Walking Meditation–A Journey In Mindfulness To Bring Ourselves Into The Present
Walking meditation in mindfulness is an easy way to hit the pause button on your life for a moment. It’s a way to realize that the present moment and eternity are not necessarily opposites.
"If you are in a bad mood, go for a walk. And if you are still in a bad mood, go for another walk."
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Walking Meditation In Mindfulness To Root Yourself Into the Present Moment
A yearling—a new walker—balances on one foot, then the other, then motors around the room. It’s never getting bored seeing this transformation. But how often do we truly stop and think over this act of walking? And do we realize its power to connect our bodies to our minds?
Our feet are wondrous mechanical systems that serve a vital role in our emotional and physical health
Hippocrates declared, “If you are in a bad mood, go for a walk. And if you are still in a bad mood, go for another walk.”
Indeed, walking can help you sink into a state of clear awareness. For one short-lived moment, you can forget the rest of the world. Future and past have no role as you walk full of mindfulness.
But it’s also a way to teach yourself to take one step at a time. To live in the moment, inching forward a bit, and being just fine with the pace.
Use Walking As Meditation To Get Into Full Mindfulness
“If the body is thought of as a busy and noisy city, then we can imagine that, in the middle of this city, there is a little shrine, and that, within this shrine, the Atman, our real nature, is present. No matter what is going on in the streets outside, we can always enter that shrine and worship. It is always open.”
Meditation can be really frustrating, with physical discomfort and constant, intrusive thoughts. Walking can be an excellent walking meditation.
When most individuals first attempt to practice meditation in a traditional sitting position, they first notice the flood of thoughts that suddenly swamp them as they desperately try to quiet their minds.
Senses of discomfort in the body is often followed immediately after that. This can be discouraging at the start of a new practice. Instead, walking meditation can help us resolve both of these issues, and nature is the perfect place to practice.
Walking Meditation is a Journey In Mindfulness to bring ourselves fully into the PRESENT moment
Swami Prabhavananda stated, “If the body is thought of as a busy and noisy city, then we can imagine that, in the middle of this city, there is a little shrine, and that, within this shrine, the Atman, our real nature, is present. No matter what is going on in the streets outside, we can always enter that shrine and worship. It is always open.”
But how do we get into the shrine? And where is the doorway?
The present moment is the valid access point to our real nature. The present moment gives access to our soul essence.
When we are in our heads, we’re spinning out on the past, which causes depression. Or we fear the future, which causes anxiety. In both cases, we close the door to the shrine.
When we become mindful of the present moment and enter the silence, we create stillness.
The doorway opens, and we are swept in. The present moment is the doorway, and the act of mindful walking along with your breath is the key.
A 10-Minute Walking Meditation In Mindfulness
1. As you start, walk at a natural pace.With each step, catch the lifting and falling of your foot. Notice movements in your legs and the rest of your body. Pay attention to any shifting of your body from side to side.
Whatever captures your attention, remember to return to the sensation of walking. Your mind will wander, which is expected, so simply guide it back again as many times as it’s necessary.
Maintain a larger sense of the surrounding environment, taking it all in, staying calm but aware.
2. Next, expand your attention to sounds for a few minutes. Pay attention to sounds whether you’re in the woods, indoors, or in a city.
Just make it without labeling or naming, or getting caught up in whether you find them pleasant or unpleasant. Notice the sounds. Be a witness and focus on nothing more or less than sounds around you and sounds inside you.
3. Then shift your awareness to your sense of smell. Again, simply notice without pushing yourself. Don’t force yourself to feel anything at all.
Just bring your attention to the sense of smell, whatever you catch, and that’s ok. It’s enough.
4. Now, move to your vision: any objects and colors or whatever else you see. Be patient, and smoothly come back each time something grabs your attention.
And even in cases when something needs a small handling, like avoiding an obstacle. Staying natural, but not overly rigid, with sustained awareness and relaxed focus.
5. Just keep this open awareness of everything around you, wherever you are. Nothing to do, nothing to change, nothing to fix. Fully aware and simple walking.
6. As last, come back to awareness of the physical sensations of walking, wherever else your mind found itself throughout the practice.
Be a witness to how your feet touch the ground again. Pay attention to the movements in your body with each step you take.
When you’re ready to close your walking meditation, make it by standing still for a moment. Just hit the pause and enter serenity. You are pausing at the moment and enjoying this magic that the present can give us.
And it’s just perfect. It’s completely enough.
