Walking Meditation
Very often people have difficulty with sitting still and doing mindfulness meditation. While exposure and practice will make it easier to tolerate, I have found it vital to incorporate other types of meditation in order to continue my journey and healing. One such type is Walking Meditation. I will split this into 2 types - Traditional Structured Walking Meditation, and Informal Walking Meditation.
Informal Walking Meditation:
Note: This is a type of meditation, but not the same as Sitting Mindfulness Meditation. Informal Walking Meditation can contribute greatly to your focus, nonjudgment, and quality of life if practiced sincerely, but you will gain additional, deeper benefits from a Formal Sitting Mindfulness Meditation practice.
Go somewhere outside to walk. You don’t need a destination, but it’s okay if you practice this while going somewhere important. You can do it just doing loops around your neighborhood, walking to the store and back home, through a park or hike, or just picking a random direction and walking. It can be a short walk or a long one. Long ones have more potential for meaningful inner experiences.
Take note of your general state at the moment. Does your mind feel busy or quiet? How does your body feel? Do you want to take a walk? Are you looking forward to or dreading anything happening after your walk? Do you have any ideas of how this walk will feel or go?
The answer to these doesn’t matter, there’s no right or wrong way to answer any of these check-in questions. Just curiously and non-judgmentally note your answer to each of them as if you were a scientist watching a subject. The point is that part of this practice is to notice how our thoughts and opinions change as we keep moving.
Pick an object of focus, or a couple to bounce between on your walk.
You can pick to focus on traditional walking meditation focuses like the breath, the feeling of your feet stepping and the body moving, or the feeling of the wind on your skin. These simpler, close to the body objects of focus tend to be more clear tools for meditative insight.
However, if a quiet walk with no distractions seems painful or boring and you want the normal health benefits of walking + a taste of mindfulness, then you can pick an playlist or podcast or audiobook as your “main focus”
Whichever focus you choose, you will use it the same way we use the breath in Mindfulness Meditation. So you will be walking, and noting whenever you get distracted from your focus object.
For example, if you chose “I’m going to do laps around my neighborhood while listening to this music playlist”, then you will attempt to keep most of your focus on purely listening to the sounds of the music, and the subtle effects music has on your mind.
You will inevitably think of other things, just like in normal meditation, but especially because walking outside will inherently bring in a lot of stimuli - other people, cars, plants, signs, etc.
Memories associated with the music, judgments on whether the music is good or bad, urges to replay or skip a song - these are all distractions and should be noted as “thinking”.
When you inevitably get distracted (thinking at length about anything except the pure sounds of the music), then you gently note “ah, thinking about X, now back to the music”. You may do this many countless times during your walk. The idea, like in mindfulness meditation, is to treat each Noting as a successful rep in the mindfulness muscle of your brain. So bring on the distractions!
At the end of your walk, whether its 10 minutes or 2 hours, do some stretches and let go of your object of focus. You can return to normal waking consciousness. Ask yourself the same questions you asked at the beginning. Do you notice any change in your body tone or state of mind? Anything feel better, worse, the same?
No right or wrong answers - if you find yourself judging “ugh, i did this walking meditation but i still am thinking about work” just note “ah, judgment, it’s okay to be however I am right now”. Pat yourself on the back and go enjoy your evening.
Can be easily practiced for any amount of time, anywhere, and in your own style and pace
Does this count as meditation?
By my definitions, yes, but it has a risk of confusing you “ok what exactly is meditation if i can just listen to a podcast and walk around?”. It is a type of meditation, but not the most effective for deep lasting insight.
“"just listening to a podcast and walking around” is different because you are not re-directing your thoughts toward any focal point. Aimless walks where you just let your mind wander have a different effect.
However, taking walks while listening to something you enjoy has great physical and mental health benefits, even though it isn’t meditation. So don’t let any of this slow you down from just getting outside.
Sitting meditation is boring and unenjoyable, can I just do informal walking meditation instead?
If you truly cannot bring yourself to meditate sitting or lying down, and just want to live your life, yes you can just do light informal movement meditations like this instead. Allow yourself to give it another chance in another season of your life.
Sitting meditation has unique qualities, due to its low stimulation environment, that can bring deeper and more sincere change and insight. Informal Walking can bring many health and mind benefits, but is best used as a supplement to your normal sitting practice
How can I tell if it’s working?
Keep an eye out for things like a better sense of focus, thinking outside the box with daily or life problems, a general sense of ease and hopefully a slight reduction in stress.
to be continued on Formal Walking Meditation, clarifying differences and styles of walking meditation, physical benefits, linking breath to steps or counting, mindfulness of transitions / changing scenery, as a nervous system tool, using the variety of senses as part of the method,