🙏 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

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 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' 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 - join us for a chance to win a Kula Cloth and a signed copy of Hiking Your Feelings: Blazing a Trail to Self-Love!
• March 5: Public Lands Alliance Conference
• March 9: Hiking Your Feelings launch at SXSW + Book Signing at SXSW
• 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, sponsored by Babe Kombucha and Muffin But Good Vibes
• March 19: Hiking Your Feelings Virtual Launch Party
• March 20: Blaze Your Own Trail to Self-Love Open House

Sydney and Barry bring you up to speed with everything Hiking My Feelings, or should we say Hiking Your Feelings?