1. As you begin, walk at a natural pace. Place your hands wherever comfortable.
2. Take a minute to breathe deeply as you bring your full attention to your body. Sense how stable the ground feels beneath your feet. Be aware of the many different sensations within your body. Take note of your thoughts and feelings as well.
3. Now start walking slowly. In walking meditation, rather than focus on the breath, direct your attention to the movement of your feet and legs, and the motion of your body as it advances. Just walk slowly and mindfully in a circle or back and forth. If you’re turning around or turning a corner, be as mindful as you can of the position of your feet and the accompanying sensations. It is good to walk for at least 10 minutes. You can always take a break and stretch or simply stop moving and check in with yourself.
4. Now for a few minutes, expand your attention to sounds. Whether you’re indoors, in the woods, or in a city, pay attention to sounds without labeling or naming, or getting caught up in whether you find them pleasant or unpleasant. Notice sounds as nothing more or less than sound.
5. Shift your awareness to your sense of smell. Again, simply notice. Don’t push or force yourself to feel anything at all, just bring attention to the sense of smell, whatever you discover.
6. Now, move to vision: colours and objects and whatever else you see. Patiently coming back each time something grabs your attention, or even if something needs addressing, like avoiding an obstacle. Staying natural, not overly rigid, not daydreaming and drifting, but with sustained awareness.
7. Keep this open awareness of everything around you, wherever you are. Nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to change. Fully aware, and walking.
Make a habit of doing the exercise each day
Put it in your diary
Walk the stairs, campus, building.
Get off the bus at an earlier stop
Leave the car and walk to the station
Make all short journeys by foot.
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Play
If you don’t, then either hit the back arrow or click the button to go back to look at another exercise.
If you do, then carry on down the page and follow the instructions.
If you want to include this exercise in your action plan, select Yes from on the right then click the green button saying ‘Include this exercise’.
Sadly you’ll go back to the top of this page – please scroll down and fill in the bits that appear before here.
See the action plans you have created, and click the button to copy the action plan title in the one you want to associate this exercise with. A box will appear with the name of the action plan shown – click the grey button to the left of it. It will wobble and this will copy the title of the action plan into the clipboard. Then hit the X in the top corner to close that box.
Then click below where it says ‘Paste here’ and right click to paste the action plan title into the box and press the green button.
Now you’ve copied the action plan title, paste it on the right and press the green button. After a short pause you will be taken to a page where you will set up your own version of this exercise.
Now you’ve copied the action plan title, paste it on the right and press the green button. After a short pause you will be taken to a page where you will set up your own version of this exercise.
Please bear with us while we set up your own version of this exercise. It will take a short while.
Now you’ve planned your exercise, you will be sent to the page for monitoring how you’re getting on with it.
Press the green button every time you want to add details of when you do the exercise. When you’ve decided how you feel about the exercise, you can fill in the last bits saying how you found it, then press the ‘Update Your Exercise’ button.
Times of change can be a challenge, no doubt! Whether it’s a relationship breakup, job loss, or being diagnosed with a serious health issue. Or you may WANT things to be different, but it feels a little scary or overwhelming. The butterfly reminds us change can be beautiful, even necessary, in order to realize our full potential and live our best life.
