn how to sell participants on your seasonal nature retreats.

Hiking The Temperate Rainforest
Creative Flow

3. The Science of Ecotherapy And Human Rewilding

Discover the fascinating science of ecotherapy, the research done on Shinrin-Yoku (forest bathing) in Japan and how nature-based communities can address today’s epidemic of degenerative physical and mental illnesses.

Learn why human rewilding and spending more time outdoor in community is the perfect antidote to screen overstimulation and why community builders will be one of the most important jobs as the coming wave of artificial intelligence replaces so many routine human jobs.

4. Citizen Science And Identifying Flora, Fauna And Fungi

Explore the interconnected web of life by learning to identify keystone species of local species of flora, fauna and fungi and the role they play in biodiversity and ecosystem health.

Get our experiential learning guides for using citizen science tools for developing your pattern recognition skills so you can identify the most important edible and medicinal plants and mushroom you will see each season outdoors.

Fly Agaric Amanita Muscaria
Forest Walker

5. Forest Medicine, Shinrin-Yoku And Traditional Herbalism

Learn about the medicinal properties of plants and mushrooms, the ways that ancient herbalist traditions healed without drugs and how to teach the Japanese research, practices and mindful invitations known as Shinrin-Yoku, which translates as “to bath in the atmosphere of the forest.”

Discover why the world’s forest are like medicine cabinets, why spending more time in forests can heal us and how the majority of the world’s medicines are actually derived from natural compounds found in forest ecosystems across the Planet.

6. Selling Out Your Experiential Learning Workshops And Hikes

Get access to pre-built hiking adventure and experiential learning workshop sales pages and templates so you can easily run ads to sell out your event and launch your experiential learning workshop in days rather than weeks or months and start building your community.

Learn how to fill your workshop by with only $10/day of Meta and Google Ads that attract the ideal people you will enjoy working with as well as an overview of marketing strategies for launching, promoting and selling out in-person workshops, hikes and retreats.

Experiential Learning Outdoors
Mindfulness

7. Building A Hybrid Online/Offline Community

Next, you will learn how to build a hybrid online and offline community so you can keep people engaged and fill your events and hiking adventure with less time and stress.

We will cover the foundations of building an online community that makes it easy to fill your hikes and workshops. We will be covering important topics like hiking safety, insurance, taxes, compliance, referrals and building a sustainable business that doesn’t burn you out.

8. Transformational Group Coaching And Retreat Leadership

We will end by building your sales page for upselling people from your hikes and workshops into 4-week group coaching cohorts that you can offer in each season to go deeper into experiential learning through community-based learning and coaching.

Get our guided coaching templates for leading group coaching programs focusing on important experiential learning practices for the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter to build a deeper nature connection and grow ecological awareness.

Flow State Forest

About The Instructor

Kyle Pearce a certified interpretive hiking guide, mindfulness-based ecotherapy practitioner and digital marketing professional who has over a decade of experience helping social impact startups grow.

He started Mindful Ecotourism in 2016 leading forest meditation workshops in Stanley Park near his home in Vancouver. Today, he lives and leads nature retreats in Banff National Park during the summer and in Central and South America in the winter.

Kyle has over a decade of experience in digital marketing, he runs an online coaching community called DIY Genius since 2011 and he has led over 250 paid outdoor workshops, hikes and retreats so he provides participants with plug-and-play templates, sales funnels and online ads training so they can consistently sell out their events.

He has a B.A. in History from the University of Victoria with a specialization in ancient civilizations, animism and the history of the modern world where he developed a passion for spiritual ecology, mindfulness in nature and building a regenerative future.

Kyle

Mindful Hiking Guide And Retreat Leader Certification

JOIN THE FALL 2024 GROUP COHORT

Learn how to plan, sell and facilitate guided hiking adventures and nature retreats that combine mindful awareness, experiential learning and community building practices for building a regenerative future.

Apply To Join

FAQ About The Mindful Hiking Guide And Retreat Leader Certification

How is this different than other ecotherapy and forest therapy programs?

Most ecotherapy and forest therapy programs are run by non-profits that don’t teach you how to sell out your workshops or build a business.

Kyle teaches from the experience he has gained from leading over 250 paid outdoor workshops, hikes and retreats.

He provides participants with plug-and-play templates, sales funnels and online ads training so they can consistently sell out their events, which is something that most coaches, teachers and facilitators struggle with.

How does the group cohort training work?

For 8 weeks we will meet on Wednesday evenings over Zoom for 90 minute calls that will include 50-60 minutes of workshops along with weekly accountability checkins to share your experience with the weekly activities.

There will also be additional course material, templates, guides and guided audio trainings in our online community classroom that you can watch and complete at your own pace.

Do I need any other certifications?

To run your own hikes and retreats we’d also recommend getting 40-Hour Wilderness First Aid Training.

Other participants have certifications in forest therapy, ecotherapy and herbalism but they are optional.

How much does the certification program cost?

The cost of participating is $999 USD for the eight weeks or six payments of $200.

We offer scholarships for people who really want to attend but are experiencing financial difficulties.

During the program, you get all the tools, templates and help you need to launch your own group hikes, workshops and retreats.

If you’re willing to commit to this certification program and launching with other participants in the group cohort, you will most likely at least double your investment within 3 months.