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From patient to planet.

From relief to relationship.

When public lands meet public health, we find a new way forward.

a handwritten letter from sydney, welcoming website visitors to a slower pace

before we begin:

Hey there, friend. Before you scroll too fast, take a moment. Grab your favorite beverage. Breathe.

This world asks a lot of us — constant urgency, nonstop noise, and the illusion that everything can be solved with a quick fix. But what we’re exploring here isn’t a hack or a bandaid.

Reciprocity Rx™ is an invitation to slow down and remember what sustains us — the land, each other, our bodies, our breath, our stories and shared future.

This site is designed to mirror that pace. There’s space here — for reflection, for questions, for hope. Here you’ll find a framework for reconnection, rooted in relationship, stewardship, and the wisdom of nature. So settle in and get curious. Let your attention linger longer than usual. We need that now, more than ever.

Take me to the Programs

or if you prefer a voice memo:

THE PROBLEM: At the root of illness, burnout, and despair is something deeper: disconnection.

FROM OUR BODIES

Chronic stress, fatigue, and illness are signals of our disconnection. When we stop listening to our bodies, we lose our first language of connection.

FROM EACH OTHER

We are surrounded by people yet starved for belonging — more connected than ever while loneliness and burnout have become epidemics.

FROM THE EARTH

We treat nature as a resource to use, rather than a relationship to tend. Our well-being is inseparable from the planet’s.

We are living in a time of profound disconnection — from our bodies, each other, and the living systems that sustain us.

The World Health Organization now calls social isolation a global public health concern. Rates of anxiety, depression, and chronic disease are rising alongside ecosystem collapse. In medicine, providers often treat disconnection as a symptom: stress, insomnia, hypertension, burnout. But what if disconnection itself is the diagnosis?

Reciprocity Rx™ begins here — with remembering relationship as the foundation of well-being. When we re-enter conversation with the land, with our communities, and with ourselves, we move from survival to connection, from extraction to reciprocity.

NATURE HEALS. Here’s the data:

RELIEF

20-30 mins in nature = lower cortisol, improved mood

According to a 2019 study by Hunter et al., just 20 to 30 minutes of sitting or walking in a place that feels connected to nature can significantly reduce cortisol levels — the body’s primary stress hormone. That’s one of the most accessible interventions we have for nervous system regulation.

RESILIENCE

120+ min/week = tipping point for health & well-being

White et al. (2019) analyzed data from nearly 20,000 people in the UK and found that people who spent at least 120 minutes per week in nature reported significantly higher levels of health and well-being than those who didn’t.

RELATIONSHIP

repeated exposure = deeper meaning & behavior change

In Japan, Li et al. (2007–2010) led a series of studies on forest bathing — or shinrin-yoku. Their research showed that extended time in forest environments increases natural killer (NK) cell activity and elevates anticancer proteins. These immune benefits lasted for more than 7 days post-visit.

A QUESTION:

What if healing becomes harmful?

Across the globe, physicians are beginning to prescribe time outdoors as part of treatment plans. In Sweden, they built an entire tourism campaign around “prescribing” a visit to the country for travelers to immerse themselves in its healing landscapes. Here in the U.S., nature prescriptions and social prescribing are gaining traction. Physicians and public health leaders are advocating for nature to become the seventh pillar of Lifestyle Medicine — a formal, scalable tool for long-term health.

And we love to see it.

But what happens when we prescribe nature at scale, without building reciprocity into what we’re prescribing?

The pandemic gave us a preview. With concerts and sporting events canceled, gyms closed, and indoor spaces unsafe, people turned to the outdoors in record numbers. And the data shows the impact:

This surge showed us that nature is essential infrastructure, not a luxury. But it also revealed the risk of extractive healing — when we treat nature as a resource to consume rather than a relationship to nurture.

