Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning. Hey, how are you welcome. Come on in and have a seat, let's talk. You might have noticed that those of you in the United States, we celebrated the Spring Forward or otherwise known as Daylight Savings time. That was on Sunday the tenth. So the days are longer, and I'll tell you where I
like that time of year. I can go hiking, I can get out, my day's over, I can put my walking shoes on, my hiking boots on, and I can hit the trails, get the fresh air. And I gotta tell you, it's been a struggle to get out the last couple of months, really up to the end of November right until now. It's been so inconsistent here in northern California because we've had this this rain, and if you're in higher elevations, we've had snow, in serious snow,
and you know this atmospheric river stuff. Everyone's like, oh, yeah, I don't worry about it, but I mean when it rains, it soaks and soaks the soil to the point where it's muddy, and you got you know, rolling hills that are sliding. Yeah, landslides and even Los Angeles, the barren desert that Los Angeles is has been suffering from the heavy rains.
So getting out has been a challenge. And I'm really really happy to welcome in daylight savings times because it's really really critical that I get out. I mean, I have a treadmill, I have a stationary bike, I have freeways, but nothing beats the healing nature, the healing effects of being in nature, and I really love it. Now we got a few days to go. Spring officially starts March nineteenth, spring Equinox, and that's really
powerful energy. And I think I mentioned this before. Every seasonal change, I'll do a three to five day fast. That's a lot for some people, but for me, I've kind of conditioned myself. Three days is cool. If I'm really detoxing heavily that I'll try to loosen it up and say, no, that's enough. Three days is more than I want to do, or I don't feel good and I need to stop. I try to do five days if I can. I do a cleanse, I do a cleans to prepare for the season, and that's just my thing. But getting
out in nature with the spring period is huge. And the theme on today's program is getting out and hiking, getting out and connecting with nature. And why do we want to do that. Our ancestors did it quite regularly because they were connected to nature. They built their homes from wood, or they lived in caves or here in northern California there's huge redwood trees that were cut out and they lived inside the trees, which is kind of weird, but
you should see some of these trees. They're massive. So it's really critical that we reset, that we heal from the winter. Winter's slumber. Winter is sleeping early because it's you know, it gets dark early. We you know, we don't do as much. We're more contemplative now. Spring means growth. Regrow, start your planning, flowers, vegetables, fruit, put your gardens in. It's the time to begin growing. And for humans, it's the time to connect, it's the time to heal, it's the time
to contemplate. And my guest today has written a book on hiking and processing, and she you'll hear this in this interview. She actually processed a tremendous amount of trauma and physical pain and she got a pretty scary diagnosis and processed that and actually began her healing by being out in nature. Now we don't really know what the properties are of being in nature, being and green and walking and breathing the air, you know. And it doesn't necessarily have to
be a national park. It doesn't have to be a park at all. It can be getting out and walking around the block. Many of you live in rural areas where there's not a sidewalk, so that's great. So you get your feet on the ground, on the dirt, on the sand, whatever, and you're walking. But it doesn't have to Like I said,
it doesn't have to be a park. It can be walking around the block, walking around two or three blocks, getting you know, your heart rate up a little bit, maybe walking for twenty thirty minutes sometimes more, just to reconnect, just to get kickstart your connection and the healing modality. Now I've spoken about this forever, and you guys know, if you've been listening, that I find great benefit in hiking a few times a week thirty minutes
or more. Sometimes it's a little bit longer because the trail, you know, is longer than you come back, or you circle, whatever type of trail it is. But it's really critical to being nature in any form. And it doesn't mean I mean I'm in the city, but you know, I live in a place where there's parks and there's acreage where you can just connect. There's no asphalt, there's no cement, it's just you and mother
nature. And this is critical, critical for healing. So today's program is Hiking Your Feelings, Blazing a Trail to Self Love, and my guest is author Sidney Williams. I love hiking. You guys know it. I talk about it as much as possible. What do I I mean? I hike here in northern California because we have some killer hiking trails, and some of them are world class. But I hike because I want to decompress and I need to kind of wipe the day, clean, my mind, clean of
the day's activities. And so hiking has always been even though the weather has been bashed recently, hiking has been really critical. My guest today has written a book on the topic called Hiking Your Feelings, Blazing the Trail to Self Love. And what I like about this book and the reason we have the author on is she talks about her life, the trials and tribulations of relationships, so forth and so on, and not really focusing enough on her wellness.
And we're gonna talk about we're gonna hear from her today exactly what happened my guest today. And the author for the book is Sidney Williams, who is the founder of Hiking My Feelings, a nonprofit dedicated to the healing power of nature, and she has about fifteen plus years of marketing and she's also a former competitive skydiver. Well, we got to hear about that. Sidney. Welcome to Destiny. Great to have you, Thanks for having me,
clev Good morning. All right, tell me what skydiving is all about. How I mean it's competitive skydiving mean that there's a bullet, a big bullet ring or something you've got to dive into the ring, and that's the competition or what for some folks. Yes, competitive skydiving has multiple disciplines, but the one that I practiced was called four way formation skydiving. And in that case, the way the competition works is there's four people in the air and
a videographer that flies above you, and there's a series of pictures. Leg We might do like a three hundred and sixty degree turn, and then we might go touch some other people in the sky, and each one of those pictures is a point. So at the end of thirty five seconds, whoever gets the most points wins, and that's how competitive skydiving works. Wait a minute. Okay, you're in the air and you're collecting points. Is there a judge flying with you who's going okay, one two, three, four
five sixty seven. We have a videographer that flies with you when you're a competitive skydiver. So when you land from the jump, then your videographer goes and turns the video into the judges who then watch the video. They don't have to be up there. They're just like one two three, four five six. Yeah, exactly like you said. But the videographer turns in the video and then the round gets scored from there. So you were rocking that
for a lot of long time. So I mean, obviously jumping out of a plane that's exhilarating as hell, a little more than I would consider doing. Uh, But I mean that you did it for fifteen years. So what were you some kind of a local champion or is it like competition that is rated And you're like, how we're the best in California. Or mean, when you say competition, what is it? What's the competition? Yeah? So I was a competitive scout ever for four years from twenty ten to
twenty fourteen. And the way it works is it just happens that you're jumping out of airplanes people. Yeah, man, it's it was. It was like it was the best thing in my entire life and at the same time led me into just a ton of tragedy, like mentally taxing, yes, physically taxing to some degree, yes. But to answer your original question, I received several medals at the local and regional level here in southern California, and I yeah, and I competed at the national level in twenty thirteen.
