Walking Meditation: Exercise, Mindfulness Training, or Hoax?

Imagine walking in such a way that you calm the mind and increase the ability to focus.

I was in the marching band in ninth grade. In marching band, you train your body to march in a military style stride, turn to the right crisply on the ball of the left foot, and turn to the left by executing a 270-degree *turn to the right* (reminding us that three rights make a left). At the same time, you’re playing music, adjusting your step to effect the patterns of the band, and trying to pay attention to everything around you at the same time.

The brain in a marching band is busier than a bartender on nickel-beer night.

It’s exhilarating when it all comes together, but exhausts the mind. I suppose it’s a form of meditation; you certainly don’t have a lot of space for bad thoughts while playing the tenor sax in the marching band. It’s really more like being in a zone, blocking out everything else.

The type of walking meditation I’m here to discuss is calmer than all that.

We often think of walking as the last-resort form of transportation. Can’t catch a ride, can’t catch a bus, and I don’t have a bike: looks like I’m walking.

Or we think of it as that low-key exercise that gives us steps, or as an obligation to our dog who enjoys smelling pee-stained lawns.

We are likely tempted to use that casual walking time to listen to music, or a podcast, or an audio book. It seems like an awesome twofer, getting something else done while doing the walk.

To take a meditative walk is to remove those voices of other people from your head. Make it just you and the walk and wherever you are.

Okay, sure; you are gaining some benefit from the music/podcast/audiobook and I get that. I’ve done it A LOT, and I still do it sometimes.

If you’re interested in being an original thinking creative artist, at some point you have to start listening to your own thoughts. Listening to podcasts, especially, is putting other people’s thoughts in your head. Like the adage that you become the average of the five closest people in your life, you also become the podcasts and (nonfiction) books you listen to.

Meditative walking may be a pleasant way to get out of your confines, experience nature, and listen to your thoughts. Let me describe the forms, and then help you consider what might work for you.

In the formal style, you pick out a quiet place with few distractions. You slowly walk—like painfully slowly—with your normal stride, taking as much as three seconds per step. You process across the space (room, whatever) from one end to the other, then return. Back and forth you go, as if slowly pacing in a prison cell, but because you want to.

Like with mindful mediation’s focus on breath or some object, now you focus on each step. As thoughts intrude, you allow them to slip away and return your focus to the next step.

This improves your ability to avoid distraction when working, and calms the mind.

In the casual style, you walk along a quiet path outdoors, preferably with trees and nature and stuff to see and hear. You may walk with a partner but refrain from conversation. (Awkward, so it might be simpler alone.)

No headphones, no phone calls. Just you and nature and the walk.

Process at a slower-than-exercise pace to give yourself a chance to notice the trees, shrubbery, and flowers along the way. Appreciate them for what they are, and refrain from intrusive thoughts about how a-holes litter, or someone needs to prune that tree, or what’s the point of that bush?

You can give your subconscious a challenge to work on, such as how to approach a story your writing, or how to draw something. Whatever creative problem you face, a casual meditative walk will give you brain a chance to work on it and offer up ideas.

You may want to have a notebook with you to jot down a banger idea.

Really, that’s it. These techniques provide movement and a change of pace, and can help your mind grow and flex its own muscles.

It’s fine to take regular walks, listening to something alone or chatting with a friend. Good ideas emerge then, as well.

Making the effort to take a meditative walk is just one tool in your creativity kit. And you get some steps out of the deal.