Welcome to this 20-minute meditation to mindful walking.
We are starting by simply finding a mountain position so our feet are shoulder-wide apart,
The arms relaxed by the side of the body and simply sensing into the feet,
Maybe sensing how gravity is pulling us towards the earth.
The intention is to leave autopilot and coming back to awareness,
Coming back to our body.
The attention will bring into the body,
Specifically into the feet and where our feet touch the ground.
The attitude is patience,
Beginner's mind and curiosity.
And when you are ready,
Then we'll start with this meditation.
And now that we are standing in this mountain position,
Simply becoming aware of how our weight is distributed onto our feet and then we are going to take a first step.
Usually we do this automatically but this time we want to bring mindfulness to this process.
Maybe we can notice how we have to put all the weight onto one foot.
We can then slowly lift off the other foot from the ground and then placing the lifted foot in front and slowly lowering it down until our heels touch the ground.
We put more and more weight onto that front foot until the whole sole of the front foot makes contact with the mat or the ground.
The back foot starts to lift from the ground until it's completely up in the air and all of our weight is just in the front foot.
Then very slowly and mindfully we bring the back foot in front of the other foot,
Placing it again first with the heel onto the ground and then slowly bringing more and more weight on that front foot.
We are noticing how the weight is slowly shifting from the back foot to the front foot and thus the back foot starts to now slowly lift off from the ground until the whole sole is lifted and we then bring the back foot once again in front of the other foot as mindfully as we can.
So basically we are walking but in a very conscious and slow way and we want to continue walking like this.
Maybe becoming aware of where our mind is,
Maybe it has drifted off into the past or the future simply in the autopilot and in that case we recognize that this just happened and we want to bring our focus back,
Back to this moment and back to our feet.
Can we sense how they touch the ground right now and can we feel into the movement of walking?
This walking meditation is a silent practice and so now practicing simply walking around by yourself and noticing whenever you drift off and simply coming back to the room and to your feet.
What can you sense in your feet right now?
Maybe really sensing into our feet.
What does the ground feel like against our soles?
Is the ground hard,
Cold,
Soft,
Warm?
Can you sense how different materials seem to feel different on your feet?
Perhaps we can notice how there's impatience emerging or maybe questions or thoughts about what this meditation is for or what does that help me and we can then simply notice that this is happening right now but we can choose to simply let go of that and coming back to this moment,
Coming back to the pressures of the ground against our feet right now.
What can you notice in this step?
We are checking in once again where our thoughts are.
Are we really focusing on this moment or are we in autopilot,
In the past or the future,
In thoughts or emotions?
That's alright,
In that case simply coming back in a kind way into our feet once again,
Sensing into this very step right now.
Then we slowly bring this meditation to an end and for that we are going into the mountain position wherever we are in the room right now.
Simply breathing,
Sensing the weight in our legs and feet and really just grounding ourselves and then also noticing sounds inside the room and from outside the room.
And then maybe bringing some movement into our body so shaking out our arms and legs and in case our eyes are closed we can now gently open them and fully coming back to the room.
This mindful walking meditation is now complete.