And there's also the World Meet where after each country has their own version of a national competition, and the best two teams from each country in each discipline represent their country at the World Meet, which happens I believe every two years. Okay, you hinted at some tragedies where some people hurt or some people not there are parents, is not open? Was it that kind of hurt fatalities? Yeah, a combination. In the four years that I was skydiving,
twenty three of my friends passed away. So oh, of the yeah, three of those were veterans who took their own lives, which, as I'm sure everybody's pretty well versed by now, I think the recent statistic is one in twenty or twenty twenty. On average, twenty veterans take their own lives in this country. So yeah, so three of my veteran friends who
took their own lives. One was just a horrific motorcycle accident on one of the freeways here in southern California, and the rest of the people were skydiving fatalities or base jumping fatalities. And base jumping is where you're jumping off of a bridge or an antenna or a building or a cliff, and skydiving is
human powered flight out of an airplane. So the those two activities being the things that took people the most frequently for me and really at the end of the day, for anybody listening, Like, overall, in skydiving, on average, there's maybe twenty five fatalities a year in the United States, and that's across the millions of tandem skydives that are made. When people are jumping with an instructor attached to their back. But also the folks that I lost
weren't because of equipment malfunctions. Weren't because they didn't open their parachute in time. Most of the people that I knew that passed away were flying at the cutting edge of the sport, so they were pushing their equipment's capabilities, they were pushing their own skill sets. And with skydiving you have two parachutes, so there's a little bit more margin for error. But with base jumping, if your parachute fails, that's it. What's base jumping is it's just one
parachute and shorter jumps or something. Yeah, one parachute and shorter jumps. So you're jumping from a fixed object rather than a moving airplane. So you could jump from a tall building, a water tower, a cliff, a bridge, you name it. If it's this is like, it's a name for it. Something's sports like that killer sports, but extreme sports, extreme sports? Yeah, is that what that is? That is one of the most extreme for sure. Yes, twenty three friends passed away. I mean
in your book you talk about carrying around trauma. That would be a traumatic you know, even if they're casual friends. To lose them as a group,
as somebody as part of a team would be devastating. Yeah. Well, and I mean if you think about the average person, right like before I started dripping out of planes, one fatality, one sudden loss, one tragic ending to a life is a lot to overcome as the person on the surviving side of that, as the loved one who didn't die, but to stack twenty three in four years, like the when I share this story of
like I just envisioned that chapter of my life. I was kind of like a boxer with their hands tied behind their back, just getting punched in the face over and over. Like life just ca giving me challenges and it was a really it was a really chaotic time to learn, not how to do it right, Like when when I was in that chapter of my life, Like my my go to coping mechanisms were eating whatever I could find or drinking my feelings. So that was how we coped as a as a community was
like we can't. It's it's difficult in the skydiving and based jumping community to like I think, to really give those losses serious contemplation and consideration in the same way that we do for folks that pass outside of extreme sports, because if we acknowledge that it happened to our friends, and most of these people that passed away in that four year time span were extremely talented athletes, So it's really it's really difficult to sit with that and say, well, if
the best in the sport can die this way, myself is just an average Joe or Jean or whatever could probably definitely fall to the same fate. And I think that that's probably one of the reasons why the go to way to cope. As soon as we heard out that somebody had passed, round up the troops, go to the liquor store and get ready to party, because we have to honor life rather than mourning death when we're skydiving or else, we're not able to like mentally stay in the game and be safe ourselves.
At least that was the case. A great way to process either no, no, you're pushing it deeper and getting high and party as kind of a morning or what I guess, kind of a mini wakes we yeah, oh it memorializing somebody was that The factor that I eventually got you out was the fact that you had so many people that were passing or did you kind of
grow out of diving? What was the factor on that. The majority of it was losing so many friends in sequential order, Like it got to the point back in twenty fourteen, like at the beginning of the year, one of my friends that was a US Army veteran took his own life, and then my uncle had passed away, not from skydiving, but from brain cancer. And then in August of that same year, one of my best friends,
Adam, died on a bass jump. So it was like January was tough because we lost Chris, and then May my uncle passed, and then August Adam passed, and I was just like, I can't do this anymore. But ultimately the straw that broke the camel's back was the way that I had chosen to cope and by taking a break from jumping when all of my friends it felt like every time I woke up, somebody knew was dying. When I stopped jumping to just kind of take a break for myself, get
my head wrapped around the losses. My boss at the skydiving center where I was working and training, who was also on my skydiving team, and my skydiving coach. So like I trusted this man in the sky with my life. He signed my paychecks and he was a friend. He was arrested on several felony accounts for sexually assaulting a young woman under the fourteen Actually she was a girl. That's not a woman, that is a child, and that was that was the end of it for me. I was like, I
can't be here. At the time, I was running events, pr and marketing at the skydiving center, and I was like, I can't be involved in cleaning up this like this, this doesn't have anything to do with my job description. So I retired at the end of twenty fourteen and haven't been back in the sky since. So you quit the competitive skydiving, you move into marketing, but you hadn't really resolved And this is the interesting part of
your book. You have you hadn't resolved this trauma, and you had these kind of strange and not really great lifestyle habits, eating whatever you want, perhaps drinking too much. And at some point you're working and you discover you have diabetes. How devastating is that? Talk about that by that discovery?
Yeah, well, I mean at first, so like in the initial moments after receiving the diagnosis, So I was in the car, not the best place to receive a chronic illness diagnosis in the car driving to the San Diego International Airport to pick up a friend, So like driving in traffic stressful enough, going to the airport stressful enough that coupled with a chronic illness diagnosis received
via telephone while doing all of that was a lot. And my first thought was like, Okay, don't wreck the car, right because like I'm trying, I'm trying to like wiggle into the curb side pickup to get my friend and also like talking to my doctor. And also because at the time, all I knew was the stigma around the disease and I was thirty one years old when I was diagnosed, I was like, why is this happening to
me? Like I just I all I knew was like the stereotypes about what kinds of people get diabetes, and I was like, well, why me, Like what's going on with that? And it was it was a really it was shocking. But then as I learned how to manage the disease and I started to navigate living life with it and making some radical lifestyle changes.
