How to turn your daily walk into a mindfulness and meditation practice
Whoever said meditation has to look like this?
Sitting still, legs crossed, eyes closed, chanting “om”.
Heck no!
That might work for some, but it’s certainly not the only way.
Today I want to share with you my direct personal experience of two different kinds of walking meditation.
That’s right, you meditate while you walk.
(And no, you don’t close your eyes!)
But you can definitely practice the same skills that sitting meditation gives you while you take your dog for a walk, or simply stroll around the neighbourhood.
Because at the end of the day, meditation is not about inner peace.
It’s about taming the mind.
And surprise, surprise, your mind is ALWAYS with you, so you can tame it in lots of different situations.
Technique #1 – Quick coherence
Let’s start with the first kind of walking meditation that I’ve found really useful.
I’ve been walking our new dog, Toby, every day for months now.
I generally take him on a roughly 45-minute walk around the streets of my local neighbourhood.
And being an impatient type, I found myself starting to resent the walks and the time they were taking.
Even though I know it’s doing my health – mental and physical – the world of good.
Even though I know it’s super important for Toby’s well-being.
Still, I was finding myself counting the moments until the walk was done.
So I decided to try something different.
If you’ve ever come across the work of the HearthMath Institute you might have heard of the Quick Coherence technique.
It’s a breathing and focusing technique that quickly brings your heart rhythm into coherence which is great for well-being.
It involves:
- Focusing on your heart
- Breathing in and out of your heart
- Focusing on positive emotions
Stopping and breathing
So I decided to try this approach on my walks.
Instead of getting annoyed every time Toby stopped to pee on a tree, I’d breathe into my heart.
Instead of mulling over everything I had to get done that day, I’d breathe into my heart.
In fact, any time my mind wandered, I’d bring my focus back to breathing into my heart.
And honestly, just managing that much while walking was a challenge, and enough to keep me occupied.
Our minds are just all too willing to wander wherever they like.
Kind of like a dog on a walk!
But I found that even doing this, as badly as I was doing it, was enough to completely change my experience of the walk.
How my experience changed
Instead of counting the moments, I lost track of time, and had no real sense of how long I had been walking.
Instead of getting annoyed by the moments when I had to stop, I looked forward to them as a (very brief) opportunity to focus on breathing into my heart and nothing else.
And instead of dreading my walks, I found myself looking forward to them as an opportunity to meditate, and feeling sad if I missed my walk.
What a transformation!
I also found that I started to release things as my heart-breathing walks continued, to the point where some days, I was shifting emotions just by breathing and walking.
I even had to stop the heart-breathing for a few days, just to give myself a break!
But by choosing to use the walk for a completely different purpose, I completely changed my experience of it.
Technique #2 – A scavenger hunt
The second walking meditation technique that I discovered by accident was as a result of my daughter’s 17th birthday.
She wanted a low-stress activity to do with her friends, and we came up with the idea of a neighbourhood scavenger hunt.
If you’ve never done one, basically you have a list of things to find around your local area, and you walk around trying to find them.
But of course, in order to create the scavenger hunt for her, I had to create a list of things to look for, and I did this in two stages.
1. Looking for interesting things
The first stage was me wandering around with my eyes wide open, looking for interesting things.
“Oh look, a lamp post.”
“Oh look, a flagpole with a flag.”
“Oh look, a garden gnome.”
After about a week of this, I had a list of 60+ ideas for interesting things to look for.
2. Completing my own challenge
And then the second stage was actually doing my own scavenger hunt – taking it for a test run and capturing every instance I could find for reference.
And while finding things was fun, what was even more interesting was the utter transformation in my mindset during this process.
Instead of being stuck in my head, thinking about work or life or whatever, I was fully present, senses tuned to what was right in front of me.
I didn’t realise just how checked out I had been until I noticed the change.
My mind completely changed
I started seeing things that had been right under my nose for months, that I’d never seen before.
I started finding more and more and more examples of the things on my list.
I was completely and fully present, and it was amazing.
Again, I was losing track of time.
Again, I was looking forward to my walks.
Just by focusing on the right here, right now.
So if you’ve tried the sitting meditation approach and it just doesn’t work for you, and you’d like to go for more walks and enjoy them more, I highly recommend either of the above techniques.
I’ve even created a copy of my scavenger hunt list that you can download and adapt to your local neighbourhood.
And even though the scavenger hunt and birthday party are well over, I’m still paying attention to my surroundings, constantly spotting new things and enjoying just being in the moment.
A quick recap
- Meditation is not about inner peace, it’s about training your mind
- You don’t have to sit down to meditate – walking can work just as well
- You can walk and practice breathing into your heart, like in the Quick Coherence technique
- You can also walk and spot interesting things in your local neighbourhood
- Both approaches keep you in the present moment, and train your mind to stay focused
What next?
- Have you tried meditation in the past but struggled with it?
- Do you have a regular walk that you go on, whether for pleasure or otherwise?
- The next time you go for a walk, try focusing on your heart and breathing into and out of it. Every time your focus wanders, bring it back
- Alternatively, print out the scavenger hunt list, and try to find as many things as you can in your local area each day. Make it a challenge in as many different ways as you can
- Notice the change in how present you are during your walks, instead of being stuck in your head or focusing only on the unpleasant aspects of the walk
I’d love to know how you go with the scavenger hunt if you try it.
I know my daughter and her friends had a ball!
If you’ve struggled with meditation in the past, make sure to download my scavenger hunt list, and also watch my video on the true purpose of meditation.
And I really hope that this opens a way up for you to try meditation and maybe even succeed at taming your mind.
May you have an awesome, fully-present day.
Love,
Nicola
