Walking meditation
With the continuation of the lockdown in Melbourne; the mental load of isolation has slowly but gradually seeped into every waking moment.
Like COVID's weight gain, it’s been too small to notice day to day. But as the weeks pile up it’s apparent. I’m an advocate of continual improvement so I’ve been working hard to find ways to cope given the restrictions currently in place.
Walking meditation has been one of the success stories of my experimentation.
Like meditation when sitting or lying, walking meditation is all about awareness. Awareness of body, breath and surroundings. Walking meditation can be done in our outdoors; in rain, hail or shine. It requires no special equipment or timeline. You can practice walking meditation in as little as a few minutes at any hour of the day.
My practice varies from ten to fifteen minutes to a full hour on days when I am particularly struggling. As with everything I do, I choose the type of meditation based on what I need on a given day. Some days it is vanilla mindfulness, others I focus on gratitude (especially when I’m not happy with my confines or the people I’m stuck with 24/7 are pissing me off) and when I can see others struggling I’ll spend my whole hour sending out wordless messages of loving kindness, focusing on one person or sharing the love with a different person as I place each foot on the ground.
For mindfulness walking meditation
Follow your footsteps. Concentrate on the feeling of your foot striking the ground; the shift of weight from one foot to the next, the twist of your pelvis, the stretching of your leg as it reaches forward
Concentrate on your breath. Feel the way your breath coordinates with the rhythm of your footsteps
Switch on your senses. Notice the sounds of the world around you - traffic, birds. Feel the breeze of the wind against your face. Look at the way the light touches the surfaces.
A gratitude-based meditation practice takes time to look at all the blessings in life. Trees budding new leaves after a long cold winter, roses blooming, a good friend - whatever is suitable for you in your life right now. You could also look at blessings from the past; anything you are grateful for.
Loving-kindness can be practised with positive, reassuring phrases for yourself or good intentions for people in your life. You can be general or specific. Loving-kindness meditation is free from expectations and aims to put good intentions towards yourself or others. Loving-kindness is great to improve self-compassion and emotional strength. When directed at the self, loving-kindness meditation is a mechanism to support self-healing and soothing the mind. It aims to produce positive feelings towards oneself and everything around you.
Over the last couple of decades, I’ve dipped in and out of routine meditation practice. There are times when I practice daily and others when I have left the practice to focus on what’s in front of me. The busiest times are the times that I need meditation the most; so adding meditative practice into something I’m already doing was a natural choice at the moment when I’m working long hours in a job I’m still coming up to speed with.
While walking meditation is traditionally practised with bare feet, that’s not practical for me so I take what I can get. Is it the best practice? Probably not, but it calms my mind and is definitely helping me get through the headfuck that goes on in my brain some days. Sometimes we need to accept what we can do and get on with it. Excellence over perfection.
I know I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t experience anxiety nor do I have depressive tendencies but I, like everyone, do have low points and meditation is a great way to get out of your own head and find some clarity.
Meditation helps me to see things from a more logical perspective. I’m less reactive on the days that I practice. I’m kinder, gentler and more patient. The world needs more of all of those things at the moment. I see walking meditation as one thing I can do that costs nothing and creates some positive vibes.
For completeness, the other strategies that have worked for me in coping with the uncertainty of COVID include:
A reintroduction of my own personal brand of walk-dancing (where I pop on one of my favourite songs and bop along to it as I complete my morning 8km walk. Great for mood and increasing heart rate - which are inextricably linked. Some days I’m a ballerina others a grungy hip-hop dancer, depending on my mood. This morning I gave Alex a run for her money with my passionate rendition of her epic What a Feeling showcase from Flashdance. At the least, it seems to entertain the early-morning truck drivers and cyclists!)
Talking to friends (COVID has thankfully reconnected me to a number of old friends I’d lost contact with over the years)
Tackling small projects around the house that have been on my list for too long but have gone undone due to time constraints
Rituals (daily, weekly and monthly)
Reading
Foam rolling (the weaker cousin of regular massage)
Knitting
Taking short breaks during the day to lie in the sunshine
Single-tasking. Focusing on one thing until it is done then moving on to the next