It wasn't surprising like it was, but it wasn't because once I understood what contributes to a type two diabetes diagnosis, it was like, oh, yeah, that tracks like I haven't been taking good care of myself at all. So that makes sense. I get it. Would you say that at that time of your life you kind of write about it. It's in the early parts of your book. You are just kind of disconnected from your body.
It's like you're walking around and you're kind of like eating whatever, you know, maybe carrying a little too much weight, maybe not getting enough rest. Just not really good thought provoking lifestyle, right, that's correct, Yeah, talk about it. Yeah, I mean it was just like when I got that diagnosis. So in the book, I'm sharing the story, like the
timeline is falling two hikes that I did across Catalina Island. So the first hike was in twenty sixteen, the diagnosis came nine months after that first hike, and then the second hike was in twenty eighteen. So like sandwiched in between two of the most transformative experiences of my life period, let alone Outdoors comes this like smack to the face. And while everything you just said is true. I wasn't taking good care of myself. I was carrying a lot
of extra weight. The thing that was most interesting to me about it was because I had gone on that first hike in twenty sixteen, and because I had done it with no training, and because I had done it with no experience, my capacity to stick to it on that trail kind of set me up for success. I actually, I would say definitely set me up for success with managing this diagnosis, because when we're out in the back country, much like when we're out in life, like if something hard comes up,
like what are you gonna do? Just sit down and pout and never move again. No, we got to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And the most beautiful thing about the diabetes diagnosis, as it pertains to when this happened, in what chapter of my life, and what had set me up for success to manage this disease. That first hike in twenty sixteen was one of the most difficult things I've ever done physically. And obviously
we've been talking about skydiving. I was also a competitive or I was a Division one athlete in college on the women's rowing team at the University of Kansas. I dabbled in all the sports and activities growing up, so I was always some semblance of athletic. But in the years leading up to that first hike in twenty sixteen, I had put on a ton of weight and I
didn't recognize the body I was in. And when I went to go shopping to get all of the gear that I needed to go have a safe and successful trip in a backpacking environment, I was just flabbergasted by the fact that every single size of clothes that I tried on that I had worn my entire life, none of it fit like I had been shopping in years. Oh my god. So I was just I had no idea, but for for whatever reason and and I had. I have been a yo yo dieter my
entire life. I've always been up until this chapter of my life. Now I've got it all dialed in. But the first thirty years of my life, I was like, Oh, let's try a new diet, let's do these diet pills, let's not eat stuff, let's eat all the things. Like I tried all the things, and what happened every time was every time that I tried to get my health under control or take positive action towards some
kind of health outcome I was looking for. It was always rooted in how I looked and vanity and like I gotta lose twenty pounds so I can go look super cute on stage for this speaking engagement or whatever the motivation was. And for whatever reason, on that backpacking trip in twenty sixteen, when I didn't recognize the body I was in when I was buying the biggest clothes I've ever bought, I was like, Okay, I don't know what happened here
with all of this this body, all this extra weight. I'm caring, but I'm curious, like what would be possible from this point moving forward? I just honored my inner athlete, and it was in that framing of like, how can I tap back into that division one mindset I had? How can I tap into this spirit of competitive skydiving, which is a very mentally taxing experience. How can I tap into those things to set myself up for success on this hike? And by doing that, I was able to just
keep putting one foot in front of the other. I realized, like, Okay, I know that I'm not getting as far on this trail as I want to. I recognize that I'm in really bad shape. I did not condition my body for this experience. But what I know to be true is that I love how I feel when I'm out here, and I want to do more of it. So in the framing of what is possible if I honor my inner athlete is what set me up for success in managing the diabetes.
I'm interested in this first high. Your husband suggested it. You weren't in hiking shape and Catalina. I haven't hiked on Catalina Island before, but it looks pretty flat. But still it's a long walk, a long hike. So what was his motivation? It's like, we're gonna break you out of your slump. Were you feeling depressed? I mean, he was the motivating factor for that first hike. Well I think about that, Yeah, yeah, I mean for the first hike when we realized one. I had
been in client services for several years. That had been my career, between marketing, communications, working at PR firms, working on brand side. I had been in client services and prioritizing client needs over my own for my entirety of my career. Leading up to that point, and where I was in my lifespan, in my career at that time, was this agency that I was working with, in particular, had the entire business shut down between Christmas
and New Year's. And for anybody listening that's in any kind of like job where you get paid time off, especially if you're in client services, we've all been on vacation checking emails right Like we're like, Oh, I'm on vacation, but I'm not because I'm doing work. That wasn't going to happen for me on this trip because the entire agency was closed between Christmas and New
Year's. So knowing that I could be all the way offline and it didn't need to be like semi accessible as I used to have to be on vacation, I was like, I want to get off the grid. And the year before, my husband and I had done like a little road trip around southern California and kind of up into the Bay Area and then back down, just camping at different parks around the area, and I was like, I really enjoyed how I felt when I got back from that trip, just spending
time out in the woods. And my husband grew up in New Hampshire and he recommended that we go backpacking. So it was his idea to get off the grid, to go and find something close to us. And fortunately we were living in San Diego at the time and the uh Trans Catalina Trail, which is off the coast of Los Angeles, California, was a short drive and a short ferry right away. Playing by plane or a multi day trip
to get to where we wanted to get. It was nearby. It was remote enough for us to get the experience of being in the back country. And to circle back to your original point. You haven't hiked on Catalina and I'm about to tell you it ain't flat, sir, like it is it is it gilly, because I mean you have of it and the pitches, yeah, coast look pretty flat. I mean yeah, flat flat, but
so ups and downs. Yeah, So to put it into context for like folks that are you know, from the American West, where we're talking about like fourteen thousand foot mountains and that's the challenge. Yeah. The highest point on Catalina Island is Silver Peak and that's eighteen hundred feet, right. Yeah, So it's not you're not going to get the massive five thousand foot elevation game in one shot, as you might in the Sierras. But here's the
thing. There's no coverage whatsoever, no shade on this trail save for like maybe two or three places on the entire trail. And the trail builder, Kevin Ryan, it's the Transcattlina trail is a combination of the access roads on the island, so dirt roads that get you from one side of the island to the other, and single track and the single track that's on the island.
