Sauntering Through Life

In this insightful and engaging podcast, Dr Puff explores how best to reduce stress in a busy, technologically driven, and energy draining world. Puff uses the concept of "sauntering," to explain how to achieve a happier lifestyle. He explains how many ancient religions and traditions incorporated the use of the word "sauntering" as a way of explaining and teaching people, how to slow down, and truly enjoy the journey of life.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

I like words and there's some really good ones out there.

And the one I want to talk about today,

If you haven't heard it,

Is called sauntering.

If you look it up,

The definition for it is walking in a slow,

Relaxed manner without hurry or effort.

I like that.

As we get more ensconced in the 21st century with all the technological changes,

The internet,

And all the access we have to so many different things,

Sauntering is one of those things we see less and less of.

There are so many new things out there to keep us entertained,

To keep us excited,

To keep us engaged.

But here's the question to ask ourselves.

If they work,

If these gadgets,

If these activities,

If these frenetic paces that we keep up work,

Then why aren't we happier?

Why are we struggling?

And it doesn't take long to figure out as a people on planet earth,

We're struggling right now.

The busyness,

The activity,

All the frenetic things that we can get involved with aren't making our lives happier.

So when the weekends come or vacations comes,

We do try to slow down.

And if we're able to slow down,

Then our lives do go a little bit better.

But it's so easy to get back on that frenetic pace will of busyness.

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go.

And it's exhausting.

And yet we keep getting on that will of busyness.

We do it because it's much like an addiction.

Our lives aren't going that well.

Our busyness isn't making us happier,

But that's painful.

And we don't like to feel that pain.

We like to think that this is working.

So we get back on that will again of being busy,

Getting on our phones,

Checking things out,

Going,

Going,

Going.

And then every once in a while,

We have those opportunities to slow down and they're good for us.

So in today's podcast,

I want to talk about sauntering through life,

Taking time,

Not just once in a while,

But taking time to live a life in which we really do relax,

In which we live in the present moment and we don't let life pass us by.

We are yes engaged,

But what I have found,

And I hope you will find too,

That when we slow down,

When we take one thing at a time,

That life just goes so much better,

So much better when we take that time to slow down.

One of my favorite people in history who I've studied and read much of his work is the man named John Muir.

He was a founder of the Sierra club and a great naturalist that really got a lot of the natural parks established here in the U S.

And as I studied his life,

The one thing I learned that was very interesting was he was clearly an incredibly intelligent man and a hardworking man.

And whenever he was down in the Valley,

Call it in the city,

He worked very hard.

He had ranches,

He had things that he did that were good and he was successful at them.

But the longer he stayed away from nature,

The sicker and sicker he got,

He just had health problems.

And every time he realized that,

Okay,

I need to make a change,

I need to get back to nature and just saunter through nature,

He'd go back up to the high Sierras and he'd get well.

His health would be restored and he'd be in a very good place.

It was like there was a direct correlation between his health,

His physical health and sauntering in nature.

When he spent time to be still,

To be present,

And he was such a prolific writer about nature,

He could go on and on about a plant or a bug.

He was just a beautiful writer.

If you ever get a chance to read any of his books,

They're all truly wonderful.

But what you'll learn about him is that he loved nature and nature for him was his healer because in nature he could slow down.

So for John Muir,

Who was a very busy man,

Anytime he got into nature,

He just stopped,

He slowed down.

And that slowing down gave richness,

Gave beauty to his life,

One that all of us can emulate.

Another example of sauntering comes from China.

About 2500 years ago,

A school of philosophy began called Taoism.

And I would say its main premise is sauntering,

Just taking life one day at a time,

Enjoying life and not achieving so much.

Again,

Taoists did achieve things,

But their premise was just don't try to be number one,

Try to be eight or nine and flow with life.

When there's changes,

Adjust.

There's a great Taoist story,

You may have heard of it,

About a rancher who was a Taoist philosopher and he had one son.

And his son went out one day and came upon a herd of wild horses and he was able to corral them and bring them back home.

And all the neighbors of this Taoist rancher were very excited for him because now instead of having one horse,

He had a whole herd of horses.

But he responded in a very tranquil,

Peaceful way.

He said,

We'll see.

And a few days later,

His son was working with the horses and he fell off and broke his leg.

And everyone was very now sad for this rancher,

This Taoist rancher,

Because his only son couldn't work for a couple of months and they were sad for him.

And he said again,

We'll see.

Then a few days later,

The emperor sent his entourage to find young men for his army because there was a war going on and they had to collect all the young men that were able to go to war.

And of course,

Since this Taoist rancher's son had broken his leg,

He couldn't go.

And all the villagers were so excited for this rancher because their son wasn't taking off to war.

And again,

He said,

We'll see.

And the story just goes on and on and on.

And the point of it is,

This rancher just lived life with tranquility.

He flowed with life.

He sauntered through life and that worked well for him.

It really is a philosophy of Taoism.

It was the life cell of John Muir.

And this sauntering through life is one I want to encourage all of us to do.

We get so busy in our lives and I think it causes us a lot of stress,

A lot of anxiety,

A lot of worry because we're just keeping so busy and we're trying to achieve things thinking if we reach this goal,

If we reach this thing,

That all will be well.

And another approach,

A far better approach,

I believe,

Is to just saunter through life.

Take one thing at a time,

Tackle it,

And then go to the next thing and take care of that and tackle it.

We tend to take on 10 things at a time and we're like a chicken running around with our head cut off.

It's just exhausting and we truly get exhausted.

And then we turn towards things to numb that exhaustion like alcohol,

Drugs,

TV,

And then the cycle just continues until as we get older.

Yeah,

Now we maybe have a little bit more time to slow down,

But now we have all these ailments,

These illnesses because we've pushed ourselves for so long.

