Sydney Williams
Founder, CEO, Hiking My Feelings/Reciprocity Rx™
Reciprocity by Design: Reconnecting People, Place & Purpose
In this experiential workshop, participants explore how nature’s model of reciprocity can help us design systems that uphold dignity within ourselves, our organizations, and the world around us. Drawing from Reciprocity Rx™, a framework developed through our programs on public lands, we’ll move through four phases—Receive, Reflect, Return, and Reconnect—to ground, listen, and design from relationship rather than extraction. Through guided reflection, small-group dialogue, and movement inspired by natural cycles, participants will leave with practical tools for staying resilient in turbulent times and for embedding reciprocity into the systems they shape.
About Sydney
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 turned into 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 and crafting social stories — Sydney traded the boardroom for backcountry trails. Her first major backpacking trips across Catalina Island ignited a realization: healing isn’t just something we find in nature — it is something we practice with it.
In 2018 she founded Hiking My Feelings (HMF), a nonprofit designed to make nature‑based wellness accessible, inclusive, and relational. Under her leadership, HMF has guided thousands of participants through trails, stories, and transformative experiences.
Today, as the founder of Wellness in the Wilderness Consulting and creator of Reciprocity Rx™, Sydney blends lifestyle medicine, somatic reflection, and land‑based learning into a growing library of free resources and an eight‑month certification program that empowers providers, public‑lands professionals, and community stewards to integrate nature‑informed care into their work.
Sydney holds certifications as a Wilderness First Responder and has facilitated field‑based workshops across national parks and protected landscapes. Her work has been featured in BBC, Health Magazine, Psychology Today, HuffPost, and on the SXSW and Public Lands Alliance Conference 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.