Enjoy this moment as much as you wish
When you’re feeling full of enjoyment and ready, 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.
Use Mindful Walking To Calm Down Naturally Your Thoughts
As you walk through your path, there is a big chance you’re still to be in the “noisy city.” Still, with a full mind of thoughts, it’s hard to get into relaxation and find your inner peace.
When doing walking meditation in mindfulness, it’s really useful to start observing your thoughts. When the thoughts arise, take a deep breath and release them, bringing your attention back to the present.
As you walk, you become more aware of your senses with each step. What do you feel, smell, hear, and see? Notice the sounds around you: wind passing by, a bird singing, even city noises, people’s voices. But keep yourself with the general mindset only to observe without getting involved in those sounds.
Then take your awareness to the sounds within you. Listen to your breath, how to go in and out. Notice your footsteps; feel the heaviness on your feet as you step. Notice your heartbeat. Watch your thoughts as you’re walking. And if the past, future, or other thought starts creeping in, take a deep breath, take the next step, and bring your attention back to the present moment.
Every time a thought pops up, release it and let it fly away like a dove.
By the time of your walking meditation practice, you will be emptied and prepared to sit or stand in stillness and silence. This is the space within which the creation can speak to you.
You will be fortified with calmness, clarity, and renewal that will support you throughout your day.
Turn Your Formal Walk into A True Walking Meditation For Mindfulness
You can miss out on an opportunity for mindfulness if you are out of your ease zone while ambulatory. So, let’s examine how to achieve more mindful walking.
◆ Plan no destination. Most of our daytime we tend to be hung up on where we are going. We’re more tend to getting things off the list, rather than to the joy of movement. Our mind fall into a trap of planning and designing, and this induces more thoughts to arise.
So, when going for a walk, go with direction but with no destination in your mind.
◆ To stay focused but empty of thoughts is the key. Notice what your intuition and mood whisper you? Or where do your feet take you?
◆ Focus on your sensations. What is a natural pace for you? What kind of ground are you on? What does walking feel like? What is your personal walking rhythm? How does that pace change from day to day, based on your thoughts and emotions?
◆ Get into nature. British researchers found that just simply walking through a green space such as a town park for 25 to 30 minutes was enough to trigger the mind to enter a meditative-like state, lowering mental fatigue and boost cognitive function.
Turn your formal walk it into a true walking meditation
Mindful walking by slow, small step, for at least 15 minutes a day, can help you become present in the moment.
And remember! If the mind naturally distract or wanders, simply refocus on the sensation of walking.
How to Do Clasic Walking Meditation In Mindfulness
The steps below are arranged according to a guided walking meditation led by mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Time Required: At least 10 minutes everyday for at least a week. Evidence put forward that mindfulness grow the more you practice it.
Location
Find a space that allows you to walk back and forth for 10-15 paces. A place that is relatively quiet, where you won’t be upset or observed given that slow movements of formal walking meditation can look unusual to people who are unfamiliar with it. You can exercise walking meditation each indoors or outside in nature. The space doesn’t have to be very long since the goal is not to get a specific destination. Simply to practice a very intentional form of walking where you’re generally retracing your steps.
Start your steps
Make 10-15 steps along the lane you’ve chosen, and then pause and breathe, if it’s possible deeply, for as long as you like. When you finish your breath, turn and walk back in the opposite direction to the other end of the space, where you get a pause and take a breath again. Then, when you’re ready, turn again and continue with the walk.
Track the components of each step
Walking meditation involves very deliberating thinking and doing a intentional sequence of actions that you usually do automatically. Breaking these steps down in your mind may feel discomfiting, even ridiculous. But it’s necessary for you to try to notice at least these four basic components of each step:
- Lifting of one of the foots;
- Moving of the foot a bit forward to make a step;
- Placing of the foot on the floor(heel first);
- The moving of the weight of the body onto the forward leg as the back heel lifts, as the toes of that foot continue touching the floor or the ground.
- Then the cycle continues with lift your back foot totally off the ground;
- Observing the back foot move as it swings forward and lowers;
- Observing the back foot as it makes contact with the ground(heel first);
- Feel how your weight shift onto that foot as the body moves forward.
Speed
You can walk at any speed, but according Kabat-Zinn’s, walking meditation is slow and involves taking small steps. Most crucial is that it feel natural, not stylized or exaggerated.
