The Anxious Explorers - Outdoors

Anxious Explorers is a gentle, year-long project designed to help people step mildly outside their daily comfort zones, meet like-minded others, and build creativity and confidence into their routine. Together, we aim to end the year braver, more connected, and more open than we started.

This adventure:

September - Outdoors; Embrace the outdoors no matter the weather. Encouraging us to prepare and enable enjoyment even in the winter months.

We will meet next to the Orchard Cafe entrance. We will go around to the take-away hatch and order drinks to take on our walk, if wanted. We will do a circlular walk around the woods, keeping to the flat paths. Looking for inspiration to draw, do rubbings and finding items to collect for our sketchbooks. Then if time we will sit and sketchbook for a little while either outside on a bench or inside the cafe.

Venue:

• This month we will be going for a walk around Worcester Woods which is muddy paths, not tarmac.

• Please see website for accessibilty information https://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/council-services/environment/countryside-and-leisure/country-parks-picnic-places-and-nature-reserves/worcester-woods-country-park

• There are toilets at this location.

• If you haven't received an Anxious Explorers pack, we will give you one to take away so you may want a bag to carry this in. Make sure to bring your pack with you if you already have received one.                       

• Obviously we can't control the temperature on the day so please do come prepared with layers to put on if cold or hot. Also a waterproof coat might be worth thinking about if weather is wet.

• The £5 fee will cover the outing and a drink from the cafe.      

• Parking at venue.

• READ BLOG

  
  

...Each month, the Anxious Explorers Club will take on a small exploration; sometimes physical, sometimes creative, sometimes reflective, offering manageable challenges that encourage growth without pressure. These monthly outings and activities are designed for people who understand that anxiety happens, and who want a supportive community to try new things with, judgment-free.

Clear instructions and accessible information will always be provided in advance, helping to ease fears and give participants the confidence to join in. The project acknowledges the ways fear can hold us back: fear of the unknown, of getting things wrong, of change itself. Many of these fears are old childhood coping strategies that once protected us but now keep us stuck in familiar routines, repeating the same comforting habits even when they no longer serve us.

Anxious Explorers invites participants to gently unlearn these patterns, replacing fear with curiosity, creativity, and connection. By taking small, supported steps together, we hope to rediscover joy in new experiences, build resilience, and create a community of people who are willing to “have a go,” even when it feels scary.

Will you join us on a year of explorations, one small step at a time?

Calendar overview:

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October - Seasonal Celebrations; Encourage finding joy in the changing of the seasons, learning to lean in to celebrating and finding joy in differences.

November - Review & Planning; A workshop combining reviewing how the year has been so far with an element of vision boarding and planning for the year ahead to reach personal targets.

December - Social Event; we will come together to celebrate the year’s achievements at a seasonal social event.

Throughout this project, participants will be invited to provide feedback at various stages. Upon completion, we will collate your responses along with insights gathered from your journals and sketchbooks in order to report back to Worcestershire County Council, as required under the terms of our project funding.

• All bookings are subject to organiser approval. We reserve the right to refuse or cancel bookings at our discretion.