Session 7 - the walking meditation

A reminder what mindfulness is



Mindfulness is a state of intentional, non judgemental focus on the present moment. Mindfulness skills are often incorporated into other practices such as yoga and meditation. It is often accepted to include the following elements:


  • Awareness - being tuned in to what is happening in the present moment including sights, sounds, smells, and physical sensations, many of which is often ignored as we go about our day.


  • Focus - paying attention to the present moment without thinking about past of future events.


  • Acceptance - accepting whatever you might be feeling or thinking without judging your experience or trying to change it.


  • Observation - recognising unpleasant sensations, thoughts and feelings as temporary and fleeting experiences observing them objectively without n reaction or judgement. 

  • Take time each day for reflection

    Mindful awareness is an important factor to recognise where mindfulness can have its best impact. 


    Some people practice mindfulness purely because they choose to do this as a form of self-improvement.


    Others embark on mindfulness practice because of of negative autopilot habits. With this in mind it would be helpful to relect on:


    • How has my day been today?

    • How have I felt?

    • How have my thoughts been? 

    • What has impacted on me?

    • How have I reacted to thoughts, feelings, situations or people?

    BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF AND YOUR REFLECTIONS. BE AWARE WHERE YOU BLAME OUTSIDE INFLUENCES AND LEARN TO TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR WELLBEING.


    You do not want to let countless autopilot moments pass by without recognition of negative stimuli that comes your way. If this was to happen, your mindfulness practice will find it hard to find a home.


    You might find it helpful to make some notes in a jouranl so you can train your mind to recognise where being more mindful will be of most enefit to you and others.

  • Choosing to be more mindful

    Being Mindful is a Choice. 


    You can choose to continue your autopilot habits of behaviour or you can choose to be more mindful of your experiences.


    As you go through your day start to pay more atention to where you could be more mindful:


    • Pay more attention to thoughts whether you are worrying, being critical or judgemental. Maybe you are catastrophising. 

    • Pay more attention to bodily feelings and sensations. Where in your body do you experience unpleasant feelings? 

    • Be more aware of how you are feeling: sad, angry, fearful, anxious, stressed.

    • Be more aware how your autopilot mind wishes you to respond.

    Your mindfulness practice so far has enabled you to be in the moment with the object of practice including: the breath, eating and your senses.


    During your mindfulness practice you have been encouraged to practice being in the moment with these, being observent of your experience, feeling the experience and staying in the moment whilst bringing yourself back from distraction when it occured.


    The aim is to help you use the same philosophy when you experience an anger trigger.

     

    We want to help you learn how to observe a thought and recognise it as a thought...no thought is permanent and we can let it pass through.


    Bodily and emotional sensations are subconscious responses. Observing the presence of bodily feelings and sensations helps us to be less reactive to them.


    Being aware of our emotions helps us to step back from them rather than play them out.


    When we can become more aware of our intended responses we have the opportunity to create a more mindful response.

The walking meditation


Regular meditation is the foundation for mind-body wellness and a consciousness-based approach to life.


The daily practice can improve quality of sleep and relationship skills, enhance concentration, reduce stress, and provide a deeper connection to spirit.


However, daily meditation doesn’t have to mean sitting passively. Walking meditation, also known as mindful walking, is an active practice that requires you to be consciously aware and moving in the environment rather than sitting down with your eyes closed.


It’s a simple and comfortable form of meditation that can be particularly valuable for newcomers or anyone who prefers a more active form of this practice.

A walking meditation can be a formal practice, like watching the breath. Or it can be informal, bringing awareness to this everyday activity, whenever you need to travel from point A to point B.


The walking meditation gives you an opportunity to gather your awareness which so often becomes distracted or even stuck when the mind is left to its own devices.


Whether moving between floors of a building, on a city street, or in the woods, it is an opportunity to guide yourself out of the distracted autopilot we live in throughout so much of our day.


Paying attention in this way, you stay safe by remaining fully aware of whatever is around. On any walk, hike, run, or other physical activity, without effort we may mentally check out—or we can practice awareness instead.

Your mindfulness practice for this session

  • Guide for the mindfulness walking exercise

    The practice outlined below is for the walking meditation. It is suggested for 2 days that you turn any walk in to a formal mindfulness practice paying particular attention to each step you take as well as creating more awareness of your environment in general.