Two people jogging outdoors on a hilly trail with mountains and a city in the background, featured on a report cover titled '2024 Outdoor Participation Trends Report' by the Outdoor Foundation and Outdoor Industry Association, with a subtitle 'Executive Summary'.
Cover of the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, Volume 51, September 2025, featuring a montage of outdoor activities including cycling, hiking, horseback riding, and kayaking.
Line graph showing monthly recreation visits over five years from 2020 to 2024, with a table below listing the numerical data for each year.
Screenshot of a scientific article titled "COVID-19's impact on visitation behavior to US national parks from communities of color: evidence from mobile phone data" published by Nature. The page shows the title, author names, and publication details.
Group of volunteers in orange safety vests working together in a lush green forested area near a body of water.

Healing in Nature → Healing with Nature

Two volunteers wearing yellow reflective vests with the National Park Service logo, standing outdoors with trees and a large granite monolith in the background.
Four hikers with backpacks and hats exploring a red rock wall, with some pointing or touching the surface.
Three women cutting logs under a tent with a grassy background and a few people in the distance.

When relief becomes relationship, healing comes full circle.

Since time immemorial, humans have lived in harmony with the land. In modern society, we’ve turned to nature for refuge, restoration, and relief from the hyper-connected world we’re living in. But what if healing isn’t just something we get from nature — what if it’s something we practice with it?

Reciprocity Rx™ invites us to move beyond extraction-based wellness models and into a relationship-centered paradigm where our healing is interconnected with the Earth’s. This is not about escaping to nature for a reset. It’s about remembering we’re part of it, and that restoring our well-being goes hand-in-hand with restoring the planet.

We’re at a threshold moment: burnout, chronic illness, climate grief, and disconnection are converging. The opportunity — and responsibility — is to co-create a new model of care. One rooted in reciprocity. One where providers learn to receive from the land with reverence, reflect with intention, return through stewardship, and reconnect with themselves, their patients, and the Earth.

Reciprocity is a practice. And in a world that’s asking us to do more with less, this program offers a way to ground in enoughness, to lead with care, and to walk the path of healing with nature, not just in it.

This shift — from patient to planet, from extraction to reciprocity — isn’t just theoretical, we’ve lived it. These are the stories that shaped our shifts:

ROOTED IN RESILIENCE: Barry Williams

A man dressed in a black jacket, camouflage shorts, and a baseball cap stands outdoors in a lush green field, looking toward towering rocky mountains with patches of snow, dense trees, and partly cloudy sky in the background.
A man stands outdoors near a lake, wearing a dark jacket, sunglasses on his head, and a baseball cap. He has a serious expression and tattoos on his left arm, with a natural landscape of trees and a rocky hillside in the background.
Hiker standing on rocky mountain summit holding a sign that reads 'Mt. Whitney 2020 Elev 14,505' with rugged mountain landscape in the background.

From traction to the trailhead, Barry’s journey is a story of defiance, devotion, and deep connection to the natural world.

When Barry was a kid, doctors told him he’d be walking with a cane by his twenties. Diagnosed with Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, he spent six months in traction and several years in leg braces, learning early what it meant to live inside a body that demanded patience.

But Barry had other plans. He became a tri-state all-around gymnastics champion, team captain for golf and lacrosse, and competed in downhill ski racing — a walking contradiction to every prognosis he’d ever been given.

His early career took him from the world of technology into the sky, where he became a professional skydiver and mentor to others learning to face fear and trust themselves in freefall. By his thirties, after a hip resurfacing, two shoulder surgeries, a neck fusion, and an elbow repair (his doctor literally said he must have come from “the bargain bin”), Barry turned again to the one practice that had always helped him heal: hiking.

In the White Mountains of New Hampshire, his rehabilitation wasn’t in a gym or clinic, it was on the trail. Each step strengthened not only his body, but also his faith in what nature could restore. That’s where he found peace, purpose, and the clarity to share that healing with others.

Together, Barry and Sydney built a life around that belief. His love of the outdoors created the space for Sydney to listen, heal, and thrive — and from that soil, Hiking My Feelings®, Wellness in the Wilderness Consulting, and Reciprocity Rx™ all took root.

