Woman's Wednesday met Renate de Wilde

Her initial connection with outdoor life started when joining the military service at 18 years. She already loved from a young age to be outdoors, but it was not really camping. Her parents showed her beautiful places, also Scandinavia. She started after the military with adventure racing through the whole world with mountain, biking, kayaking and hiking as well.  

The combination was very matching for her and after sending an email to Erik, mentioning her interest “I received a very long and nice response from him and soon after, I directly started”. 

“In the military I really learned all kinds of survival techniques. It was also not always a pleasant time for me, but I am so grateful for getting to know all of it. It was more a time of going into nature in connection with physical activity, not in the typical bushcraft way.”  

It felt for her at this time that she was more “one of the guys”, in between all her male colleagues in the military. Which was in general ok for her, until a certain point in life. She explains that there was not a lot of space for emotions and it was just possible to exist with having a mask on, which carried her away from her true sense of being and connection to herself. After not feeling very comfortable at all anymore in the military surrounding, she fully stopped here again with 20. 

Her connection to adventure racing changed as well in her mid 20s, when she was finishing a race in South Africa. Then she still remembers that she said to her team mate "I loved this so much, I want to keep racing for many many years still”, and 2 weeks later, she stopped.  

Renate went on this day to an energetic therapist, because she was challenged with her self worth, a restless mind and the expression of these factors as well through eating disorders, which she started to have after military service. 

“She saw some kind of past life thing that was still influencing me in this lifetime. I couldn't really grasp it myself, but I felt that there was something true about this in my system. After the clearing by the therapist, I did not feel like doing any training anymore, and as well the eating disorder was just gone. It felt great. I just had to tell my team that I couldn’t join the European championship anymore, which was starting in 2 months time.” 

This experience turned her life upside down. She went for some more runs, but just when she saw the trees and felt nature, there was no motivation for her anymore to continue. The expectations of others, in seeing mostly the “adventure racer” in her, was a little fearful struggle at first, but Renate received a lot of openness from her surroundings for her decision. After this her path for more spirituality opened as well. 

Nowadays she is experiencing nature in a different way as well. “It is not for training purposes for me anymore when I go out, but more for the experiences of nature. I started trying magic truffles as well, which showed me, as plant medicine, a new perspective to the world, that you are really a part of all that exists.” 

Nowadays she is also supporting people with plant medicine, for example microdosing of magic mushrooms. Or guiding people through a high dose experience.  Mushrooms made her experience nature as well in a very special and unique way. She just felt as  good as never before. Being in the moment and feeling on a very deep level that everything is okay and connected. 

When Renate goes into nature nowadays, she loves to take light equipment with herself.  

“I do not want to walk with a big backpack. I really like the simplicity when going out, no heavy pans or pots. Just a rucksack with some fresh water and light equipment, clothes, a DD super light frontline hammock   and  DD super light tarp.” 

When going as a woman into nature now, she feels safe due to her experiences in the past. But still she encourages women to go out, and when not feeling safe alone, to experience it in a sisterhood for example and sense this special energy between women. “It can so much help to get the trust in oneself back, and then expand from here further in maybe going alone.”  

“When diving deeper into spirituality I also connected more to my feelings again, which did not exist during military service.” After asking what spirituality means for her right now, she responds that the word “spirituality” is not really used by herself anymore, but it’s more about creation and self responsibility of how you want to live and perceive life. 

“The trust in my intuition and life in general really expanded. I can trust in the universe and in my abilities to create. This freedom is so beautiful.” 

When asking her what her future visions are, she responds; “I really want to go into nature again by myself soon. I want to learn more about edible plants, the body and how to most naturally nourish myself with and from nature for example. After already trying fasting, it really made me feel good, physically and mentally, so I want to dive into this more. As well I am very interested in breathwork, feeding yourself more with life energy (prana) . I really feel that we can make a big step in our health to practice it.'' 

Renate, the last thing you would like to share with us? 

“So within so without. We have so much creation power within us. The time has come to take full responsibility for our lives. Being aware of what you feed yourself with. What thoughts, what food, what media, what people, go to nature, breathe clean air, drink clean water.  If you take that responsibility, you will also get that reflected in the outside world.  Go experience it yourself. This is the way to change the world.” 

Thanks so much for your inspiration!