So I really believe in sauntering through life.

I think it really is one of the great pinnacles of keeping our lives in that peaceful,

Happy place.

But how do we do it?

How do we pragmatically saunter through life?

Well,

There's different things we can do and I want to talk about a few of them and then let's begin to apply them once we learn of them.

The number one thing that I do that I would encourage all of us to do is to truly take one thing at a time.

We usually have projects that we're working on.

We may be doing something to our house.

We may be having something going to our body.

We may be doing something to our work,

But projects that we're working on.

And we tend to get overwhelmed when there's too many of them.

So instead of having nine or 10,

Maybe two or three at one time,

And then work on them until they're completed.

And once they're completed,

Then go on to the next thing.

For example,

I always have projects that I'm working on on the internet because of my presence on the internet.

But what I tend to do and what I find works really well for me is when I begin a project,

I stick with it until it's done.

And then when it's done,

I go on to the next project.

For example,

Right now I'm working on revamping one of my websites.

It needs an update and it's quite a bit of work.

So I just plug away on it and I keep plugging away on it until it's done.

And then when it's done,

I'll go on to the next bigger project.

And then when it's done,

I'll go on to the next bigger project.

I find that works well for me.

So for us,

We have several things that we're working on.

Like I said,

We might be doing something with our health right now,

Getting some dental work done.

And then we may be developing a skill to work.

So we work on that one thing,

A new skill that we're learning.

And then we're working on a project at our home and we do that one thing.

So we have three projects going on in three areas of our life and that's it.

And we don't create new ones or start new projects until they're done.

And so what we're trying to create is a sense of not being overwhelmed and sauntering through life.

Because when we saunter through life,

Life then just becomes a beautiful adventure and we can handle things so much better too.

We're calm.

We don't react.

We don't get angry because we're just able to handle what's before us.

When we're stressed,

When we're anxious,

When we're worried,

We tend to react to life and life becomes much harder.

The other thing that I would strongly recommend is making sure that we have in our schedule time to saunter,

Time to slow down,

That it isn't something that we just fit in,

But we actually schedule it.

Scheduling big times to get away on vacation where it's relaxing,

Where it's peaceful.

Scheduling little times where we can get away for the day.

Scheduling little,

Little times throughout the day where we can just pause and stop.

It may be just going outside,

Sitting on the grass and breathing in the air.

It might be just sitting down and reading a book for a half an hour.

It might be when we go to bed,

Before we go to sleep,

Meditating.

What we do is we make time every day throughout the day to saunter.

And I think if we do these two things,

If we don't take on too much and complete one thing at a time,

And then if we schedule throughout our day,

Throughout our lives,

Lots of time for sauntering,

The combination of these two things create a really beautiful life.

So what happens is we find that life,

Instead of being a struggle,

Life is just enjoyable,

It's peaceful,

And there's just a lot of times of,

Yes,

This is good.

I like this.

And sauntering is the way to get to,

I like this.

When we're busy,

When it's crazy,

It may be thrilling,

But much like a drug,

It has really bad after effects.

Instead,

Let's saunter so that when we saunter,

The after effects are peace,

The after effects are equanimity,

The after effects are happiness.

When we slow down,

When we lead a life where we saunter through life,

We're going to find that life is beautiful.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Besides creating this podcast,

There are a variety of other things that I do.

If you'd like to keep abreast of these activities,

And perhaps someday we may be able to meet in person,

Just go to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

You can subscribe to my newsletter,

And if you do,

You'll be emailed a free PDF copy of my meditation book called Reflections on Meditation.

And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thanks 🙏🏻 Sauntering yes I like it

I love the idea of slowing down to a saunter, will definitely be bringing the word and action into my life! Thank you Dr Puff 💜x

Finally, a word to describe the way that I attempt to live life: saunter! Wonderful talk!

Love this! Thank you 🌻

Thank you Sir, that’s it, I am going to retire!

This was a very enlightening message, one that I can strongly relate to based on my current position. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

Wonderful food for thought. 🙏❤️

Great suggestions....I do tend to have more energy than time...my art projects, home improvement projects...mount to overwhelming levels....I need to get caught up and focus...saunter mindfully through completing each...getting the reward of a job well done.

This is a worthwhile meditation to learn to slow down and get off that wheel! When we do, and slow ourselves down, we will discover a new paradigm that includes wonder and delight in our daily doings! Thank you, Dr Robert Puff! Will listen often!

Excellent advice......

I like these short, helpful reminders. 🙏🏾

Wonderful advice! Exactly what I need to do! Thank you so much Dr Puff! 🙏🧘‍♀️

Awesome! Very validating of my own experience. We like that don’t we 😊

Thank you for this. I'm putting it into practice 🍁

I love sauntering! Thanks.

Good info. Thank you!

A perfect reminder for me. Every year on my birthday, I set a theme or personal goal for the coming year. As of last night, I had decided on "slowing down" as my goal, but I could not find a track for my morning practice that I felt truly captured my intention. I awoke today and this podcast episode was new, ready for me to start my new year. As a fan of John Muir myself, and one heavily involved in the professional application of Person-Environment Fit along with the positive effects of natural elements on workplace stress, productivity, and creativity, this seemed almost tailor-made for my wishes today. The universe does indeed provide, if we only have the patience to allow it to do so. 😊 I will be using "sauntering" as a touchstone word in the coming months. (I love words too, and "sauntering" is right up there with "whimsy" in my book. 🤗)

Thank you for sharing this with me and the world. I see the light in you. 🤲❤️🤲

So much sense to this. Very soothing voice. Thank you!

Excellent podcast absolutely true ..sauntering I’ve not heard that word for years ..thank you 🙏🏻