Welcome to this barefoot walking meditation.
I recommend listening to this on your smartphone while walking in a forest somewhere you can walk comfortably with your bare feet on the soil.
You can also listen to this wearing shoes,
But you'll have a better experience being barefoot.
So we're going to explore mindful barefoot walking meditation.
So walking along,
Notice how each press of your foot against the earth feels.
Notice how you're pressing as the earth and away it's reciprocating the press and pressing up against your foot.
See if you can notice different parts of your feet as they're touching the earth.
Your toes gripping,
The ball of your feet balancing,
The arch of your feet keeping you bounced,
The heel pressing.
And now notice your full foot,
Your entire foot pressing as the earth with each step.
Feel grounded,
Feel relaxed,
Feel your stress and your anxieties and your tension in your body just draining out of your body into the earth.
Resetting your body and nervous system and your brain and your heart so you can more deeply relax and enjoy yourself.
Right here,
Right now,
In this beautiful moment.
So notice how your body is swaying,
The rhythm of your steps.
Just be present with that.
We're going to take a short period of time here,
A few minutes,
And just bring your full attention to the motion of walking,
To the embodied movement of walking.
Your feet pressed on the earth,
Your arms swaying,
Your neck moving,
Your body moving.
This rhythmic flow of your walking.
When your mind wanders into thought,
Into analysis,
Into labeling,
Into the past or the future,
Just gently bring it back to the embodied motion and movement and rhythm of walking.
Let's take a short period of time here.
Now I want you to notice your breath.
You may notice the subtlety of your breath coming in,
Going out.
Coming in,
Animating your body,
Going out.
And now notice what you're seeing.
The textures of trees,
The colors,
The ground below you,
The sky above you,
The canopy of the trees above you stretching out to the sun,
The light of the sun shining on you maybe.
Just notice the subtle beauty all around you.
And now notice what you're hearing.
The sound of your steps.
The sound of the birds.
The breeze flowing around you through the trees.
Voices in the distance or motors or the hum of the city in the distance.
Notice what you're hearing.
Now notice what you're smelling.
Can you smell the soil beneath your feet?
Can you smell the plant life?
The living plants and trees or the decaying leaves and matter on the forest floor?
Just notice any aromas,
Subtle aromas you're smelling.
Maybe notice the neutral smell of air.
And now notice how your skin is touching the earth.
The bottoms of your feet.
The skin of your arms and your legs sensing the world around you,
The temperature and flow of the air.
Your skin feeling the clothes on your body.
Just notice how your skin is sensing the world around you.
See if you can pay full attention,
Bring this complete attention to your present experience.
To this embodied walking meditation.
Bring your full attention to how you're feeling now in your body.
This aliveness,
This felt presence of your immediate experience.
Just notice how this forest walking barefoot feels in your body.
Notice the aliveness in your body.
Notice how being in nature makes you feel more alive.
You can feel the aliveness of all the living,
Breathing beings around you.
Birds and animals and plants and trees.
Just feel that aliveness as you're walking.
As you're enjoying this embodied rhythmic flow of walking.
Just feel the aliveness in your body.
Mindfully alive.
As you're walking,
To relax deeper into this experience,
I invite you to in the out breath extend your out breath.
Pucker your lips a little bit like you're sucking through a straw.
And when you breathe out,
Breathe out very slowly through lips that are just slightly open.
Parsed lips.
So breathe in,
Breathe out slow.
Breathe in,
Breathe out slow.
See if you can double your exhale.
It's twice as long as your inhale.
When you double the exhale,
You more fully activate your parasympathetic nervous system.
The relaxation response.
The more relaxed you are,
The more you notice subtle sensations and subtle aliveness in the world around you.
That when your sympathetic nervous system is activated and you're doing and you're thinking,
You're analyzing,
You won't be aware of.
You won't be able to tune into.
So when we're deeply relaxed,
We can feel better.
We can feel deeper.
We can sense the world around us and the aliveness of this living,
Breathing world all around us better.
So you breathe in for a count of,
Let's say,
Four.
And you breathe out for a count of eight.
Breathe in for a count of four.
Breathe out for a count of eight.
As you're breathing,
Try to notice the flow of your walking.
The touch of your feet on the earth.
Breathing.
I hope you enjoyed this barefoot,
Mindful walking meditation.
I recommend continuing to practice.
Just notice the aliveness in your body.
And the feeling of your feet pressed on the earth as you walk.
And this embodied motion,
This movement,
This rhythm of walking.
Very powerful way to calm the mind.
And just let the stress and anxieties and tensions of our lives that we hold in our body just melt away and flow right down into the earth.
Grounded in the earth and relaxation and presence and connection.
And I hope you have a wonderful day.
And may the forest be with you.