Hands and arms
You can clasp your hands in front of you or behind your back or. Or you can just let them hang at your side—whatever feels most comfortable and natural.
Focusing your attention
As you walk, try to focus your attention on one or more sensations that you would normally take for granted: your breath coming in and out; the movement of your feet and legs, or their contact with the ground; your body weight; sounds caused by the movement of your body, or sounds nearby ; or whatever your eyes take in as they focus on the world in front of you.
What to do when your mind wanders
Regardless how much you try to fix your attention on any of these sensations, your mind will inevitably wander. That’s perfectly normal. When you notice your mind wandering, just try again to focus it one of those sensations.
Integrating walking meditation into your daily life
The more you practice, low, formal walking meditation even for short periods of time, the more it is likely to grow mindfulness. In fact, over time, you can truly expand your awareness to any everyday activity, experiencing the sense of presence that is available to us at every moment as our lives unfold.
Why Walking Meditation In Mindfulness Works
✓ Walking meditation can help increase our awareness of our internal sensations and external surroundings.
✓ Walking meditation helps tune us into experiences that we often miss when we rush on autopilot from place to place.
✓ Paying closer attention to the act of walking can also grow our sense of gratitude and enjoyment of our physical body.
✓ By promoting awareness of mental and physical states, walking meditation and mindfulness can help us gain a sense of control over our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
✓ It allows us to respond in more constructive ways when we experience negative thoughts or emotions.
Affirmations for Walking Meditations To Get Easy Into Full Mindfulness
Whether going on a city street or in the woods, mindful walking can give us a good chance to go out of the distraction we live in throughout so much of our day.
As you walk, keep your focus on the breath and witness the thoughts as they move past your mind same like clouds in the sky. Notice the sensations in your body and pay attention on what comes up.
Saying positive words as you walk and synchronizing breath and movement are great practices.
Here are some affirmations to turn a seemingly ordinary walk into a mindful walking exercise. Take a few affirmations per day and take it on your walk with you.
Start with affirmations to ease the process. Then focus on your sensations and let meditation happen naturally through your mindful walking.
✓ As a human being walking is in my DNA.
✓ I walk toward an unnamed land.
✓ I walk inward to myself to greet my soul.
✓ I walk and chant. I walk and repeat my mantras.
✓ I walk and pour my heart out to divine nature.
✓ I walk and greet God in all I see: trees, plants, rocks, people, dogs, cats, squirrels, skunks, flowing streams, and creeks.
✓ When I walk, my body works with gravity and is in harmony with the universe. And when I walk, I am most my true self.
✓ I breathe in, breathing in love ….I breathe out, and I breathe out love and joy.
✓ I am in tune with the forces of mother nature.
✓ With each step I take, I soak the energy of the earth.
✓ I am one with the elements of the earth.
✓ As I walk, I get at peace with the rhythms of nature.
✓ I am surfing on the wave of peace now.
✓ I am tuned to my heart pice.
✓ Each part of my body moves freely as I walk my way with peace.
✓ While inhaling, I breathe in oxygen … While exhaling, I breathe out stillness and calm.
✓ My awareness is at my core with every step I take.
✓ I feel centered and complete with each breath I take.
✓ I am in tact with the rhythm of my walk now.
✓ I center my thoughts on what I am doing right now.
✓ I soak the life through my walk. And my soul calm, my spirit rise.
✓ I feel how I nourish the universe, and the universe sustains me.
✓ I feel a surge of push.
✓ I am alert and attentive.
✓ I am focused and calm as I walk on.
✓ I am in a crystal clear state of mind.
✓ I feel aligned. I feel myself in perfect pice.
Why You Should Try Walking Meditation In Mindfulness
Much of our life is spent rushing from place to place, so obsessed with our next task that we don’t really notice what we’re doing now. We are at risk of not really experiencing our life as we live it.
Practicing mindfulness can help. Mindfulness can help us tune in to what we’re experiencing and sensing in the present moment.
It’s the ability to pay more careful attention to our thoughts, bodily sensations, and feelings without judging them as good or bad. Research suggests that it can not only diminish stress, but also it’s a way to increase our experience of positive emotions.
One of the simplest and easy methods for cultivating mindfulness is a “walking meditation,” which implies focusing intently on the physical experience of walking and paying close attention to the specific components of each step.
With everyday practice, it can become an opportunity for greater focus and awareness—a habit you can try to bring to other routine activities as well. Some experts suggest alternating the walking meditation with other forms of meditation to keep your practice varied.