Hiking may provide a psychological counter experience that helps aid in self trust.

Overcoming challenges on the trail can help one gain self-efficacy.

Hiking may expand valuing one's body beyond appearances.

Hiking may provide opportunities that can re-balance relational patterns.

As a hiking therapist, I have had the honor of walking alongside hundreds of women in outdoor therapy sessions. Over the years, I began noticing patterns within the internal landscapes of many whom I support: many women navigate the world in ways that keep them safe rather than powerful. Many women are socialized to be accommodating, to put others' needs first, to be socially polite, to be highly aware of their appearance and appeal to others, even when it comes at the expense of their own comfort. Sometimes these patterns impact a woman's ability to connect with herself, sometimes to the extent of not knowing how she feels or what her own preferences are. This conditioning can also show up as hesitancy to assert preferences or set boundaries, or as difficulty trusting her own judgment. While these adaptations to conditioning and lived experiences are all valid, these patterns can come at the cost of authenticity and self-trust—constraining life instead of expanding it.

Philosopher Iris Marion Young describes how girls and women are socialized into a form of inhibited intentionality, in which the body absorbs socially conditioned messages about how girls and women are supposed to act. She posits that at a very young age, girls are aware that they are being watched and evaluated by others. Rather than moving outward with confidence and........

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