Barry embodies the spirit of this work: grounded, capable, endlessly patient, and rooted in relationship with the land, with himself, and with every person he welcomes onto the trail.

A hiker stands on a rocky ledge overlooking a deep blue mountain lake, surrounded by steep, rugged mountains under a clear blue sky.

FROM PATIENT TO PLANET: Sydney Williams

A woman outdoors in a mountainous forest area, wearing a blue patterned jacket, a black puffy vest, a beige hat, and sunglasses with reflective lenses showing trees and sky.
A woman with curly blonde hair signing an autograph at an event with a yellow backdrop featuring black and white logos for SXSW, Porsche, and The Austin Chronicle; a man with a shaved head and green jacket is watching.
A person with curly blonde hair sitting on a stone ledge, overlooking a scenic landscape with trees and hills under a cloudy sky.

In 2017, Sydney Williams was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Her body was calling for help, but she didn’t yet know how to listen.

In the years leading up to her diagnosis, she’d battled panic attacks, burnout, and the kind of silent grief that accumulates after loss — twenty-three friends gone in four years during her time as a competitive skydiver. She was running on adrenaline and empty promises of “I’m fine.”

So she started walking. At first, those walks were about blood sugar and stress management. But step by step, the outdoors became her refuge. Birdsong replaced the echoes of her inner critic. Light through the leaves softened her edges. The trail offered space for her body to remember what safety felt like. Nature became a member of her care team.

In 2018, after completing the Trans-Catalina Trail, Sydney’s first instinct wasn’t to text friends or family — it was to reach out to the Catalina Island Conservancy. That trail had changed her life twice, and she wanted to protect the land that had helped her heal. “How can I help?” she asked. That question became the heartbeat of her work.

She began to wonder if this experience could be recreated. Could she build spaces where others might feel what she felt on those trails — where healing wasn’t transactional, but relational? Could she create a judgment-free environment the way Barry had for her, weave in practices for self-reflection and connection, and give back to the land in real time?

Together, Sydney and Barry have done just that with thousands of people since launching Hiking My Feelings®. What began as one woman’s journey from patient to planet has grown into Wellness in the Wilderness Consulting and now Reciprocity Rx™: a movement reminding people that the medicine we most need isn’t something we take — it’s something we tend, together.

A person dressed in blue outdoor gear hiking on a rocky mountain summit, holding a yellow sign with 'Mt. Whitney 2020 Elev 14,505' written on it, smiling and celebrating the achievement, with a cloudy sky and mountain range in the background.
Hiker standing on a rocky ledge overlooking a mountain range with snow patches under a blue sky.

THE SCIENCE OF CONNECTION: Dr. Melissa Sundermann

A smiling woman with long blonde hair holding a book titled 'Doctor Outdoors' Guide to Nature and Lifestyle Medicine' by Melissa Sundermann. She is pointing at the book with her left hand, wearing a white sleeveless top, a silver necklace, a watch, and bracelets, with a background of shelves with decorative items.
A woman jumping in the air with the Grand Canyon scenery in the background, wearing sunglasses, a long-sleeve athletic shirt, and athletic pants.
A woman in a white coat pointing at a colorful health and wellness poster on a bulletin board. The woman has blonde hair, is smiling, and wears a name tag that reads Melissa Sundermann, DO, Internal Medicine.

For Dr. Melissa Sundermann — known affectionately as Doctor Outdoors — the trail has always been both classroom and clinic.

A lifelong athlete and adventurer, she has found her greatest lessons not in lecture halls but in the quiet wisdom of the natural world. Whether running through mist-covered forests or paddling across a still lake at sunrise, Melissa has long believed what research now confirms: nature itself is the best physician.

