“The forest is my church”: Spirituality and the trail to recovery

Abstract

Leisure can be an essential resource in navigating life’s hardships, like cancer and other serious illnesses, as well as for addressing one’s spiritual needs. Frequently, when people are forced to face traumas and tragedies in their lives, they need to tap into their inner strength, an act that may summon a feeling of a connection to something ‘greater,’ often understood as spirituality, or the process of meaning making considering one’s circumstances. People have long attended to their spiritual needs through religion, but increasingly, people are doing so through secular channels as well. This study sought to address how people with cancer attend to their spiritual needs through hiking and immersion in wilderness environments.

Keywords:

• Leisure
• hiking
• cancer
• spirituality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics statement

The study was approved by [the University’s IRB], study number 16-0480.