    This is a great way to experience our concept of focused attention.   



    • As you begin, walk at a natural pace. Place your hands wherever comfortable: on your belly, behind your back or at your sides.

    • If you find it useful, you can count steps up to 10, and then start back at one again. If you’re in a small space, as you reach ten, pause, and with intention choose a moment to turn around.

    • With each step, pay attention to the lifting and falling of your foot. Notice movement in your legs and the rest of your body. Notice any shifting of your body from side to side.

    • Whatever else captures your attention, come back to the sensation of walking. Your mind will wander, so without frustration, guide it back again as many times as you need.

    • Particularly outdoors, maintain a larger sense of the environment around you, taking it all in, staying safe and aware.

    • If you find it useful, you can count steps up to 10, and then start back at one again. If you’re in a small space, as you reach ten, pause, and with intention, choose a moment to turn around.

    • Now for a few minutes, expand your attention to sounds. Whether you’re indoors, in the woods, or in a city, pay attention to sounds without labelling or naming, or getting caught up in whether you find them pleasant or unpleasant. Notice sounds as nothing more or less than sound.

    • Shift your awareness to your sense of smell. Again, simply notice. Don’t push or force yourself to feel anything at all, just bring attention to the sense of smell, whatever you discover.

    • Now, move to vision: colours and objects and whatever else you see. Patiently coming back each time something grabs your attention, or even if something needs addressing, like avoiding an obstacle. Staying natural, not overly rigid, not daydreaming and drifting but with sustained awareness.

    • Keep this open awareness of everything around you, wherever you are. Nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to change. Fully aware, and walking.

    • In the last moments, come back to awareness of the physical sensations of walking, wherever else your mind found itself throughout the practice. Notice your feet again touching the ground. Notice again the movements in your body with each step.

    • When you’re ready to end your walking meditation, stand still for a moment again. Pausing, choose a moment to end the practice. As you finish, consider how you might bring this kind of awareness into the rest of your day.

    Awaken your raisin mind


    In session 1 your very first mindfulness practice was the raisin meditation. This was your first introduction to focused attention and as you may have recognised by now, we need to pay attention to our present moment experience in order to be mindful of it.


    In the raisin meditation you were helped to explore the raisin with curiosity from the vantage point of your 5 senses: sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch and you more than likely experienced the raisin in a completely different way to any previous experiences.


    On day 5 you were introduced to the 5 senses meditation to further enhance your mindfulness practice.


    This is the key of mindfulness practice: to focus your attention on the moment and explore that moment with curiosity and without judgement of whatever your experience is.


    Aim to awaken your raisin mind during the walking meditation. Allow yourself to be curious of each step of the way. Pay attention to what you see, hear, smell and touch and return your curious awareness back to the moment if you notice distraction from thoughts or the urges to speed it all up!

      • The benefits of the mindfulness walking exercise

        Regular meditation is the foundation for mind-body wellness and a consciousness-based approach to life. The daily practice can improve quality of sleep and relationship skills, enhance concentration, reduce stress, and provide a deeper connection to spirit.


        However, daily meditation doesn’t have to mean sitting passively. Walking meditation, also known as mindful walking, is an active practice that requires you to be consciously aware and moving in the environment rather than sitting down with your eyes closed. 


        It’s a simple and comfortable form of meditation that can be particularly valuable for newcomers or anyone who prefers a more active form of this practice.


        Mindful walking can lead to a unique set of benefits compared with its seated counterpart. The practice brings you closer to nature as well as your body. Here are nine reasons to try mindful walking.


        1. It connects you more deeply with the environment.


        Walking meditation produces the opposite of the sense withdrawal, known as Pratyahara, that we experience during a seated meditation practice. 


        In mindful walking, all of our senses are actively engaged in the experience of walking. We are deliberately being mindful of the earth beneath our feet, the air flowing in and out of our lungs, the sights, sounds, smells, and even tastes that we experience as we walk.


        This practice helps us to feel more connected to the environment of which we are an inseparable part.  This environmental connection also cultivates situational awareness, in which we put all of our available attention on our surroundings rather than mindlessly walking from place to place.


