Where it all began…
This is the story that started our movement.
Everything you see here today started with a simple mountaintop realization - that following a diabetes diagnosis, I had been hiking my feelings instead of eating and drinking them. I had no idea how a simple phrase could take on a life of its own, changing mine in the process. Since that fateful day in 2018, we’ve been sharing the story of how hiking across Catalina Island helped me heal my mind and body at more than 400 events around the United States. We’ve introduced thousands of people to the healing power of nature, and now, as we welcome Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love into the world, we are just getting started.
Hiking My Feelings: Stepping Into the Healing Power of Nature was my first book. I wrote it on the road during the 2019 Hiking My Feelings Tour around the United States. That year we hosted 140 events, including speaking engagements at 60 REI stores and hikes in every city or town we stopped in, encouraging people from all walks of life to join us for a little wellness in the wilderness. At the end of 2019, I self-published the book, and we were a week into my book tour when the world shut down in March 2020.
If this is your first interaction with my work, I recommend reading Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love. It follows the same story as this book - the two hikes I did across Catalina Island and all the lessons learned along the way - but is chock full of additional resources, tips, affirmations, and helpful exercises to help you find your way home to yourself through a mindful hiking practice. Truth be told, Hiking YOUR Feelings is the version of this book I wish I had the courage to write back in 2019.
Named one of Audible’s Best Hiking Audiobooks!
About Sydney
Sydney Williams is the founder of Hiking My Feelings, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the healing power of nature. Her fifteen-year (and counting) career in communications has run the gamut from launching Oscar Mayer's social media channels and working with Fortune 500 brands to educating the public about the importance of stewardship and equitable access to recreational opportunities. Through it all, she centers empathetic storytelling and allows her curiosity and enthusiasm to lead the way.
Sydney has been featured in Huff Post, Psychology Today, U.S. News & World Report, and on the SXSW stage. She is also a certified Wilderness First Responder, an instructor at the Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park, an instructor at the Field Institute at Sequoia National Park, and a founding member of the Outdoorist Oath. Sydney has been nominated for Woman of the Year by San Diego Magazine.
“Listening to Sydney tell her story, I felt like I was walking on the trail with her.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Jaqueline C.