A double board-certified physician in Internal and Lifestyle Medicine, Melissa has spent more than twenty-five years helping patients address the root causes of chronic disease through nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management, and community. What she’s discovered — through science and lived experience alike — is that nature enhances every one of those pillars in ways modern medicine cannot replicate. Time outdoors lowers cortisol, reduces inflammation, strengthens immunity, and awakens a sense of purpose that no prescription can match.

As the Founding Chair of the Nature as Medicine Subcommittee for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), Melissa works to bridge evidence-based research with accessible, everyday practices that reconnect people to the world outside. Her mission is simple and profound: to remind us that nature is not a luxury or leisure activity, it is essential to our well-being.

Through her work with Reciprocity Rx™, Melissa brings the science of nature-based healing into the soul of this work. Her approach grounds the data in lived humanity, showing that the same force that heals our bodies can also heal our relationship with the Earth itself.

A woman with a backpack standing with arms outstretched in front of a waterfall in a green forested mountainous area.
Sunset over a frozen lake with orange and pink clouds, silhouetted hills in the background, and leafless bushes in the foreground.

Our Solution: Reciprocity Rx™

🌱 From Patient to Planet, Relief to Relationship.

Reciprocity Rx™ is a nature-based care model designed for protectors, providers, and pathfinders who are ready to move from healing in nature to healing with nature — for themselves, their community, and the land.

Through an innovative blend of free resources, certification programs, immersive retreats, integration support, and a practical toolkit, Reciprocity Rx™ helps care providers, land stewards, and community leaders reconnect to purpose, build resilience through relationship with the natural world, and model this healing for others.

After completing the Reciprocity Rx™ Certification Program, you’ll be able to:

  • Offer nature-based care in a way that feels authentic to you—whether that’s in a clinic, on the trail, around a fire pit, or across a desk.

  • Practice and inspire reciprocity—small acts with big impact that restore balance between people and planet.

  • Integrate nature-informed rhythms and rituals into everyday care, creating space for presence, reflection, and resilience.

  • Hold space for community connection, leading or supporting healing events rooted in shared purpose and collective care.

  • Be part of a movement of people reconnecting the dots between health, land, and belonging—bridging care work and Earth work.

If you’ve ever asked yourself how to reconnect to meaning in your work, how to move through burnout without abandoning your purpose, or how to make your care practice part of a more livable future—this is your invitation.

READY TO LEARN MORE?
You’re invited to our Virtual Open House on December 10!

Join Sydney Williams, author of Hiking Your Feelings and founder of Hiking My Feelings + Wellness in the Wilderness, as well as our guest experts and Program Advisors for an introduction to Reciprocity Rx™ for Protectors and Pathfinders. When you RSVP, we’ll send you our FREE worksheets to introduce you to the 4Rs!

VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE

Wednesday, December 10, 2025
11 am PT, 12 pm MT, 1 pm CT, 2 pm ET

RSVP HERE

DIFFERENT LANDSCAPES

DIFFERENT MEDICINES

Find Your Path with

Reciprocity Rx™

Whether you’re here to reconnect with your personal health, support your patients and community, or protect the landscapes that sustain us all — there’s a path for you in Reciprocity Rx™.

Our community gathers during the Foundations Program each month — a shared space where science, story, and soul meet. From there, you’ll have opportunities to deepen your learning through immersive retreats and specialized tracks designed for the unique roles we play in collective healing.

🛡️ PROTECTORS

for Indigenous partners and public lands professionals

For the people who steward our shared landscapes — Tribal leaders, park staff, and nonprofit partners working to understand and preserve cultural and ecological wellbeing. Protectors engage in relational restoration: reconnecting to the resource, deepening community resilience, and grounding stewardship in reciprocity.

Choose this path if you protect the land — and you’re ready to let the land protect you, too.

Protectors

🌎 PROVIDERS

for healthcare and wellness professionals

For clinicians, coaches, and care providers ready to integrate nature‑based care into their work. Providers learn how to prescribe and model reciprocity through evidence‑informed tools, immersive learning, and community dialogue. This path restores the healer while expanding their impact — from patient care to planetary care.

