Hi, I’m Rebecca Rusch. I’ve spent decades as a professional adventure athlete, pushing my limits on bike, foot, and paddle. As the founder of Athlete Operating System™, I help people use physical challenge as a catalyst for psychological growth. I’m known as the “Queen of Pain with a heart of gold,” but what drives me these days is helping others discover their own strength and resilience through mindful adventure.
And I’m Jaimie Lusk. I’m a psychologist and USMC veteran, and I’ve spent years guiding people through recovery from trauma, loss, and moral distress. My work blends practical cognitive, behavioral, and body-based tools with the healing power of movement and nature. I believe that the outdoors is a powerful setting for emotional growth and real change.
Together, we’ve collaborated to create Wild Resilience. This is where our skillsets merge and blend outdoor athlete expertise with evidence-based “wild psychology.” Wild Resilience is about blending physical challenge with mindful self-discovery so you can access deeper clarity, self-trust, and a renewed sense of possibility, both in the wild and in your daily life.
What Is Wild Resilience?
Here are some of the main principles of Wild Resilience and how they can help you:
What Needs Go Unmet in Daily Life And How Nature Gives Them Back
- Safety:
In the wild, you can finally let your guard down. The absence of constant demands allows your body to shift from “fight or flight” to “rest and digest.” - Joy:
Playfulness returns when you’re not performing or producing. Skipping stones, watching clouds, or laughing with a friend can be deeply restorative. - Awe:
Wild places evoke awe, a sense of wonder that expands your perspective and soothes the ego’s anxieties. (Awe has even been linked to lower inflammation and greater life satisfaction—Keltner, 2023.) - Connection:
Whether you’re alone or with others, nature invites connection to yourself, to the earth, and to something beyond daily worries. The deeper the connection you notice in nature, the more restorative the experience (Berto et al., 2018).
Why Partner With Nature?
Whenever we can, we get outside. Sometimes together, mountain biking or hiking and leaving our screens behind. We wind through forests or over desert rocks, listening for birds and catching the scent of pine or sage. We notice how slow, diaphragmatic breathing helps us choose wise paths. This aliveness is medicine. But it’s more than just a feeling; it’s a practice. A way to build resilience, clarity, and self-trust.
A systematic review in Environmental Review found that time in nature is linked to lower stress, improved mood, and better health outcomes including reduced neurological and cancer-related risks (Twohig-Bennett & Jones, 2018). The wild landscape enhances somatic grounding, nervous system regulation, and perspective-taking. Experiences of awe and flow create emotional spaciousness, making room for new insights and transformation. Nature invites us into active renewal: moving, noticing, and connecting with ourselves, others, and something larger.
Awareness → Acceptance → Action
How do you actually use nature to build resilience?
It’s not just being in nature that makes the difference, but showing up with awareness, acceptance, and action. Time in nature can take us out of our comfort zone, especially when we challenge ourselves to experience something new. We might experience emotional discomfort pointing us to unmet needs. As we accept these emotions, we notice thinking, body sensations, and behavior urges. We can then take wise actions to address unmet needs and act in alignment with goals, whether that is examining our thinking, managing our physiology, or taking valued actions. As we learn to respond instead of react, our comfort zone expands, and we gain confidence in ourselves as we practice in increasingly novel and challenging environments.
When we approach our experiences in the wild in this way, the wild becomes a real-time laboratory for building emotional regulation, managing discomfort, and taking perspective, so that we can live a life we value. This model, rooted in both psychological science and embodied wisdom, helps you transfer skills learned outdoors into daily life.
Resilience Is Cyclical
Are you honoring your own cycles?
Modern life rarely gives us permission to step away from constant demands. Our culture rewards overwork and makes it difficult to honor cycles your body and mind require. And yet the consequences of ignoring these cycles can lead to burnout, compassion fatigue, and a gradual erosion of joy.
Research shows that alternating periods of challenge with intentional recovery, mirroring nature’s own cycles, leads to greater gains and fewer injuries, both physically and psychologically (Kiely, 2017). In the wild, everything moves in cycles: tides rise and fall, seasons shift, and living things alternate between growth and dormancy. True resilience isn’t about relentless achievement, but about finding sustainable rhythms of challenge, restoration, and growth.
Tools to Practice Wild Resilience in Everyday Life:
- Schedule time in the wild as you would any important meeting.
- Block time in nature, even if it’s just an afternoon
- Seek out wild or natural spaces
- If you can’t get to the mountains or ocean, find a local park or garden
- Move your body
- Let movement be guided by curiosity, not obligation
- Notice what needs arise
- What brings you safety, joy, awe, or connection? How can you cultivate more of these
- Reflect on your cycles.
Where are you in your own periodization? Is it time to push, or time to recover?
Join Us For a Wild Resilience Retreat
We’re so stoked to invite you to go deeper with us. If you’re ready to explore your own wild resilience, join us at the MEA campus, May 3-7 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Wild Resilience is for anyone who wants to deepen emotional resilience, is drawn to personal growth through physical challenge, loves moving outdoors, desires deeper emotional awareness, or is navigating transition, stress, or burnout. No advanced experience is required, just a willingness to explore what is possible together.
Let’s step outside and see what’s possible.
References:
Berto, R. (2014). The Role of Nature in Coping with Psycho-Physiological Stress: A Literature Review on Restorativeness. Behavioral Sciences.
Berto, R., Barbiero, G., Barbiero, P., & Senes, G. (2018). An Individual’s Connection to Nature Can Affect Perceived Restorativeness of Natural Environments. Some Observations about Biophilia. Behavioral Sciences, 8(3), 34.
Keltner, D. (2023). Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.
Kiely, J. (2017). Periodization Theory: Confronting an Inconvenient Truth. Sports Medicine.
Twohig-Bennett, C., & Jones, A. (2018). The health benefits of the great outdoors: A systematic review and meta-analysis of greenspace exposure and health outcomes. Environmental Research.