From Patient to Planet: How Nature Heals and How We Heal Nature with Sydney Williams
Thursday, April 8th at 5:30 PM. Location TBD.
Description: What if your favorite park isn’t just somewhere you go… but somewhere you belong?
In this Mind Walk, Sydney Williams (Hiking My Feelings® / Reciprocity Rx™) explores a powerful idea at the heart of the growing NatureRx movement: time outside can support our health. And there’s a next step that makes it even more meaningful—learning how to return care to the places that care for us.
Blending story, accessible science, and practical takeaways, Sydney will share why nature is so effective for stress relief, resilience, and perspective, and introduce a simple framework: Receive, Reflect, Return, Reconnect. You’ll leave with a new lens for your time in the parks—one that deepens your relationship with place, strengthens your sense of connection, and offers realistic ways to participate in nature’s healing, too.
About the Presenter: Sydney Williams is a keynote speaker, author, and advocate whose journey from a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis and unresolved trauma to the wild trails of self-discovery became a mission: to rekindle our relationship with the land, each other, and ourselves.
After more than a decade in digital communications launching campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, Sydney traded the boardroom for backcountry trails. Her first major backpacking trips across Catalina Island sparked a realization: healing isn’t just something we find in nature—it’s something we practice with it.
In 2018, she founded Hiking My Feelings®, a nonprofit making nature-based wellness more accessible, inclusive, and relational. Through programs like Reciprocity Rx™, Sydney translates ecological intelligence into science-backed tools and trainings that help care providers, public-lands professionals, and community stewards integrate nature-informed care into their lives and work.
A Wilderness First Responder and experienced field facilitator, Sydney has led thousands of people through programs across national parks and protected landscapes. Her work has been featured in BBC, Psychology Today, San Diego Union-Tribune, HuffPost, and on SXSW and Public Lands Alliance stages. She lives between the trailhead and the campfire, believing that when we slow down, look around, and lean into the land, the next step isn’t just for us, it’s for the Earth we belong to.