Hike + Heal Joshua Tree National Park

 
 

End the year with deep introspection in one of America’s iconic National Parks.

This year, we’re offering two different Wilderness Wellness retreats facilitated by Hiking My Feelings in partnership with the Joshua Tree National Park Association and the Desert Institute. Inspired by Sydney’s life-changing journey in the outdoors, this event series infuses healing and intention into every activity we do. This isn’t a healing retreat in that we tell you how to heal - we create a space where healing is possible. We offer resources that can transform any experience into a learning opportunity and set the stage for good energy & supportive vibes.

This is a space where you can laugh, cry, relax, tap into your creativity, challenge yourself, and enjoy the rewards as a collective.

 
 

Naturalist-led hikes with breathtaking views.
Guided self-discovery activities to shift your perspective.
Making memories with friends who feel like family.

About Joshua Tree National Park Association

Joshua Tree National Park Association works in partnership with Joshua Tree National Park to help in its achievement of programming goals in education and interpretation, along with scientific and historical research and activities.

Choose Your Own Adventure

We’re offering two different retreat experiences at Joshua Tree National Park this fall to help us connect the dots between the outer wilderness and the wilderness that exists within each of us. While these events are fantastic on their own, they are also very powerful when experienced in sequence, so if you feel called to sign up for both, please do!

Our proven framework for tapping into the healing power of nature will empower you to build resilience, self-trust, compassion, and empathy. Integrating the skills learned in the park into your daily life back at home will help reduce stress, improve your mindset, and help you feel connected to something bigger than yourself. Through a combination of hiking, mindfulness activities, self-reflection practices, and community connection, participants can look forward to unearthing a connection to themselves, each other, and the world around them.

Backpacking: Exploring Inner Space & Outer Space

Trek twenty mindful miles through Joshua Tree National Park in this weekend-long wellness-oriented backpacking trip.

October 6-8, 2023

Camping + Hiking: Tending to your Inner Wilderness

Find your wellness in the wilderness of Joshua Tree National Park during this weekend camping + hiking retreat.

November 17-19, 2023

Retreat Facilitators

We’re here for you.

Hike + Heal Joshua Tree National Park is a Wilderness Wellness retreat facilitated by Sydney + Barry Williams - the dynamic duo behind all things Hiking My Feelings. Together, we bring decades of experience in community building and facilitation, outdoor education, and self-reflection.

 


  • ABOUT SYDNEY
    When former collegiate athlete and competitive skydiver, Sydney Williams, unexpectedly found herself on the receiving end of a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, while grappling with unresolved trauma from a decades-old sexual assault, she set out on a mission: turn her pain into power. Two hikes across Catalina Island and 80 miles later, she founded Hiking My Feelings® to help others tap into the mind-body connection and healing power of nature that helped kick her self-limiting beliefs and disease into remission.

    Having more than 12 years of marketing experience with Fortune 500 companies and emerging brands, Sydney serves up her “truth juice” style of storytelling to break wide open tough conversations with practical, powerful content and experiences. Over the years, she’s been featured on the SXSW stage, as well as in Health Magazine, Diabetic Living Magazine, San Diego Union-Tribune, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, US News & World Report, and numerous other publications. Today, she is the author of Hiking My Feelings: Stepping Into to the Healing Power of Nature, and she travels across the country empowering others to summit their personal mountains on their way to becoming Well Beings.

    Sydney is a certified Wilderness First Responder (SOLO, 2021), and instructor at the Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park. Sydney facilitates guided self-discovery exercises, leads the hikes, and is here to help you blaze your own trail to self-love.

  • ABOUT BARRY
    Barry was living in the Upper East Side of Manhattan selling technology to banks and working with Fortune 100 companies when he had the opportunity to skydive the first time. That first jumped changed his life, and within 18 months, he went from living in the same building as Derek Jeter to living in a trailer in the backwoods of Maine, pursuing his instructor ratings in the skydiving industry. After a 16-year career as a professional skydiver, Barry was all-in on Hiking My Feelings.

    Hailing from New Hampshire, he spent his life hiking and backpacking in the White Mountains, where he also earned his Wilderness EMT certification. Barry lives by Bruce Lee’s recommendation; “be like water” and finds inspiration in the works of Alan Watts and Jiddu Krishnamurti. When he’s not leading hikes for Hiking My Feelings, producing content for our weekly videos, or driving the van, you can find him on his paddleboard, at a local reggae show, or cooking up an incredible meal.

    Barry is usually pulls up the rear on the hikes to ensure no hiker is left behind.