He fashioned it after bison tracks, so like where the bison on the island roam with their four legs and all their power and not worrying about blisters or hiking boots or backpacks. Like, that's where the trail goes. So Kevin was like, yeah, uh, if I just follow this little line here, yep, yep, that's where the bison walk, Let's build a trail here. So it's it's on paper, you're one hundred percent right. Like if you look at the elevation profile for the trans Catalana trail, you're
like, this is easy. I got this. You get out there and it's like anything above sixty five degrees in sunny and you're sweating like it's July and it's just it's hot. There's no shade and it's it's a doozy. It really you did it from you did it from outboarding from the ferry and so it's like, what twenty six miles? The whole trail is twenty something miles, right, So are you doing this in landing and back to two Harbors? Okay, so what is the So you stayed what was it like
three days that you were there or something. Our first time we did five days. So yeah, and we took a day off at Little Harbor, mostly because we had to in order to get the reservation. That's the other thing about the trans Catalania Trail. It's very different from other backpacking experiences in California and that each camp site you have to reserve it. So it's not like you're walking on the Pacific Crest Trail and then you're like, you know
what, I've hiked ten miles today, I'm tired. I like to pull over and set up camp on the trans a lanea trail. You have to sleep at the designated camp sites, so oh interesting, Okay, Yeah, so it's a really great first backpacking trip in that regard. And that not because it's easy, because it's not, like I already mentioned, but it
takes a lot of the what ifs out. So for anybody that's looking for a first backpacking trip, assuming that you can hike that many miles in that many sequential days, you don't have to really worry about like finding water. There's water provided at every camp site. Cool. You don't have to worry about where you set up camp Like I mentioned, Like the camp sites are predetermined and you have to reserve the camp sites. That's your version of a
permit. So there's not like a lottery for permits or anything. Yeah, but the reservation's open on January first, and you have to reserve it in order to be able to hike that So I gotta ask you this, Sydney. You talk about collecting and buying all your equipment, you haven't hiked before. How heavy was your pack when you started? Uh? I was ringing in close to thirty thirty five pounds, And for somebody who hasn't used a
pack before, that must have been a burden After a while. I mean like I was like barely successfully carrying the weight that was living on my body, let alone my pals. Yeah, it was, it was. It was a doozy. So you're must have been taking a lot of breaks to get that pack off your back, Yes, sir, I was okay. So you take five days and you're back. You're up in your back,
obviously, you're you're you're challenged for a lot of this hike. What came through for you though, that you find is important about hiking in the outdoors. Obviously you have your husband. That's kind of cool. It's nice to have some your you know, your your relationship, your lover with you to kind of catch up on stuff, especially if you're always gone you're working. But other than that, why what was it about the hight that really you
felt was transformative? I'll tell tell you what. Between the two there were two really big takeaways. I would say. On the first hike in twenty sixteen, it was so intensely physical because I hadn't trained, because I wasn't
experienced at backpacking. It was so deeply physical that all I could think about was like what I was feeling in my body, And for that, in and of itself, was a transformational experience because like you said, I had been living kind of outside of my body for a long time, and to be so in it and so aware of every pinch and pain and bruise and blister was a very h not overwhelming experience, but a new experience that I hadn't had that much awareness of my body in such a positive light too,
Because it was so deeply intensely physical, I very easily could have slid down like a very tempting path of like berating myself or judging myself, or or chastising myself for not being in better shape and trying to do this deeply physical thing. But for whatever reason I didn't. So the first trip, while deeply physical and I never really got into like the emotional benefits of hiking on that first trip, what I did realize was this has radically changed my relationship
with my body. Like I mentioned before, on that first hike, I didn't recognize the body that I was living in because I had just been trying to deal for so long and I wasn't dealing well. And then on the second hike in twenty sixteen with that or in twenty eighteen with that diabetes diagnosis in the middle. So if the first hike was like the most physically challenging thing I've ever done, and that was beneficial in reminding me that like wow,
like look at what is possible. Like I might not have finished this trail the first time, but I gave it everything I got and I got pretty far. That was really cool. Then the diabetes diagnosis kind of set me up for success on that became hiking became like my primary activity and my training plan for managing diabetes. For the sheer fact that and I knew that I was going out for a hike, I didn't want to eat like crap
the night before because I wanted to wake up and feel good. I was getting outside, getting fresh air, getting that vitamin D from the sun that we all need to be able to be happy, healthy humans. And I was losing a tremendous amount of weight between the first hike and the second hike, so that diabetes diagnosis. By the time I got on the trail the second time, I had lost like sixty pounds I was training, I had
six zero six zero. Yeah. Yeah, So I really let hiking kind of be the guiding force in both my diabetes management plan but also also in how I mentally manage my mental health. And so in twenty eighteen, on that second hike, my question going into it was like, Okay, on the first hike, it was really really hard for all the reasons already mentioned. Then I got diagnosed with diabetes, and in the process of diabetes management, I had discovered that because I wanted to be a good diabetes patient,
couldn't keep doing the things that I used to do to cope. So I
couldn't keep drinking a bottle of wine to myself after work. I couldn't keep eating Ben and Jerry's for breakfast when I was sad and I was asking myself, like I realized on the top of this mountain outside of San Diego while I was training for the Trans Catalina Trail the second time, I was like, oh, like, I've been hiking my feelings instead of eating or drinking them, and that's kind of just how like it was just a phrase that came to my head and I was like, oh, well, yay me,
Like that's a healthier way to cope certainly, but also it got me thinking like why was I eating and drinking my feelings to begin with, and what would be possible if the hike itself wasn't the hard part on that second trip, right, because if I had gotten all the benefits that I had gotten extremely out of shape, no training, no conditioning, no knowledge on as to how to enjoy this experience, no experience having done anything like that
before. In twenty sixteen, what was available to me now that I could hike multiple days in a row because I did do that trip in the world or shape I've ever been in, Like, what else is possible for me out here? Yeah, that's fascinating. In twenty eighteen was the trip where I got to understand why hiking was the thing that was helping me heal more than anything else I had tried. And the rest of I want to talk
about that. I want to talk about the two year span. Something happened the first time on Catalina Island that woke you to the benefits of hiking, But more than just the benefits physically, talk about the training or perhaps exercise routine that you developed prior to the second trip. And I mean, there's sixty pounds, there's a lot of weight to lose, and so you're really changing your not only your life, your physical body, but your mental body.
