Wellness in the Wilderness

Vote for our SXSW Panel - Reconnecting with Nature: Healing Ourselves and the Planet

🙏 Help us bring "Reconnecting with Nature: Healing Ourselves and the Planet" to SXSW in 2025! In 2022, I had the pleasure of interviewing surf therapy visionary Natalie Small LMFT, founder of Groundswell Community Project. The similarities in our work became immediately clear - if I am hiking my feelings, Natalie is surfing her feelings, and we are both helping others do the same. It was only a matter of time before we started to visualize a world where our powers combined helped unite lovers of land and sea in deeply healing experiences. For our first step/paddle into this new world together and hot off the heels of my book launch at the conference in March, we are thrilled to submit our panel for your consideration at SXSW in 2025. ABOUT OUR PANEL: In today’s technology-driven world, our disconnection from nature is more apparent than ever, impacting our mental and physical well-being. Join us as we explore innovative approaches to reintegrating nature into our daily lives and workspaces. By leveraging the healing power of the great outdoors, we create pathways to improve mental and physical health while fostering a deeper connection to the planet. Together, we'll discover how nature-based therapies and outdoor experiences can serve as potent solutions to the widespread disconnection and environmental challenges we face today. TAKEAWAYS 🌱 Gain insights into how modern lifestyles contribute to our growing disconnection from nature and the subsequent impacts on mental and physical health. 🌱 Discover how you can incorporate nature into your work and daily routine to foster personal health and contribute to planetary healing. 🌱 Understand the broader implications of reconnecting with nature for communities and the environment, and how collective efforts can lead to change. Voting is open through August 18, thank you for your support! VOTE HERE: https://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/149826

Remembering How to Hang Out (and how you can hang out with us)

Clearly we are not okay - as a society, as a community, as humans. After a nice weekend with some friends, we realized we had forgotten how to hang out, but only after remembering how good it felt. This might blow your mind, I know it did for me since the time period shared is from the year I graduated high school until near-present day. This article in The Atlantic⁠ [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/america-decline-hanging-out/677451/?gift=jmCJoUg6OW7Zoq90imemTknL242k5ZQSPvD7CFwy3CE&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share] talks about this phenomenon: "From 2003 to 2022, American men reduced their average hours of face-to-face socializing by about 30 percent. For unmarried Americans, the decline was even bigger—more than 35 percent. For teenagers, it was more than 45 percent. Boys and girls ages 15 to 19 reduced their weekly social hangouts by more than three hours a week. In short, there is no statistical record of any other period in U.S. history when people have spent more time on their own." In this episode, Sydney and Barry discuss: * Hiking Your Feelings [https://hikingmyfeelings.org/hiking-your-feelings-book]' themes and the universal application of the lessons and topics within * "If it all ends tomorrow, I'm grateful that we've been doing the work we've been doing, and that I've gotten to know myself this well." - Sydney * Sydney and Barry have a moment where language moves to embodied understanding, and then Sydney unpacks in real time, how that transition happens - finding the language -> understanding in context -> embodied understanding * The benefits of having conversations on the trail vs. our tendency to rush through it face-to-face * Barry shares a skydiving metaphor for how he's been feeling lately * How to not die in the wilderness (and why Mount Washington in New Hampshire is so underestimated) UPCOMING EVENTS: * March 4: Intentional Hiking [https://www.intentionalhiking.com/event-details/march-4-hiking-my-feelings] - join us for a chance to win a Kula Cloth and a signed copy of Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love! [https://hikingmyfeelings.org/hiking-your-feelings-book] * March 5: Public Lands Alliance Conference [https://hikingmyfeelings.org/events/speaker-public-lands-alliance-conference] * March 9: Hiking Your Feelings launch at SXSW [https://schedule.sxsw.com/2024/events/PP134183] + Book Signing at SXSW [https://schedule.sxsw.com/2024/events/PP1145948] * March 10: Hike around Austin with Hiking My Feelings x The Trail Conservancy, sponsored by Gossamer Gear * March 12: Hiking Your Feelings Publication Day! Join us for the launch party in San Diego at Diesel in Del Mar [https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Sydney-Williams-March-12-Author-signing], sponsored by Babe Kombucha [https://babekombucha.com] and Muffin But Good Vibes [https://youtube.com/@muffinbutgoodvibes] * March 19: Hiking Your Feelings Virtual Launch Party [https://hikingmyfeelings.org/events/hiking-your-feelings-virtual-launch-party] * March 20: Blaze Your Own Trail to Self-Love Open House

