Hi,
Welcome to this guided walking meditation.
This type of practice can be a great way of getting some movement into your work day and also getting centered at the same time.
To start,
You'll need an open area where you can walk about 5 to 10 steps in each direction.
It's nice to do walking meditation with bare feet,
But if that's not an option you can do it in socks or shoes too.
Let's begin with standing and checking in with the body,
Inviting ourselves to relax.
We'll start with the crown of the head,
Feeling any sensations there,
And then feeling into the whole head.
In particular we can invite the muscles around our eyes and in our jaws to relax.
We can feel into the neck and shoulders and the upper back,
And if we find there's excess tension there we can invite that to relax.
We can feel into the chest,
The upper abdomen,
The lower abdomen,
And if we find excess tension there we can invite that to relax.
We can feel into the mid back,
The lower back,
The glutes and hips,
And if we find excess tension there we invite it to relax.
We feel into the muscles of the legs,
And if we find excess tension in those muscles we invite it to relax.
And finally we feel into our feet,
The muscles and bones and connective tissues,
Feeling the contact between the feet and the ground.
So we'll just take a moment and allow our attention to settle into the soles of our feet.
If you'd like you can close your eyes during this part of the practice.
We can feel the way that all the different areas of the foot contact the ground.
The toes,
The balls of the feet,
The outer edges of the feet,
The heels.
See if you can feel into those different sensations with as much clarity and attention as possible.
And now that we have our attention focused in the soles of the feet,
We'll get ready for walking meditation.
If your eyes are closed,
You'll want to open them and allow your eyes to gaze in a relaxed way down at about a 45 degree angle in front of you.
We'll be walking very slowly so that we can feel all the sensations in the feet more clearly.
To begin with,
Shift your weight into the right foot,
And as the left foot comes up,
Can you feel the pressure being released from that foot?
So the foot comes up and moves forward,
And as we begin to place the foot,
Can you feel the pressure in the heel,
In the outer edge of the foot,
The ball of the foot,
The toes?
Just keep your attention in that left foot as the right foot then picks up and moves.
In the left foot,
You feel the weight of the whole body for a moment,
And then you can feel the heel coming up again.
So with as much attention as possible,
Feel into all the details of that shifting weight in the foot.
Step by step,
Feel into that left foot.
When you come to the end of your walking path,
Just stand for a moment and feel into both feet at the same time.
And then turn,
Keeping your attention in the soles of the feet as much as possible.
This time as you begin to walk again,
Focus on the weight in your right foot.
As your weight shifts into your right foot and the left foot begins to pick up,
See if you can feel that weight of the whole body balanced in your right foot.
And as the weight shifts into the left foot,
Feel how your heel picks up off the floor,
Your midfoot,
Sole of the foot,
The toes.
With each step,
Feel into the sensations in the right sole with as much detail as possible.
And again,
When you get to the end of your walking path,
Just take a moment and feel both soles of the feet before you turn around.
As you walk again along your path,
You might keep the attention on just one foot,
Or you might begin to feel into both feet at once,
Whichever way feels best to you.
As we come to the end of our walking meditation,
See if you can slow your walk even more,
Being very deliberate.
And finally,
Come back to standing.
Bring your attention down into the soles of the feet,
Feeling them connect with the floor,
Which is supported by the earth itself.
If you'd like,
You can imagine roots dropping down from the soles of the feet,
Dropping into the earth and bringing up grounded stable earth energy to your whole system.
If you'd like to finish this meditation with your eyes closed,
That's fine.
You can take a moment and bring the attention as much as possible down into the feet.
If you'd like,
You can make the aspiration to try to bring your attention back down into the soles of the feet as often as you can during the rest of the day.
And now we close the meditation.
