“In beauty may I walk.
All day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons may I walk.”
I’ve heard so many people say, “I really wish I had time to meditate.” “I just can’t sit still.” Or “I always fall asleep.” They want to start a meditation practice and feel that in some way meditation would be of benefit but they encounter barriers that prevent them getting what they think they want from the practice. They feel guilty about it and this becomes a further barrier.
Like most people, I also struggle with this but one way I’ve been able to incorporate a meditation practice into my daily life is through walking meditation. This is something I learned way back in pregnancy yoga. Very simply, just walking and breathing and bringing your attention to your body, to the sensation of your feet rolling across the floor with each step, noticing the twist of your pelvis around the central axis of your spine etc.
I especially find this helpful when I’m rushing around London. Maybe I’m running late and battling public transportation and the British weather thinking of everything I have to get done in the day. It just helps to take my attention away from that “washing machine” whirling round in my head and back to my body and how I experience it. It calms the nerves, relaxes the breathing and suddenly it doesn’t matter that I’m running late I find a place of balance and a sense of stillness.
Wildmind.org has a great article about walking meditation, how to get started, and learning the practice. Comparing walking meditation to sitting practices they say, “…one of the biggest differences is that it’s easier, for most people, to be more intensely and more easily aware of their bodies while doing walking meditation, compared to sitting forms of practice.”
This is where I think walking meditation can really enhance the processes we work with in craniosacral treatment. In craniosacral work we work with mental, physical, emotional and spiritual issues by exploring the inner landscape of the body. We work with embodiment – with noticing the physical sensations that arise in the body in response to stress, trauma, emotions and psychological patterns. We hope to find a place of ease in the body where we are aware of our inner processes but we do not get wrapped up in thinking about them. (“My back hurts, my feet are sore, I’m late for work, I wonder what I’ll have for dinner”) Likewise, in walking meditation you can experience your body very intensely and find intense pleasure in the practice. The body becomes a comfortable place to just be and we find a sense of calm and relief and balance between our inner landscape and outside stimuli. The mind can settle in stillness and balance and as we craniosacral therapists say, “Shift happens.” Things change for us, often in small imperceptible ways but sometimes in a profoundly, grand, unfolding that expands our being.