Choose this path if you’re called to bridge medicine, meaning, and the natural world.

providers

💚 PATHFINDERS

for individuals and community members

For anyone ready to remember what it feels like to be well — in body, mind, and relationship with the Earth. Pathfinders explore nature’s healing potential through personal reflection, group connection, and place‑based experiences that help transform “time outside” into a lifelong practice of reciprocity.

Choose this path if you’re seeking restoration, inspiration, or new ways to align your personal healing with planetary health.

Pathfinders

✨ Join us at the Reciprocity Rx™ Virtual Open House on December 10
to learn more about our protectors and pathfinders programs, and receive your free 4Rs Worksheets to begin your own practice of reciprocity.

RSVP Here!

2026 Programs

  • Free Resources + Toolkit

    For everyone. Whether you’re dipping your toes into nature-based care or ready to deepen your practice, the Reciprocity Rx™ toolkit is here to support you. This growing library of reciprocity resources is grounded in the 4Rs Framework (Receive, Reflect, Return, Reconnect) and includes downloadable tools, prompts, and shareable insights to bring reciprocity into your sessions, spaces, and systems — at your own pace, in your own way.

    🗓️ RSVP to the next Open House (December 10 and January 14) to learn more about Reciprocity Rx.

    Sign up below to receive your first free tool: the 4Rs Worksheet.

    Download now

  • Reciprocity Rx™ Online Certification

    FEBRUARY–SEPTEMBER 2026

    For Pathfinders, Providers, and Protectors.
    This baseline course is open to all and bridges the gap between public lands and public health. You’ll explore the roots of reciprocity through evidence-informed curriculum, community dialogue, and guided reflection — all from the comfort of your home, trail, or clinic.

    🌍 Ideal for anyone wanting to build a foundation in nature-based care.

    Featuring: Sydney Williams, Barry Williams, Melissa Sundermann DO, FACOI, DipABLM, FACLM, and our inspiring guest experts and Program Advisors.

    Registration is Open

  • 2026 Retreats

    Immersive Experiences Open to Everyone

    This track expands on the Foundations program and offers nature-based healing experiences across a variety of ecosystems — from mangroves and coral reefs to ancient redwoods and Caribbean coastlines. For those ready to deepen their relationship with self, place, and community.

    NOTE: You will have the option to add the Foundations program to your retreat registration.

    Registration is OPEN

  • Providers: North Cascades Institute

    JUNE 24-28, 2026 // North Cascades Institute - Washington
    This track includes full access to the Foundations program and a 5-day immersive retreat for healthcare professionals. You’ll receive the restorative benefits of time in the wilderness, engage in stewardship projects, and leave with clarity for patient and community care.

    🌿 Donate to the Providers fund to support this program.

    Featuring: Sydney Williams, Barry Williams, Melissa Sundermann, DO, FACOI, DipABLM, FACLM (aka Doctor Outdoors)

    Learn more + Apply

  • Reciprocity Rx™ Challenge: Trek to Tumanguya

    JULY 29–31, 2026 (Service Project) + JULY 31–AUGUST 8, 2026 (Backpacking Trip)

    This 75-mile journey to the summit of Tumanguya (Paiute name for Mount Whitney) combines paying it forward and personal transformation. Start with a stewardship project in Sequoia National Park, then backpack alongside fellow protectors, providers, and pathfinders.

    💚 No prior backpacking experience required - we’re teaming up with TSX Challenge to help you prepare mentally and physically for this adventure.

    Featuring: Sydney Williams, Barry Williams, Chris Casado from TSX Challenge

    Join us 12/14 for more info

  • Protectors: Yellowstone National Park

    AUGUST 28–SEPTEMBER 3, 2026 // Yellowstone National Park, MT

    A dedicated program for Indigenous communities and public lands employees/partners. This track integrates cultural knowledge, stewardship practices, and reciprocity-based care in support of the people who protect our most sacred spaces.

