Mindful Walking Guide

1. Set ‘When-Then’ Triggers to Start & End. Set up your walking practice time with a definite trigger so that when you are at a particular place, then you will start your mindful walking practice. Similarly, set a clear ‘When-Then’ that marks the end of the mindful walking practice.
For example, when I first leave my door, then I will start practicing mindful walking. When I reach the next corner, then I will stop the mindful walking practice.

Option: If there’s a lot on your mind, make a deal with yourself that you’ll do your mindful walking for a certain distance. Then, after that distance is reached, you can (if you want to) return your attention to what’s on your mind: whether that is planning, worrying or whatever. You can also repeatedly alternate stretches of mindful walking with ‘thinking while walking’.

2. Foreground what you are Sensing. Notice what you can physically sense as you walk along.

• What can you see?
• What can you hear?
• What can you feel with your feet?
• Can you feel the air moving on your face or hands?
• What can you smell?

Choose one sense to focus on. Ideally choose whatever sense stands out most vividly and that is pleasant or neutral when you focus on it. Bring that chosen sense into the foreground of your awareness. Avoid choosing unpleasant or painful sensations as the focus.

 

• Explore ‘zooming in’ at times to just one part of what you can sense, noticing the fine detail: e.g. one object, one sound, the feeling of wind moving over one hand or finger.
• Also explore ‘zooming out’ so that you take in a broad sweep of what you can sense: e.g. a widescreen view of all you can see, the ‘orchestra’ of all the sounds around you, the feeling of wind or weather moving over your whole body as you walk.

 

Important: keep yourself safe! Keep track of what’s around you as you walk mindfully and stop the practice at any time if your safety requires it.

3. Notice & Return. Acknowledge when your attention is hooked and carried away by other things. Allow what hooked your attention to shift into the background of your awareness as you bring your attention back to your chosen sense. Keep gently returning your attention to the chosen physical sensation each time something takes your attention away.
Option: You might find counting steps from 1-10 silently in your mind is helpful, especially when your mind is very busy. Just restart when you lose count or get to 10. Or you might find silently commentating with simple phrases helpful: for example, silently saying ‘stepping left’ as you step with the left foot and ‘stepping right’ as you step with the right foot.

4. Chop & Change. As soon as you lose interest in the sense you are foregrounding, swap over to another sense.

5. End While it’s Easy. End while you are still willingly engaged in the experience of mindful walking. Stop as soon as you would have to force yourself to do any more.

 

Mindful Sauntering Guide

Mindful Sauntering simply involves mindfully walking to a chosen location, lingering at that location while being mindful of what you are noticing when there, and then mindfully walking back. A Mindful saunter can be as short as a walk to look out of a window at a pleasant view and back. Or a Mindful Saunter can be part of a longer walk to a specific destination where, at some point, you take a detour to walk mindfully to a given location, linger to mindfully notice what’s there, and then mindfully walk back to re-join the main route of your walk.

The key ingredient that defines Mindful Sauntering is that you are mindfully walking somewhere with no other purpose than to linger at that spot and be mindful, before mindfully walking back. You could mindfully saunter somewhere just to enjoy mindfully eating or drinking something.

 

1. Decide on your Mindful Spot. Ideally choose somewhere that you can walk to that you will be happy to linger there for a little while. This could be standing, sitting (or even lying down) at that spot. It can be inside or outside, busy or quiet – it’s up to you.
Then decide how close to the Mindful Spot you will start practicing being mindful while walking to your spot. If the Mindful Spot is very close by, it may be the whole walk there will be a mindful walking practice. If it is further off, it is important to take it easy, at least to begin with, and just do as much of the final part of the walk to the chosen Mindful Spot as seems easily attainable. So it could be you practice mindful walking for just the last 10 steps are before you reach your Mindful Spot.

2. Mindful Walking to Your Mindful Spot. Follow the same guidance in the Mindful Walking Guide above as you walk towards the spot.

3. Practicing Mindfulness at your Mindful Spot. When you reach your spot, you may be standing, leaning against something or sitting down. Take time to notice the physical sensations associated with any change of position as they happen. Then start to notice what you can sense most vividly at your Mindful Spot right at this moment – what you notice may change at each visit.

• What can you see? What can you hear? What can you smell?
• What can you feel with your feet? If sitting, are you aware of any sensations of sitting down?
• Can you feel the air moving on your face or hands? Can you feel the warmth of the sun?

Choose one sense to focus on. Ideally choose whatever sense stands out most vividly and that is pleasant or neutral when you focus on it. Bring that chosen sense into the foreground of your awareness. Avoid choosing unpleasant or painful sensations as the focus for your attention.

Notice & Return. Acknowledge when your attention is hooked and carried away by other things. Allow what hooked your attention to shift into the background of your awareness as you bring your attention back to your chosen sense. Keep gently returning your attention to the chosen physical sensation each time something takes your attention away.
Chop & Change. As soon as you lose interest in the sense you are foregrounding, swap over to another sense. You could also widen your attention to be aware of multiple senses at once.

End While it’s Easy. As soon as you want to, start your mindful walk back. Don’t force yourself to stay at your Mindful Spot – some days you may only be there a few moments, other days you might want to stay much longer. Avoid setting a length of time to be at your Mindful Spot.

4. Mindful Walking back from Your Mindful Spot. It might be interesting to choose a different sense to foreground for the walk back: for example, listening going out, your feet coming back.

 

If you want to make Mindful Sauntering a regular mindfulness practice, it helps to identify a specific point in your daily routines that you will do it. Set up your sauntering practice with a definite trigger so that when you are at a particular place, then you will start your Mindful Sauntering practice.