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Mindful Walking

Springtime brings an idyllic and ever-progressing setting to reignite or embark on a practice of Walking Meditation, taking a planned route without any phones, watches or other tech, to simply observe, listen and reflect. Recently I’ve been taking my meditation in motion, finding that I can create the same stillness in my mind through Mindful Walking, without the restrictive stillness in my body. Leaving the house with just my keys feels so liberating, I’ve not just gained a higher awareness of my movement, breath, and environment surrounding me, but also in measure of time.
These cleansing strolls can be taken solo, or as a group with a facilitator guiding the meditative focus. Locations are totally variable, I like to take the same walk several times so I can re-engage with subtleties of change in a familiar environment, but there is just as much to be learned of our surroundings – and our place in them, in the city, park or bush.

Try planning a 20-30 minute walk, somewhere you know. Unless you have a strong singular – focussed meditation practice (which I am not blessed with!) its helpful to use physical markers such as laps of a park or distance between landmarks, as a tool to map out when to stop, reflect for a short period, and then begin a new path of observation.

For the first section of my walk I am wholly examining my ease of movement, gait, swing of my arms and pace of my breath.

A Pratyahara technique of tuning into my five senses will be the theme of the next section. Beginning inwards initially (my own smell, sounds of my body makes, flavours already in my mouth etc) and then absorbing all that the environment has to offer my five senses. This is why September is a perfect time for Mindful Walking! Notice the birdsong, new blossom, smell of cut grass, warmth of the sun against your skin, taste of barbecue in the air.

Finally, with a quieter mind, I will take deeper, longer breaths. Enjoying the tranquillity I have accessed and even start to acknowledge the rhythm of my breath with my footsteps, swing of my arms, sway of my torso.

On coming home, I am then able to mentally condense my experiences with a content post-meditation glow. If you are joined by a friend it might be insightful to discuss your journeys.

I am hopeful that we all have plenty of sunny days to step out and immerse in Springtime, finding as much beauty within ourselves as nature has to offer at this stunning time of year.

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I knew that my ‘Inner Worrier’ was activated by preventive anxiety and that worry wasn’t going to chill out until we know more about how we are going to come out of lockdown 2.0, so what do we do until we know what that looks like?

The uncertainty and doubts surrounding ability, business confidence and so on was becoming so powerful that it begun to override my mind’s ability to think rationally, so I knew I had to do something about it.

We’ve all heard of mindfulness, we may even practice it regularly or in my case of late, irregularly.  I knew if I can adopt these known strategies to foster calm and steadiness more regularly that I will begin to see things more clearly if I just put in the work, and be still.

Sure enough, when I have turned my attention inward, there is no mistaking it – fear-based stories galore, full of questions: “What’s going happen? How are we going to do this and that? What if it no one wants to come to the studio anymore?”, and the list goes on. But then I got to thinking, what would it look like to not give up and just push forward to the best of our ability like we have always done?

I had to keep reminding myself that the voice of worry was like a one-trick pony that only knows how to provoke worry and it was time for some new tactics!

I realised the way out of negativity, was to be purposefully positive, even if I wasn’t feeling it at that moment.  I needed to turn this voice inside me on its head and break the pattern so I began to redirect my attention, on purpose to the reasonable part of the mind that can be optimistic and encouraging.

Not surprisingly, the response to using language like, “You’re right where you need to be in the process / You’re on track, stay with it / Eventually it will all come together, but you’re not at that stage yet / Keep practicing, you’re doing great” brought about a feeling that felt more grounded and hopeful when repeating those more positive oriented messages.

The upside to this was that now the negative messaging was dulling down and my TRUE feelings about worth and ability were more measured and less heightened out of anxiety.

The moral of the story here is that with practice, the right tools we can bring about a state of calm. It doesn’t answer my questions about stage 4 restrictions but does help me learn to manage the anxiety of unanswered questions….

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