When you go for a walk, don’t forget to bring your body with you.

As an Outdoor Life Coach and Forest Bathing Guide in Kent, I spend the majority of my days outside walking alongside people to support them with their wellbeing and personal growth. I’ve been nicknamed a people walker which can sometimes create a false idea of what I do (no I don’t provide leads), and I’m used to comments such as ‘What? People pay you to walk with them?’ or ‘thanks but I know how to walk’.

The thing is, most of the time, when we go for a walk we forget all about the body.  

Come on be honest now….

How many times have you been out walking in Nature and remained inside your head?

You might have been absorbed in thought, thinking of all the things you need to do.

You might have put on a podcast or been chatting on your phone

Or you might have been deep in conversation with a walking buddy.

You could say you are walking in Nature but are you really there?

When you’re caught up in mind chatter you could be anywhere or nowhere. The mind wants you to be in the future or the past and does a great job of distracting you from what is right in front of you. The past is over, and the future hasn’t happened so your attention is lost in a fictional no-mans-land

So how do you know where you are in any given moment?

Your body, brain and senses communicate it to you

You know you are standing in a Forest because you see the trees around you, you hear the birdsong, you smell the earthy woodland smell. You know you took that car journey to arrive there because you experienced the motion and witnessed it with your eyes, and you can feel your feet touching the floor in a rhythmical movement that carries you forwards.

So why are we still so unaware of this when we walk?

Unfortunately for us our sophisticated brains and senses are able to process information about our environment so efficiently and effortlessly that we can easily allow our surroundings to fall into the background of our awareness and continue to let the mind take charge.  The trees, plants, birds and wind rustling through the leaves are merely background noise to the mind chatter that has centre stage with a big microphone dominating your attention.

So, although we are walking in Nature we aren’t there in an embodied, present or attentive way. We are more focused on the journey of thought than the one our feet are taking us on and are basically walking on autopilot. 

The body has become merely a taxi for the brain.

Mark Walsh

So instead of exercising the mind, try walking with your body in an attentive way by bringing awareness to your physiology. Make the choice to be observant and engaged in your surrounding environment and minimise potential distractions. Phones are the biggest one so try turning it off or putting it on airplane mode . When you become aware of your body you are connecting to your own Nature and animal self (yep as part of the mammal family that makes us animals too and we are Nature!) Walking is such an involuntary activity that we don’t need to concentrate or offer any thought on the process so take a moment to observe yourself and your body as you walk.

Your feet touching the floor

The bend in your knees

Your arms swaying by your side

Your hip joints rotating to allow the legs to move.

When you really think about it and notice everything that happens in the body when you walk it’s a pretty complex combination of movements that you have perfected since those first wobbly steps you took as a baby.

Ok so now you are present in your body or ‘embodied’ you can bring a heightened level of awareness to your senses and suddenly your walk becomes a 5D experience. With so much time spent camped out in the mind, our senses become muted and muffled and with that our sense of curiosity, wonder and aliveness fade away.

Bringing attention to your senses is like turning up a dimmer switch in a darkened room to reveal its contents. They’re always there they haven’t stopped working but we keep them in the dark by ignoring them. When you bring attention to them you shine a light on them and they reveal so much more to you. Imagine your senses like tentacles that plug you into the present moment and gift you with feelings of calm, aliveness and help you to feel more grounded in yourself.

Ask yourself, how do I know I am here?

 What do you see with attentive all-seeing eyes?

What sounds are you receiving through your ears?

What smells can you consciously identify?

What can your hands and skin communicate to you through your sense of touch?

Allow your body to receive an alchemy of communication through your senses and witness the magical transformation your mind, body and spirit will move through as the mind takes a well-earned break, the body gets some well-deserved attention and rejuvenation and spirit gets to connect with the beautiful bigger picture and serves up a dose of wonder, fascination, gratitude and connection.

Sounds easy right?

Well yes in theory it is but that pesky mind chatter can be a tenacious little rascal and a massive attention seeker. It definitely won’t want to be left out and will try its hardest to win you over with a constant flow of thoughts trying to convince you they are way more important than being mindfully present with yourself.

So call it out from the start and expect thought to arrive so it’s no big deal when it happens (and it will happen!) See if you can make a commitment to yourself to choose the body and senses and keep shifting your attention away from the movie channel in your mind and putting it into the back seat for change.

You might have to do this multiple times and it might be easy to get frustrated by that because we are impatient beings and expect fast results. However, when you allow frustration to emerge you create a bigger resistance to the practice and thought has won you over again. Instead of berating yourself or believing you can’t do it try practicing non-judgement and perseverance.

It’s OK to have thoughts and when you become aware that your attention has moved to your thoughts you are still being present so treat it as a victory and then make the choice to shift your attention back to the body, senses and the environment. Use Nature as an anchor into the present moment because those trees you can see, those birds you can hear, that earthy scent you can smell isn’t in that fictional no-mans-land. They are right here with you in the here and now.

So next time you go on a walk let your mind take some time off….

….and don’t forget to bring your body.

If you would like to explore the practice of mindful walking with support, check out my upcoming events by clicking the button below.