2024 is the year of Hiking Your Feelings

Sydney and Barry bring you up to speed with everything Hiking My Feelings, or should we say Hiking Your Feelings [https://bit.ly/HYFamazon]?

The Well-Lived Life with Dr. Gladys McGarey

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Gladys McGarey began her medical practice at a time when women couldn’t even own their own bank accounts. Over the past sixty years, she has pioneered a new way of thinking about disease and health that has transformed the way we imagine health care and self-care around the world. The cofounder of the American Holistic Medical Association, Dr. McGarey has mentored everyone from Dr. Mark Hyman to Dr. Edith Eger and has helped hundreds of patients live happier and healthier lives. In a voice that is both practical and inspiring, Dr. McGarey shares her own extraordinary stories and eternal wisdom from her early childhood in India and chance encounter with Mahatma Gandhi to her life as a physician and a mother of six children, to her survival of both heartbreak and illness. And she doesn’t just look backward, she looks forward. At 102, Dr. McGarey has a ten-year plan and an eye on a healthier and more joyful future for all. IN THIS EPISODE * Dr. McGarey shares her six actionable secrets to enjoying a a life that is long, happy, and purpose-driven. * She teaches you how to spend your energy wildly in order to embrace your life fully and feel motivated every day. * You’ll learn that you are here for a reason, and how to find the “juice” that helps you stay grounded in your life’s purpose. * She shows you how to move—spiritually, mentally, and physically—helping you let go of trauma and other roadblocks, and how to discover the deep learning that comes from pain and setbacks. * Orienting you in the love she considers the most powerful medicine, she’ll show you that you are not alone, and guide you on how to build a community that’s meaningful to you.

Revisiting Old Dreams with Katie Wightman

This week we are thrilled to have Katie Wightman, former Field Institute Director for the Sequoia Parks Conservancy, joining us for a conversation about the courage to revisit a dream from an earlier chapter in life, managing fear around trying something new, and how she finds wellness in the wilderness! ABOUT OUR GUEST: Katie Wightman worked for the Sequoia Parks Conservancy in Sequoia + Kings Canyon National Parks for 11 years and loved every minute. She had the privilege to work underground in Crystal Cave, organize the Dark Sky Festival, organize Science and Nature Camps for youth in the Central Valley, the backcountry Pear Lake Winter Ski Hut, and also Directed the Education Program for the SPC where she worked to provide as many opportunities as possible for people to connect with their public lands. Currently she is working on her Bachelor's of science in Nursing and is hoping to work in Emergency and Critical Care as well as continue in Wilderness Medicine. In her downtime she loves ultra running, amateur astronomy, and playing with her loving pup Sierra dog! IN THIS EPISODE: * Katie and I sit down to chat from the historic Wolverton Service Camp in Sequoia National Park, home of the Volunteers in Parks Project in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks * We are greeted by a yellow rumped warbler and a golden crowned kinglet - get pumped, birders! * Katie shares about the relationships between the National Park Service and their official nonprofit partners. In the case of Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks, their official partner is the Sequoia Parks Conservancy. * We talk about her transition out of Director of the Field Institute at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks and returning to a dream from an earlier chapter in life - nursing. * How Katie finds wellness in the wilderness - and how trail running was a “very Katie solution” to getting far out in the backcountry in a limited amount of time. * You’re never too old to change your mind, and just because you fail at something doesn’t mean you’re a failure.