So talk about why the hike was important. I mean the training and what you did. Did you hike once a week for an hour? Did you hike a couple of times a week around the block? What type of hiking we're are we talking about? Yeah? Well, and this is this is one of my favorite parts of this story because I started gangbusters, right, I was like, you know what I'm gonna do, go backpacking, no experience whatsoever. I'm just gonna backpack because I got this, and I
did to some extent. But then I got home and I was like, well, I can't just go backpacking every day, right, Like I need to get into some kind of routine. And after I got diagnosed with type two diabetes, my doctor was like, hey, if you walk at least fifteen minutes a day, three to five days a week, you're gonna you're gonna beat this. Like it is possible. We've caught it early enough in the development of the disease that it is possible for this to be a manageable
thing for you. And I was like, oh, okay, So I just started walking around my neighborhood like granted, got nine months prior I had just gone and done a multi day backpacking trip but then I couldn't walk right for a couple of weeks because I didn't train, like and my legs had to heal and my blisters had to heal. So I was like, maybe instead of going like full bore right out the gate, let's develop a plan.
So I literally just started walking around the neighborhood. Like I would wake up and there was this canyon like this, like and by canyon, I mean I feel like when I say that, people are like, oh, she lives by the Grand Canyon. No, So like it's you know, like when you go on a road and there's like a big dip and the way back up is enough to make you feel like you're on a roller coaster. Like that's the kind of hill that I used to walk in my neighborhood.
So it's not like some big massive thing San Diego or to make yeah, San Diego, but so I call it the hill of Death. It's not actually that big, but at the time it felt like it. And so I would wake up and like before, I wouldn't scroll, like I wouldn't go scrolling through social media. I wouldn't check my email and start responding to clients right away, like my my mornings were mine, jumping into work
or whatever the world needed for me. It was just me and the sounds of my neighborhood and the cute little critters that live along the route that I was walking, Like I got to go meet all the cute neighborhood dogs and like hear the birds, and it was just a neighborhood walk. And it was that simple. And that's one of the biggest points that I try to make. It's called hiking your Feelings. My organization is called Hiking My Feelings. But hiking is really a small part of what we do, and it's
a hike doesn't have a definition, at least not in our world. We're going to take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will be right back with my guest today, Sidney Williams discussing her new book, Hiking Your Feelings. We'll be right back. My guest today is Sydney Williams, who has written a new book called Hiking Your Feelings, in which she describes her own transformation from trauma and a really serious diagnosis and
her transformation by hiking and getting out in nature. I use the word hike a lot. But you can hike on a trail. It's more like walking. Some people might think of the word hike like going up steep hills or really struggling or having to repel off a cliff or so crazy, right, But walking outdoors at some kind of a pace, getting the air, that's what we're talking about, right, Yes, yeah, no matter if you're walking, you can do urban hiking. In fact, we hiked all way
across the state of Michigan on an urban trail. We hiked two hundred and twenty miles around Chicago, around the city. That's hiking, Like hiking is walking. And my husband likes to remind me that it's just walking, and we've been doing it with some degree of success since we were toddlers. So for anybody listening, that's like, oh man, hiking sounds like I need to get boots in a backpack and I need to like get my map and
a compass and really plan stuff out. Hiking is just walking outside, That's what I say, And it's and it's the intent behind it. We're we're wandering, we're wondering, we're allowing ourselves to be captivated by the magic that surrounds us. The spirit of hiking and the physical activity of hiking sometimes get misconstrued, and the spirit is that of an adventure and exploration, and the actual physical activity can be walking in a city or walking in remote, rugged
wilderness, or anything in between. Why is it critical not to bring your phone if you can help it, or be listening to music or be engaged with some media as you're walking. I think, well, for me, uh, keep your phone, but just tuck it away, because you want to have like a map, especially if you're going somewhere and you don't you haven't been there before, like there. You do want to have some reference as to where you're going in a way to get in touch with people.
But what I say when I say disconnect is like just tuck the phone in your backpack, tuck it in your pocket, don't listen to audio books, skip the music, skip your favorite podcast unless it's this one and this in that case, like take take this episode, listen to Destiny even if you want to. That all being said, like the the the benefit of disconnecting is simply the awareness. And I think that that's something that people are most
scared of. They're scared of empty space, they're scared of being alone with their thoughts. But that's where the magic happens. Like if we if we really sit down and think about it, how long has it been since you've gone on at least an hour, if not a day or multiple days without
technology, without background noise, Like we hear stuff all the time. Like really, the only time that we're not being inundated with external stimuli is when we're sleeping, and even then, like some of us sleep with noise machines. So like to be able to have actual, dedicated, planned, intentional
time away from all the things that we use to distract ourselves. And not all distractions are negative either, by the way, Like listening to educational programs is not a negative distraction, Like listening to your favorite podcast is not damaging in the way that like chugging a bottle of wine to yourself after work is some nights, But like to give yourself separation from that and allowing yourself just
to hear your own thoughts. How thinks about that? A little more, go a little deeper, Sydney, I relate my hikes too, And you used a great word intentionally clearing. But what do you think happens when we do like say thirty minutes even twenty minute walk or hike, and we're not having any interference from whatever technology we carry. Well, if you give yourself the time and space away from the technology that we carry, there's a couple
things that are going to happen. And the thing that happened most for me
is this. When I tried to heal from all the things that I've been through, from the friends passing from trauma earlier in my life, from everyday struggles of being human, I would I would deploy some kind of tactic, right, so I would like do I would find a meditation or some journal prompts or some kind of exercise or activity, or a self help book or whatever, and I'd try to do these things and I'd be sitting there and i would be like meditating, and then I'd have some memory come through my
mind and just like send my nervous system into complete dysregulation, some kind of flashback thing that I'm trying to heal from, that I would shut down.
