Meet your Guide

I’m Monika Strell, a Natural Mindfulness Guide, Interfaith Minister, and Celebrant based in the North-West Highlands of Scotland.

My work brings people into a closer relationship with the landscape—through guided experiences that support wellbeing, reflection, and spiritual connection in nature.

I offer guided ways of engaging with the Highland landscape that focus on wellbeing, sensory awareness, and slowing down.

This includes mindful walking, meditation in nature, creative and sensory approaches, and time to experience the landscape in a more intentional and grounded way.

These experiences are gentle, accessible, and shaped around the environment and the people taking part.

Nature-Based Experiences

Nature & Spiritual Practice

Alongside this, I offer experiences that are rooted more explicitly in spiritual reflection and practice in nature.

As an ordained Interfaith Minister, I guide contemplative walks, prayer-based experiences, and other forms of nature-based spirituality—always grounded in the landscape and respectful of different faiths and traditions.

This is a distinct strand of my work, for those who are seeking a deeper or more explicitly spiritual engagement with nature.

My Path

I grew up in Austria and moved to Scotland in 1999, settling in the Highlands in 2008.

I now live on a woodland croft in Assynt with my family, surrounded by mountains, coast, and the ever-changing colours of the landscape that shape and inspire my work.

Over time, I felt a strong pull to focus my work more fully on nature, wellbeing, and meaningful connection.

Training & Approach

My work is grounded in training as a Natural Mindfulness Guide with Ian Banyard in 2019, whose approach focuses on simple, accessible ways of connecting more deeply with nature.

Alongside this, I trained for two years with the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation, and was ordained as an Interfaith Minister in 2020. This continues to inform the way I hold space for reflection, spirituality, and people of different faiths and perspectives.

Since then, I’ve continued to develop my practice through a range of nature-based and contemplative training, both in the UK and internationally.

This includes work with the Tariki Trust, which brings together mindfulness and nature connection, as well as training with the EcoPsychology Initiative and programmes with the Monterey Meditation Studio, both of which explore the relationship between nature and spirituality in a grounded and experiential way.

I have also engaged in extended online training with Mark Coleman, focusing on mindfulness in nature and resilience.

This ongoing mix of training and practice continues to shape how I guide experiences—keeping them grounded, accessible, and responsive to the landscape and the people I work with.