Hey,
Welcome to this walking meditation.
If you're not already,
Get your shoes on,
Get out that door and let's get walking together.
Just a quick safety note,
Make sure you are safe of traffic and if you are walking around a road,
Just turn down the volume so that you can hear the traffic around you or take one of your earpods or earbuds out.
Better yet,
Go walk somewhere where there's not any danger,
Okay?
I want you to stay safe.
With that being said,
Let's get into this.
Simply walking,
Finding a pace that works for you and just enjoy being outside.
Now walking is such an underrated tool for physical and mental strength.
Today I want us to fully embrace the magical movement and build up some momentum by using mindfulness to help us focus on any task that we have ahead of us.
With that said,
Let's get into this.
Now walking is an automatic action but today we're going to take it from automatic to deliberate and this requires you to stay with me the whole time.
Now quite virtually I'm going to be walking beside you,
So just follow my lead.
I want you to put right now your mind into your feet.
Each step I want you to notice how it feels and the order of events that happen.
Noticing the heels strike the ground,
Then rolling onto the ball of the foot,
Then the toes and propelling yourself forward one step at a time.
As you become aware of the minutiae of this movement,
See if you can make it a little bit more pronounced,
More deliberate,
More exact and more accurate.
Really taking your time to get the best heel strike when you walk forward,
The best ball of your foot contact and then the best push off your toes you can.
Give that a try now.
Alright,
Good job.
Take note if there's any difference between your left and right side and try even out any differences.
Now notice if you maybe pronate or supronate,
Which just means lean into the inside or the outside of your foot.
See if you can get dead centre,
There's even balance through your foot.
Beautifully done,
That's the feet taken care of,
Now let's move onto the legs.
Noticing the gentle bends in your ankles and knees that support your weight as you transfer it from side to side.
Again look for any discrepancies between the sides,
Not as a judgement but just as an observation.
Noticing if one leg bends more or less than the other.
Notice if one side takes a bigger stride than the other.
Again if it's possible,
Can we even out these differences,
These discrepancies.
Alright now that we got that even balance,
Let's see if we can feel each muscle that is part of this symphony of movement.
Can you feel your calves pushing you up?
Can you feel your thighs tense as it braces your weight?
Then can you feel your hamstrings pull and even your bum engage as you go from side to side and stay balanced?
See if you can tap into these muscles in the next few strides.
Alright legs are engaged.
Bring your mind now to your hips and see if you can notice them gently swaying from side to side.
Can you notice them moving forward and back?
And now can you notice the figure 8 shape your hips make as you go from side to side and up and down?
Tracking each hip as it takes this orbital shape.
Your hips painting this infinity shape through the air.
Okay and speaking of air,
Bring your attention now to feeling the air in front of you being pushed by your bare skin.
The skin on your face,
On your exposed arms or legs.
This subtle movement of air in front of you,
Imperceptible to most but not to you because you're becoming fully aware of your experience.
Feel that air moving past your skin.
Bring your mind into your arms now and notice how they propel you forward,
Making this lovely rhythmic pattern of back and forth,
Pulling you into space with each movement.
Notice the weight of your arms and the ease with which they sway.
Bring all your attention into those hands.
Notice how they feel like weights at the end of your arms.
We're a fair way into our walk now so can you take this time to take this focus you've cultivated and put it into your breathing.
Just paying attention to each breath and becoming aware of how it pulls the air from outside in to your nose,
Your throat,
Your lungs and even to your belly.
And then feel how it feels to exhale that same air back out,
Having taken what you need.
Feeling that in-breath in,
Feeling that exhale out.
Literally internalizing the environment around you.
Let's go deeper still.
Can you begin to feel your heartbeat?
And can you now tap into what it feels like to notice the blood moving around your body?
Making sure each of the muscles you've tapped into so far do their job.
Notice the heart pumping blood out and circulating that blood,
Now take that out.
Now zoom out even further and feel your body working as one.
Notice how your brain loves to focus on one thing,
To be engaged,
To be used.
Notice how even a simple walk provides an opportunity to focus,
To be present.
Now take this focus into the rest of your day and use it wisely.
I'll see you soon.