And it wasn't until I started hiking without the without the distractions that I have in everyday life, that I was able to take that step one step further in that so I'm able to process because and it wasn't until that second hike in twenty eighteen where I actually like felt this happening in real time and it was like WHOA, Like this this is the future of healing, right because I was like, wait a minute, Like, I'm I'm still processing,
like the negative thoughts that go through my head. I still feel disregulated, like I feel that fight or flight response from that memory or from that flashback happening in my body. But the difference is when I'm doing this in motion, when I'm processing in motion, specifically when I'm hiking, and even better, if I'm doing something difficult physically, I have somewhere to put the energy.
And that's the difference to be able to stomp it out, to be able to cry in the middle of the woods and not have anybody look at me or judge me like that. That is the mechanism of hiking without distractions, that to heel through it. Exactly, you just made a You just gave me a kind of a lead to the next question. It it's a and I hear what you're saying. It's able you can actually process very deep trauma, and it kind of allowed my experience, and I want to hear
from about yours. But in my experience, when I'm out there and I've had, you know, time, maybe the first twenty thirty miss to take it all in, stuff comes up, and I've had situations where I've processed trauma and felt just a sigh of relief. It's really weird. Talk about an example that if you can of knowing that you've seen and felt that somebody's passing or traumatic experience and how it came through and maybe was released, it's
kind of like a natural therapy. Nature's yeah therapy. Yeah. So I was. I was there on the mountain doing the thing, healing from the things that had always stopped me before. And then I got to the top of where I was trying to get to and I just like I threw my arms up because like my whole body just felt like it was just like course, like energy, electricity was like coursing through my veins and like the best way, like my body was just like buzzin' and I would I just threw
up my arms and I like just kind of surrendered to the moment. I was like God, Universe, unicorns, whatever you believe in, Like what is happening here? Like I don't I can't put my finger on it. I don't know exactly how to articulate what I'm like feeling and experiencing here. But I know I felt this feeling before, Like I know I have felt this good in this body in this lifetime at some point. When was the
last time I felt this good? And so I just kind of sat with that and like I really like allowed the feeling of feeling good to take over my body and just like everywhere, out of every orifice, every pore, every cell of my being, I was like, oh, this feels good. And then I started walking in and I was like searching for the answer in my mind. I was like where when how It's so familiar, but
he had it's so different. And I was walking down this really steep, like slippery Shaley rock pile that they call a road on Catalina, and I was watching for my husband. He was several several steps ahead of me, and I was like just making sure that I was, you know, watching my step, and I picked up my head to see where Barry was, and I kind of lost my footing so like rejigger myself and I like get my feet planet and I take a deep breath and I'm like, Okay,
Williams, you got this. You're not gonna roll down the hill. You're gonna find your answer. And then, as life always does, when you least expect it, clarity hits and I was like, Oh, the last time I felt this good. The last time I felt this confident in my body, this excite about the direction my life is going. Like the last time this happened. Last time I felt like this was right before my sexual
assault that I experienced in college. Oh God, And to your point, to your point, though I didn't feel sad, I didn't feel confused. I felt free. It was like that deep exhale that you experienced where you said like, and sometimes it just feels like a sigh of relief, And that's what I felt in that moment. I was like, Oh, man, that sucks. I went through that. I stuffed that all the way down. I buried that so deep. I acquired so many coping mechanisms to
try to get through that, though it just weren't helpful. But now I know. Now I have context for all the ways that I've shown up, all the choices I've made because the trauma from that very specific, very traumatic event, the worst day of my life. That unresolved trauma had informed every single coping mechanism, every single decision. When I asked myself before that hike, why was I eating and drinking my feelings to begin with? There was
my answer, and I was just like, very cool. I was like, I know, I know, I've got a lot to heal from now that I have this awareness, but ooh, that awareness was so delicious. I just needed it, Cliff, I needed that taste. I love that. So so this self therapizing self therapy, you're actually in touch with this horrific experience. I can't imagine. We're not going to get into the details. But what do you think happened when you processed it? Did you acknowledge
it? And remember all the crap you did to band aid that event, and then in some state you've released it or by acknowledging it, it's now an event that happened, but it doesn't rule my life. Talk about what happened for you, where it sits, where is it sit in your consciousness? I think for me now, so at the time I would have been like, uh, Cliff, I got it. I got it all figured
out. Life is easy, uh No, And like I knew that when I when I when I had this discovery, when I as quickly as I felt relieved, right behind it was like, okay, well, if this is true, what else is true? Like what other things have we been suppressing? Maybe we should go find all of them all at once? And it was like kind of intense, But I think the biggest thing about that
moment was just the permission that it gave me to just relax. And as far as like where it sits now, I really had to turn that pain around and I had to sit with it. I had first and foremost, I had to sit with it, like I had the awareness like, oh, this is the thing that happened. It's prevented me from feeling this good
for this long now I know. And then behind that was like, okay, well, now we've got to like sit with the pain that we've caused ourselves, the pain that we've caused others in the spirit of trying to avoid being hurt. In a similar way, the decisions that I've made, the abandoning that I've done, it was a lot and just like everything else, was like the next most beautiful step in this process, because without that level of awareness, I wouldn't have been able to figure out what happened for me.
