How a Walk Around the Block Can Change Your Life

[ErinGreenSherpa]

It is our natural disposition to be in reaction. Think about it. When is the last time you generated a conversation or project from a completely original place, rather than in reaction to a need or a desire triggered by something or someone else? When we live in reaction, it becomes de rigeur to resist the things we “have to do” in order to manage all there is to manage in our lives. Finances especially create this resistance in people. Expenses are hard to track; I’ll never have enough money anyway; Finance is too complicated for me to follow … all of those thoughts put us in reaction to one of the most important paths to our own happiness: Our cash flow.

I have a trick that gets me out of reaction and resistance. I put away my files. I put away my email. I put on my tennies and head out the door on a walk. If you read my other articles, you know I am an advocate for physical activity to break out of a stuck place, mentally, emotionally. This walk is special, because it clears the mind in a conscious way. The clarity walk gets your limiting beliefs out of your mind and into the rhythm of your motion. When your mind becomes clear, you can make choices from a solid, quiet place.

Think of the peace of mind that comes after you clean out the garage, or when you establish a place for everything in your office. This is the peace from chaos you get from a clarity walk … or swim or run, any practice that is physical and away from your office will do.

Here’s how it works. Assuming your walk will be out and back, or around a route, practice this: On the way out, talk out loud. Say all of the worries that are occupying your headspace. Say out loud the things that have you out of integrity and the actions you are resisting, the broken agreements and misunderstandings you have yet to clean up. I never called Tricia back. I promised to throw my friend’s birthday party. My bank is expecting me to get back to them. I wanted to switch credit card companies. My boyfriend is waiting for my answer about his work picnic.

Saying these things out loud gets them out of the circling pattern in your head. Saying them in the practice of walking keeps your body moving and the thoughts coming. You will unearth beliefs and worries you never realized are contributing to your tension. At this time, there are no actions to consider, only a purging of these thoughts with each step you take forward. State them all until there are no more to state.

Then on your walk back, say with each step, I can tell the truth about, or I can reveal, or I can share … fill in the blanks. What comes up? I can reveal that I am exhausted. I can share that I broke an agreement. I can see that my boyfriend is depending on me. I can reveal that my husband will switch the credit card companies if I ask him.

The idea is that, on the first part of your walk, you tap into all of the unconscious thought streams that are holding you back.

And on the return, you hear all of the conscious thoughts that get exposed as a result of getting the others out of the way. From this very conscious state, having let go of the noise and focused on what’s in front of you, how you feel, and what’s possible, you can make the choices that mean the most to you, rather than making choices in reaction to your schedule or your knee-jerk promises and concerns.

Getting honest about what we resist is nobody’s favorite task. But once we take the steps to reveal what is really holding us back, our clarity offers us peace of mind. Just like getting honest about your money, if you see clearly what you have and what you don’t, you can choose your next steps from complete peace of mind. Clarity walk? Maybe it’s a Freedom Walk. 

Originally published on GreenSherpa