    🌿 Donate to the Protectors fund to support this program.

    Featuring: Sydney Williams, Barry Williams, and [ANNOUNCED AT OPEN HOUSE]

    learn more

  • Pathfinders: Glacier National Park

    SEPTEMBER 17–22, 2026 // Glacier National Park, MT

    This reimagined experience of Blaze Your Own Trail to Self-Love is for anyone curious about the healing power of nature. Designed for people from all walks of life, this track explores the 4Rs framework in community and under open skies.

    🌿 Donate to the Pathfinders fund to support this program.

    Featuring: Glacier Institute Instructors, Sydney Williams, Barry Williams, and [ANNOUNCED AT OPEN HOUSE]

    learn more

Program Facilitators

We’re here for you.

A woman with curly blonde hair, dressed in a green jacket and black pants, speaking into a microphone at a podium inside a room. There is a wooden counter behind her with a red water bottle and a black object, possibly a computer monitor. An exit sign is visible above a door in the background.


  • 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.

A man with a beard wearing a navy jacket, sunglasses on his cap, and a wristwatch stands near a lake with a mountainous background.

  • ABOUT BARRY
    Barry Williams went from high-rises to high altitudes — trading a tech career on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for a trailer in the backwoods of Maine after a single skydiving experience changed the trajectory of his life. Within 18 months of that first jump, he left the world of Fortune 100 clients behind to pursue instructor ratings in the skydiving industry, eventually building a 16-year career as a professional skydiver and mentor.

    Originally from New Hampshire, Barry grew up hiking and backpacking in the White Mountains, where he also earned his Wilderness EMT certification. Today, he brings that same sense of adventure, adaptability, and calm under pressure to his work as co-founder of Hiking My Feelings and Wellness in the Wilderness (WITW) Consulting.

    Barry is the behind-the-scenes engine and on-the-ground support — co-leading hikes, facilitating retreats, documenting our programs and events with photos and pictures, and ensuring participants feel safe, seen, and supported in the outdoors. He also helps design and deliver custom wellness experiences for public lands agencies, corporate teams, and nonprofit partners, weaving stewardship, story, and movement into every offering.

    Inspired by the teachings of Bruce Lee, Alan Watts, and Jiddu Krishnamurti, Barry lives by the mantra “be like water.” Whether he’s cooking a soulful meal, hiking at the pace of purpose, or capturing the perfect moments shared under the stars, Barry shows up with presence — and invites others to do the same.

A smiling woman in a white medical coat with a stethoscope around her neck, pointing at her name badge that reads 'Sundermann DO, DipABLM, Internal Medicine.' She is wearing a pink and blue winter hat and standing outdoors with snow and trees in the background.

  • ABOUT MELISSA
    Dr. Melissa Sundermann is a double board-certified physician in Internal Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine with over 25 years of experience in medical practice. She has advanced training in Integrative Medicine from the University of Michigan and has completed a Professional Training Program in Mind-Body Medicine through the Center for Mind-Body Medicine. Dr. Sundermann believes in a holistic, patient-centered approach, empowering individuals to heal through self-care and the pillars of Lifestyle Medicine.

    Widely recognized as “Doctor Outdoors,” she is a leading expert in Nature as Medicine and serves as the Founding Chair of the Nature as Medicine subcommittee for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. She is also the Chair of the Global Wellness Institute’s Lifestyle Medicine Initiative, where she works to expand global awareness of evidence-based lifestyle interventions.

    Currently, Dr. Sundermann is the Medical Director of Lifestyle Medicine for Corewell Health System. She also serves as an Advisor for Social Prescribing USA, Project Reconnect at UCLA, and InCaria — lending her expertise to initiatives at the forefront of community health, integrative healing, and innovative well-being solutions. Previously, she specialized in Longevity and Lifestyle Medicine with Lifespan Medicine and Canyon Ranch Wellness Resort. In addition to her clinical work, she is the co-founder of REVIVE! Lifestyle Medicine Well-Being Coaching and Retreats, and contributes educational content to several leading health and wellness organizations.

