Mindfully Walking Outside

This is a Meditate.io Mindfulness practice called Mindfully Walking Outside. In this meditation we'll be developing a mobile form of mindfulness as we walk outside.

Transcript

This is a Meditate.

Io mindfulness practice called Mindfully Walking Outside.

In this meditation,

We'll be developing a mobile form of mindfulness as we walk outside.

If you're already walking,

Keep going.

If not,

You can start your walk now.

And to start,

We're going to tune into our pace,

Finding a pace that's neither too fast nor too slow.

So tune into how you're walking,

How you're feeling.

If you feel a little bit strained or that you're over-exerting or having to breathe hard,

See if you can slow your pace down a bit and find that sweet spot where you're walking and at ease in your body.

If you're going too slow,

Maybe speed up a little bit and see if you can find a pace where you're really moving but not over-exerting yourself.

Now that you've found your sweet spot,

That perfect pace,

Let your attention start to drop into your body as you walk.

Feeling attention moving down from the head through the neck to the shoulders as they move back and forth,

The chest,

The back,

Down to your abdomen and hips as they swing back and forth,

To your legs moving,

Carrying you,

Your knees,

Calves as they expand and contract,

Down all the way to your ankles and feet propelling you forward.

Feel all the way down to the soles of your feet,

Touching the ground,

Landing,

Moving upward,

Landing,

Moving upward.

Feel the earth hit the soles of your feet as you walk,

Feeling the whole of your body as you move through space,

Walking,

Walking.

You might drop in that note or label from time to time to help you connect with the feeling of movement.

The moving meditation posture of walking.

Now from here,

We're going to allow our attention to actually drop even further down,

Down into the earth.

So feeling your whole body moving,

The soles of your feet touching the earth and allow your attention and imagination to extend downward into the earth,

Feeling what it might be like beneath you,

Imagining what the earth feels like as you move on it.

See how far you can extend your awareness down into the earth,

Going past the crust,

That outer layer into the mantle,

Feeling your way downward,

Extending down toward the core,

Walking on the earth as you feel it beneath you.

See if you can extend all the way to the outer core,

Feeling the liquid metal beneath you,

Even further to the inner core,

The hard iron and nickel ball at the center of the earth,

Walking,

Touching,

Feeling downward toward the center.

Now see if you can feel the movement of your body,

The walking,

The stepping actually emanating,

Not from your own physical exertion,

But from the earth itself,

Feel the support of the earth as it helps you move through space.

Walking,

Walking,

Connected to the earth,

Fully embodied,

Moving fluidly through your environment,

Mindfully walking outside.

Whenever you start to wander or get distracted in this practice,

Bring your attention back to your body first,

The movement of walking,

And then see if you can drop back down into the earth,

Feeling the solid ground beneath you.

Now without totally losing the feeling of your body or the earth,

Begin to open up more fully to the sights around you,

Taking in your visual environment as you walk through space,

Bound to the earth,

Noticing the sights,

The colors,

The movement of light,

And also the objects,

The environment,

The natural objects like trees or grass,

And also the human-built objects like buildings or sidewalk,

Taking it all in,

Seeing it without getting wrapped up in our story about it.

Walking through space,

Taking in your visual environment connected to the body,

Grounded in the earth.

And again,

If you get distracted or you can't hold all of these things in awareness at once,

Come back to your body,

Feeling it,

Moving through space,

Touching the ground,

Feeling the earth,

Going from there.

Resting in the fluid flow of experience.

Now finally,

We're going to open one more time to include one more area of experience.

We're going to open to include the sounds around us.

Is it walking,

Feeling,

Touching,

Seeing,

And hearing?

What are you hearing right now as you walk outside?

What sounds are coming into your awareness?

See if you can experience them just as sound,

Not as noise,

Not as something that you want more of or want less of,

But just the pure auditory experience of your environment,

Including,

Of course,

The sound of my voice in this meditation,

Blending in with the sound of the world around you.

Staying connected to your body,

Feeling the earth beneath you,

Holding you,

Propelling you forward,

Taking in the outer senses of sight and sound,

Moving through space,

Watching it change,

Mindfully walking outside.

Thank you.

Reviews

Really excellent. I'm not in a good place right now and this helped a lot. I appreciate your style and the thoughts behind this practice.

Very nice mindful meditation for my evening walk with my pup. Thanks! 😌🤙🏽

Love to walk and love to listen to walking meditations if I’m walking alone. Yours was really helpful and effective. Thank you ! ☮️

Thank you.The first guided walking after years of walking alone. I really benefited from being totally in the moment.

Lovely !!! Helped me get out of my mind for my walk, I loved it

Wonderful 👏🏾👏🏾

Nice walking meditation. Thank you.

Wow, I love this take on the walking meditation!

Really wonderful walking meditation!! Thank you!!

Thank you, I really enjoyed this. Made me think of Jules Verne. 😉

This was a perfect meditation to slow down but still be active and take account of the world around you. Thank you!

Awesome meditation!

Great for a leisurely walk on a trail or path. Takes your mind off the day-to-day and focuses you on the walk itself.

Fantastic shift in perspective to elevate my walk to a mindful experience 💓

Great! Wish it was longer

Loved the connection to the earth. A wonderful experience.

Great experience walking.

This particular set of instructions for walking meditation is a bit different from more traditional approaches in very intriguing ways. I appreciate the fact that you are free to choose/find your own pace and technique (the stuff of those more conventional directions) and instead the focus here is on larger, literally global, concerns.

An instant IT favorite for me.

If you have a stressful or difficult office job 🏢 I highly recommend this for a quick fifteen-minute break.

This was useful on today's hike with my dog. There is a new theory about what the core of the earth actually is...I had to push that aside and go with your description--just for today. I don't completely understand why it's important to feel more than the earth itself... but I went with it this time. Thank you