But also I didn't have the language to articulate this in the moment. I have spent thousands of miles on the trail trying to unpack the things that I've been through and find the language to describe what happened to me, both from a trauma perspective and like naming and claiming what I've experienced, but also from a healing perspective and trying to find the language to articulate what is happening. Because I know I'm not the first person to heal in nature. Humans
have been doing this. Humans have been doing this since time memorial thousands of years. Indigenous cultures, since the beginning of humansanity have been healing in natural spaces. And but but I, and I like to say, like, I'm not the first, and I'm not alone on an island, but like, technically I was, like I was the first person that I knew that had healed like that, so I might as well have been alone on that
island. And I spent the five six years following that hike talking with other people sharing my story, trying to find language to articulate what had happened to me for me and because of this experience, so that I could heal it for myself, but also by healing out loud and pretty publicly, we've created an incredible community around very difficult topics such as surviving sexual assault, where now we have a container through which to talk about these things that feels a little
less scary and a lot more inclusive of everybody's kind of experience, because because I'm not the first and only, there's so much shared experience and so many shared stories to glean from to help me learn more about what happened to me, so I can then share those learnings with other people. We're going to talk about your website here in a minute, and you know the work you
do with other people. You in your book have a I think it's at the end of each chapter and you say, before any adventure you suggest the following you you want people to have a curiosity, and a patience and a self trust. Talk about each one of those as a kind of a starting point before we take a hike. And why that's important, Well, I think if you go, if you're like I'm listening to this and man, Sindy, you have really sold me on the healing power of nature. You're
crying your tragedy. I'd like to reproduce this for myself. We're doing a real good job of making this sound sexy and beneficial, but truly like for most people where they're like, oh, I haven't been hiking before, and we kind of already touched on this hiking in and of itself, Like the outdoor industry as it works, as there is one, and it's one of the most profitable industries in all of the products that we create here in America.
The outdoor industry has a very specific idea of like who is outdoorsy and what outdoorsy looks like. So you'll find lists of like the things you need in order to start packing, the items you must buy to hike successfully. I argue, Yeah, you're gonna need good shoes, you're gonna need a bag to carry yourtuff in it, and definitely bring some water and snacks, and also a map would be handy. But more than that is that patient self, trust, and curiosity. Those are things that we naturally possess as
humans. To some degree, we might have more self trust than the person next to us or less. But these are things that we inherently possess that are going to be super important for our journey, And I would argue we're probably more important than like what color back you're carrying, because like patience with the process in and of itself, like everything I like to say, and
this is my this is my like great equalizer. Right, your worst day, Cliff, and my worst day, they're going to be radically different. I can tell you right now, start to finish. The worst day of my life is definitely not the same as yours. But we're both still on
this planet and we can still talk about it. So from from a very basic perspective, like we're already here and we've already been through the worst things we've ever been through, which is where patience and self trust can be tapped into to realize, Yeah, like going out for a hike might be scary, it might be scary to try something that you've never done forever, but also think of all the things you have done successfully and think about the patience
that requires to start something new and to get into some kind of new activity. Hiking's just walking, So if you're patient with yourself and the way you talk to yourself, and you're not side tracked or derailed by the messages your body might be sending you. When you go out for your first hike,
then you're going to be set up for success. And through hiking we can find more patients because if we start moving at the speed of nature instead of moving at the speed of capitalism and society, then we can pay attention to a lot more and our experiences are a lot more rich and robust and nourishing rather than like always getting to the next thing and got to make sure I have all the things that I need to be successful and productive, and like,
it's just it's so much. And I think, and I think for anybody that lives in a body that they might not recognize, or that they don't feel safe in, or that they've spoken poorly about, either to themselves or in front of others. The thing that I love most about spending time outside is like, go walk through like a forest or go walk through a garden, and you might have a favorite flower or a favorite kind of tree, but we're not walking through a forest and being like, did you see
that fat tree? Did you see that tree? That is just so ugly and their branches are so gnarled, Like, we don't talk about trees that way. So if we can go in and just admire the beauty of nature, if we do that enough, we can start to admire the beauty within ourselves and within each other as well. I like that. So how do we start somebody who's listening and going, you know what, I don't go to the gym, I don't want to go hiking. I don't want to
get a backpack. How do they start and how many times a week do they begin walking slash hiking to see benefits? I'm just curious about your take on that. Well. I mean, also consider that I'm not a doctor, nor am I a therapist, but as somebody who has lived this and has healed from trauma and disease through this activity. Here's what I know. I know that it doesn't matter how long you go. Yes, you're gonna get more benefits the longer that you spend outside. That's just it's it's with
anything. But like if you're sitting here and you're like, I haven't been to the gym since I was required to run a mile in elementary school or whatever. Or or I don't feel comfortable going out on a trail, then go find a local park, sit by a tree in your yard. Like it's literally as simple as touching grass. So if you have a yard where you live, put your feet in the grass and just start doing that. Like, start with like the most basic part of the habit, which is
getting your body outside. So find a nice place to sit locally, whether that's in your yard or to a local park. And as you start to like build up your comfort, you're comfortable, you're comfortable, and you can build up your comfort with spending time outside, then you can start spending more time outside. So it's a matter of like initially it's just like tap into
that curiosity and for as as intimidating as it can be. There's a really great app called All Trails, And when you download it or if you use it on the computer, you can enter your location and it will show you trails that are nearby where you are right now, no matter where you are.
I love that All Trails. All Trails. So if you go traveling, like if you're going to a new place for a work trip and you're like, oh, I got some time this morning, pull up all trails, and you can find a local trail, I will say, with a with a bit of a caveat there. Sometimes, because these are all like user generated trails, sometimes the distance that they say the trail is or the difficulty of the trail and what is reality do not align, so we call
it like the all trails. It's kind of a joke. It's like the all Trails curse. You go out for a five mile hike and at mile five you realize you're only halfway through, so take some take some precautions with
that. But it can be as simple as just discovering. And I think to this point the thing about hiking that is so great and as a mindfulness activity, if we think about what we just said, downloading an app for the intent of discovering something, opening the app and discovering something near you, driving to the trailhead, or walking to the trailhead, and then going on the adventure. Before you even set foot on the trail, you've already practiced
mindfulness. This doesn't have to be limited to what we think of when we think of mindfulness, which is like some really zen, very thin, very yoga pant wearing person sitting on a tofet with just like the most blissed out expression on her face because she's never had a hard day in her life. Like it can be as simple as deciding to go for a hike today or
maybe tomorrow or maybe next week. Like we've got people in our community they're like, I've been thinking about hiking since we met them, and they're like, I'm thinking about starting, And they've been thinking about starting for years. But when they finally but that's the thing they're thinking about starting, and they weren't thinking about that before. So is it a failure that they've never been out on a trail yet, No, because they're thinking about what that means.