    Her recently released book, Doctor Outdoors’ Guide to Nature and Lifestyle Medicine, offers readers a transformative blend of science, stories, and strategies to reclaim health through the healing power of the natural world.

    A lifelong outdoor enthusiast, Dr. Sundermann finds inspiration and healing in running, biking, hiking, skiing, and immersing herself in nature. She is a 12-time Boston Marathon finisher, a 3-time Full Ironman Triathlon finisher, and is currently training for upcoming ultramarathons. She firmly believes that “age is not your cage” and is dedicated to helping others cultivate vitality, resilience, and joy at every stage of life.

PLUS guest experts in lifestyle medicine, change management, community engagement, public administration, and conservation!

JOIN US: February-September 2026

Reciprocity Rx™ Foundations is an eight-month online certification program facilitated by Sydney + Barry Williams (Hiking My Feelings®, WITW Consulting), Melissa Sundermann, DO, FACOI, DipABLM, FACLM (aka Doctor Outdoors), guest experts and Program Advisors to help protectors, providers, and pathfinders restore their own wellbeing, reconnect with the land, and bring nature-based reciprocity into the way they care for patients, communities, and themselves. Program participants have the option to join an immersive certification retreat in various locations around the United States.

registration is open

Program Advisors

Together, we rise.

  • Kelli Begay, MS MBA RDN

    Kickapoo | Seminole | Mvskoke
    Principal & Managing Director
    Maven Collective Consulting

  • Vanessa Bright, LMSW

    Author, Executive Director
    Maryland Reentry Resource Center

  • Thomas Bryer, PhD

    Pegasus Professor
    School of Public Administration
    University of Central Florida

  • Wayne S. Dysinger, MD, MPH

    Chief Medical Officer
    Blue Zones Health

  • Caleb Gardner

    Author, Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur
    18 Coffees

  • Rhiannon Kileen, MSN, RN, CEN, CPHQ

    UVA Trauma Program - Performance Improvement Coordinator
    UVA Health

  • Tara Marko, PhD RN

    Assistant Professor of Nursing
    and NICU Nurse

  • Gabaccia Moreno

    Storyteller, Consultant, Facilitator
    The Outdoorist Oath, Outward Bound USA

  • Diem Nguyen, MD, FAAP

    Assistant Clinical Professor, UCSF Fresno
    General Pediatrics - Neuropediatrics
    Anticipated Fellow of Pediatric Integrative Medicine, APIM

  • Georgie Pongyesva

    Hopi
    Speaker, Consultant, Founder
    Rezcycling

  • Will "Akuna" Robinson

    Keynote Speaker, Consultant, US Army Veteran
    First Black Male to Earn Triple Crown
    PCT 2017, AT 2018, CDT 2019, TRT/AZT 2021

  • Natalie Small, LMFT

    Surf Therapy Visionary, Founder
    Groundswell Community Project
    Groundswell Institute

  • Autumn Subers

    Volunteer Director
    Redwood Parks Conservancy

  • Lailani Upham-Bear Chief

    Amskapi Pikuni (Blackfeet Nation) member + Aaniiih, Nakoda, Dakota tribal descent

    President + Lead Creative
    Iron Shield Creative

  • Gary Ware, PCC

    Author, Keynote Speaker, Creative Catalyst
    Breakthrough Play

  • ...and more on the way!

    Meet more of our program advisors and guest experts at the Open House on November 12 - RSVP here!

We’ve had the opportunity to work with some incredible organizations over the years:

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Tall pine trees in front of a rugged mountain peak with some clouds in the sky.

Let's Connect -

Let's Connect -

We’d love to hear from you.
Whether you have a question, a story to share, or a spark of inspiration about how to bring Reciprocity Rx™ to your community, reach out. This work is rooted in relationship, and every connection matters.