One Foolproof Way to Clear Your Head
Everyone nowadays talks about anxiety. About depression. About mental illness.
And about how “I want to meditate, but I just can’t. It’s so boring!”
Especially with the meditation part, I’ve been there.
It takes real practice to just sit and let your thoughts run until you’re out of new ones.
But have you heard of Walking Meditation?
Much easier and clears your head in the same way. Let’s discuss.
There are several forms of meditation, many of which involve sitting down and closing the eyes.
For example, you may have heard of mindfulness meditation, or mantra meditation, where you repeat “ohmmmm” or something like that over and over again to keep focused.
That’s alright if it works for you.
But it’s not something that the average guy does on a day to day basis. Walking, on the other hand?
Pretty sure you’ve done that every day for your entire life. Or at least since you had enough months under your belt.
As Thich Nhat Hanh (famous monk) says, walking meditation is a pleasurable way to deepen our connection with our body and Earth.
Most of the time when you walk, you’re headed to Starbucks up the street, or to the meats aisle in the grocery store, or to your car in the parking lot.
Your brain isn’t exactly “there.”
You’re all over the place mentally. However, when you practice a little walking meditation, things are different.
Focus on your footsteps.
One foot after the other.
Feel the ground, feel the connection with you and the Earth.
And really look around.
When you have something real & tangible to focus on — not just your breathing — you can get into a meditative phase, where the brain just begins to clear itself out.
Focus on the sounds around you. Birds chirping. Cars passing by. Whatever it may be. The less thinking, the better.
Before you know it, you’re feeling refreshed and inspired.
Walking meditation has a couple key benefits which make it more accessable than the traditional kind we hear about.
Nowadays, most of us spend the majority of our time looking at computer screens. This has the side effect of us leading mostly sedentary lives.
The last thing you want to do when you just sit around all day is just spend some more time “meditating” sitting around.
Especially as a beginner, you might just sit there and continue to be frustrated.
Walking meditation lets you practice that mindfulness and clear the head, but also move around. You get a little much-needed exercise in and you get a chance to brain dump for a little while. What’s better than that?
You read about people who get in their “zone” while skiing, or skydiving, or rock climbing, or any number of dangerous activities. Why is that?
When you need to be dialed into the present moment for the sole purpose of survival, a different gear kicks in.
You have no time for anxiety, depression, or negative thoughts.
You only have time for taking the next turn, or finding the next foothold, or moving onto the next movement of the activity, or you might be in serious trouble.
This is that meditative state you’re looking for, but if you can trigger it by movement alone, you’re light years ahead of the average Joe.
Because I’m not an expert and don’t claim to be, here’s an article which explores walking meditation in a bit more depth. It contains wise quotes and words like “Buddhanature.” I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
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