        2. It gets you out of your head.


        Taking a walk outdoors can break you out of a mental fog or a perpetual train of thought. This interruption may only be a change of scenery, which might be all you need to shift your awareness out of your conditioned mind and open you up to a more universal perspective.


        3. It allows you to commune with nature


        Provided you’re outdoors, mindful walking is an excellent opportunity to commune with the natural world. Free from the internal dialogue of the ego, the natural world provides a seamless channel to the realm of spirit. Spending time in nature can be healing for body, mind, and soul. As you walk through forests, parks, mountain paths, or near bodies of water you immerse yourself in the primordial purity that is also at the core of your being.



        4. It helps you get to know your body


        Many of us are so alienated from our bodies that we don’t feel truly connected with our physical selves. Even worse, we may hold our bodies in contempt rather accepting ourselves and having a loving and intimate in-body experience. 


        Walking mindfully establishes a deeper connection between mind and body, helping you to embrace your body as it moves through space. The practice fosters an expanded awareness of how you carry yourself as you walk. Your posture, gait, and balance all tell a unique one-of-a-kind story in the way you physically express yourself as you walk. These details can give you valuable insight into how you can move with greater ease and comfort.


        5. It slows you down


        Slowing down is a natural by-product of moving mindfully and consciously. When you focus on the countless details involved in taking each step with care and awareness, your movements become more deliberate, graceful, and measured. There’s no need to race to get anywhere. This moment, this step, this breath is all there is, and you embrace it in all its richness. 


        Enjoy the opportunity to not have to reach a destination. Mindful walking is about taking your time, all the time you need. Remember, it isn’t about how fast you go, but how deeply you can feel.


        6. It strengthens concentration


        Seated meditation is practiced in a subdued, quiet surrounding. Mindful walking takes place in an environment filled with potential distractions. Nearby traffic, fellow walkers, weather, birds, insects or other animals all add to the regular stream of thoughts and bodily sensations fighting for your attention.   


        As each of these distractions come into your awareness, you repeatedly bring yourself back to the present moment and the practice of walking. The continual process of attention drifting away and coming back strengthens the mind’s ability to remain focused on the task at hand. With time and repetition, this exercise builds the mental muscles that make one-pointed focus a more regular experience.


        7. It increases your awareness of intention


        By walking mindfully, we cultivate a deeper understanding of our intentions through conscious movement, one step at a time. Each walk begins with an intention; each footstep also begins with intention. And if we practice walking with intention and clarity of desire, we can more easily choose transformative intentions that bring the most fulfilment and happiness into our lives.


        8. It expands everyday mindfulness


        Walking meditation is a practice; it’s a skill that develops over time. The more you do it, the more it becomes a part of your being. This integration of mindfulness starts to spill over into other areas of your life, infusing them with deeper awareness.


        And since walking is a basic activity that most of people engage in on a daily basis, you can practice any time you get up to take a walk, whether it’s for 30 seconds or 30 minutes. This regularity helps this mindfulness become a part of everything you do.


        9. It helps you connect to the present moment


        As you walk and become increasingly aware, the mind grows quieter. On occasion, that quiet becomes deeply profound. Your awareness goes beyond the walking, the breathing, and the passing scenery into the boundless field of pure awareness.

      Understanding how mindfulness practice can fit in to your day to day life.



      The easiest thing to do would be to follow the mindfulness practice as outlined in each session, tick it off as done and move on to the next session.


      This of course would be quite a mindless act and would question your commitment to developing practical mindfulness in your everyday life.


      Each session has a guide for the mindfulness practice and it is advised that you follow the guide and the recommended practice time.


      As you progress through the mindfulness sessions allow yourself to ponder how particular practices could be of benefit to you and your wellbeing, for example:


      • If you have a run of thoughts would the breathing meditations be effective for you to allow yourself to re-focus your awareness from thoughts to mindfulness of the breath?


      • If you are feeling stressed at work could the walking meditation help you release the stress tensions?


      • If your autopilot mind is focused on negatives in your life would the gratitude mediation act as a reset to help you appreciate what is present in your life?

      Session 9 will focus on the 'special place' meditation

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