And some people need a lot of time to think about it, and some people are ready to just go pick it up. Go. So that is still mindful and that is still healing, even if you're not actually doing it. But to answer your question from a doctor's perspective, the recommendation that was made for me was at least fifteen minutes every day, three to five days a week. Now, if you can get out there for longer, awesome. And if you're listening and you're a person that's managing for diabetes or
some kind of other metabolic disorder. The thing that was most concerning to me was like I need energy. Like I understand that you have to have energy to expel energy, but all the energy that I had been consuming in the form of different ingredients when I first started viking, I was like, oh gosh, like this is this is directly against doctor's orders from my nutritional plan.
So when you're out there, when you when you level up to multiple miles or multiple hours, or you're out there for like an all day hike in the wilderness, you're going to need to have the energy, and your relationship to food and movement and time with yourself will change automatically. It's it's just a it's a it's a fact of starting to practice this. Yeah. The books called Hiking Your Feelings Lazy Na Trail to Self Love. My guest
today has been Sydney Williams. Give us your website and tell us what's on your website. So our website is Hikingmyfeelings dot org. And on our website you will find links to where you can order the book. It's now available anywhere the books are sold. If signed copies are your thing and you're not able to get to it just came out. Let's let people know they can get the book there, but they you know, if they are not available there, they can get them on Amazon. So today is the congratulations to
official launch. Yeah, so you'll be able to find opportunities like where you can buy the book there and then we also we are in the business of creating opportunities for people to experience the healing power of nature. Our mission at Hiking My Feelings is to improve community health by doing exactly that. So if you read the book and you're like I needed help and I'm ready, come do it with us. We have events all over the Western United States.
We have a virtual online program called Blazion Trail to Self Love, and we're creating as many opportunities as we can for readers to put the concepts presented in the work presented in the book into practice. Fantastic. Yeah, the book, like I said, just came out. It's a very cool book. Is a it's a thick binder, so almost like you could put it in your backpack and read it as you're on the trail. I'm not sure you're
meant for that to be I'm down bring it with you. Oh, Okay, so you also have a YouTube channel, right, Yes, we do,
and what's on the YouTube channel. So on our YouTube channel, we have been documenting kind of like a behind the scenes of what it takes to organize the events that we organize to go scout the trails that we scout and share recaps from the different experiences that we host with our various national, national nonprofit partners around the Western US. So you can find information about the events
that we've hosted in the past. You can see some really great recommendations for hikes that we've done around the United States, and you can stay up to date with all the cool things that we're doing on the road this year for the Hiking Your Feelings Tour. Fantastic Sydney, fantastic fun speaking with you, and you've written a fun book and much success. Thank you, appreciate you
having me. I have to admit that there have been times out in nature where out of the blue I've had just uplifting moments and emotional kind of breakthroughs where you know, shedding a tear for something that happened at work or the a relationship issue that hasn't been result There's something about connecting you know, the term that the priests use when they're burying someone, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We're part of the earth, you really are. And that
connection runs really deep, amazingly deep. And you know, it was great to hear Sydney talk about the importance of connecting, why connecting is not only healing, but vital, vital. You know. It's funny because my grandfather had his home and his he had a big piece of lamb and he grew roses, and he grew all kinds of different flowers, and I mean, he had a huge piece of property where he grew you know, a lot of flowers, and he and my grandmother and a helper would take flowers to
the local hospitals to give to people to kind of brighten their day. And he grew volumes of vegetables and volumes of fruit and canned fruit and canned vegetables every year. And you know, he was so I mean, that was so vital for him and so healing. And he lived to be, you know, in his mid nineties, and I think that contributed to his wellness, you know, and also as a physician. You know, he would come home from the hospital and he was just fried, and it's a challenge
being someone who's well, a healer like that. So he'd go out in the garden and decompress. And I used to see this. He actually built, He built his own home, and he had in the later part of his life, he had an office and an examination room, and he saw people far and wide, and you know, not everyone's doing well. And I'd come to visit, and you know, he'd be with us for lunch, he'd take a lunch break, and then in the afternoon he'd close shop
and we'd follow him out to the backyard and we'd do watering. And I mean he had acreage. You know, I don't know how many acres he had, but long strips of vegetables, long rows of corn, and fruits and flowers. Flowers everywhere, had wonderful flowers. Doctor Rudolph Gerber, that was my grandfather, And so nature was huge. You know, in the pre As generations were much more in tune to it than we are, and they used they used it wisely, you know, for healing. We're kind
of disconnected from that. We got to get away from our damn phones. You know. I have friends that sit in front of the TV all day, and I'm like, what are you doing? Get out in nature. Visit somebody. Now, go and walk around and connect with nature. It's really really healing, it's it's vital. It's a form of nourishment. Good to have. Emily Williams on the program. That book again just came out. I just discovered it came out just twenty four hours ago, Hiking Your
Feelings, Blazing the Trail to Self Love. That was good. Hey, we do nature walks every time we do it tour, and our first tour of the year is the Grand Egyptian Tour April twenty eighth through May ninth, and it's a good one because we get out, we're in the desert. We're not left in the desert. Our air conditioned bus is very close by. But we get out and we check out a number of beautiful temples,
pyramids, and buildings and ceremonial sites. These are sacred sites, so just walking among these places is very very unique, and you kind of connect and it's kind of fun to see that. For more information on our upcoming Grand Egyptian Tour, go to Earth Ancients dot com forward Slash Tours. We're almost full. I think we might be full. I don't know. I haven't checked in with Mohammad and about two weeks so, but you know, if you want to come and join us, let me know, send me an
email. If if you can't get in for some reason, let me know, send me an email. Earth Ancients for You at gmail dot com and I'll make sure you get a space. These are wonderful. There's small groups. We have Egypt in the spring. In the summer, we're in Turkey, that's August seventh through eighteenth, and then we'll be in Mexico in November and we will be in Yucatan. All that information is on Earth Ancients dot com, forward Slash Tours and if you have any questions, Earth Ancients for
You at gmail dot com, I'll get right back to you. All right, that's it for this program, and I think my guest today is Sidney Williams coming from San Diego, California. As always, the team of Gail Tour and Mark Foster. You guys, rock, I really appreciate your help. All right, take care of you well and we will talk to you next time. Act of Active of Active Episode Acid as of ACTI