At a recent Universal Medicine event on Esoteric Massage, Serge Benhayon presented that many of us don’t ‘walk in joy’. I understood what he meant in theory, but later on I wondered what this meant in practice. Now, my walking has improved one heck of a lot over the last couple of years, in that I have learnt to walk being present with, and connected to, my body and with everything around me. But was I walking in joy? . . .
On my recent walks I have pondered on walking in joy. This is what I have discovered:
- On my first walk after the Universal Medicine course I decided to walk in joy. I realised that I felt very light in my body. My stride was naturally long and my pace naturally brisk – effortlessly so. I could feel the joy of this and boy did I appreciate that I was walking with joy! I felt so at ease with myself and the world, as if the ‘world was my oyster’.
- One morning I also chose to walk in joy and I could feel that I was not doing anything other than walking. I was not thinking anything. I was simply enjoying being with my body as I walked, appreciating the feel of the sand beneath my feet, the patterns the waves were making on the sand and the clear blue sky. This also felt joy-full and gave me a sense of complete freedom, connection and openness (with myself and others).
- One day I noticed my legs felt very heavy and my body felt tired; I realised I was walking in the sadness of a book I had been reading that morning on human rights in Afghanistan. I had not even thought about walking in joy that morning, let alone done it!
- One morning a swallow flew right in front of me and then away up into the sky – I realised that my mind had wandered off to what I had been working on earlier that morning . . . so I pulled it back to my whole body again . . . only later on in the walk to have a Monarch butterfly fly in front of me, when I realised I had wandered off again – thank goodness for the reflection of nature! I understood that I could not be walking in joy if my mind was wandering off, and that the swallow and the butterfly were simply reminding me of this.
- One day I started choosing joy but lost the joy in my walk as I walked too far for my body that day and was very tired when I got home.
So I ask myself – why these differences in the way I walk? Why do I walk in joy one day and not another?
I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?
I would like to express my huge thanks to, and appreciation of, Serge Benhayon for bringing this ‘walking in joy’ thing to my attention. I continue to bring this awareness to all my walks now: am I walking in joy, or am I walking in sadness, or walking ‘checked out’ (my mind a million miles away from the rest of my body) or in disregard (walking when I am tired)?
And what did I choose at the beginning of my walk, and do I continue to choose joy as I walk, and am I appreciating myself for walking in joy and feeling the joy in others?
This has been very revealing and a huge learning for me.
By Anne Scott, Qualified Yoga Teacher, Fitness Instructor and Personal Trainer, Mediator, accredited Esoteric Healing Practitioner, Auckland, New Zealand
Further Reading:
Joy
Walking in Presence and Without Pain
The Wake of our Walk
Walk in joy and joy is shared with everyone and everything you meet.
Me too and the lightness that is felt with this.
‘I realised I was walking in the sadness of a book I had been reading that morning on human rights in Afghanistan.’ How many times do we take things on in life that is not truly ours where it affects us on either a conscious or unconscious level? Like literally billions of times! This does not mean to say not to care for humanity after all we are all one but we can never truly support another if we join energetically where they are as then they do not get a different reflection.
What a Joy to read this again as it offers so much about being present with what ever we are doing, as conscious presence is always going to bring us Joy-full-ness, and walking and being present is a great way to practice being Consciously-present.
One could say if you swallow to much you get butterflies and when we walk in disconnection and not being present as you have shared Anne, then we are weighed down with the burdens of life so if we don’t bit of more than we chew our walking becomes light hearted and full of joy.
I love the simplicity that it is a choice to walk in joy and it makes me realise that so many things in life are simply a choice and that often we make them complicated and hard when actually they need not be.
Anne, I love this; ‘ If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?’
The only reason I can see at the moment for not choosing to consistently walk in joy is because I would then constantly be in joy. Completely rubbing out the part that has chosen to not be joy and to rub out all previously made choices to not be joy. And to rub out the pride that chose all that in the first place.
It is always great to have more awareness and understanding in our lives.
Anne – I love this; ‘I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?’ I have also noticed this with being present with my body – that it is actually something that I can choose rather than something that just happens.
I have felt the loveliness of walking in joy, what I noticed was the lightness and the almost skipping nature of walking that I observe with children.
This is a lovely example of how our choices make such a difference, and an inspiration to keep choosing joy and presence as I walk, ‘ If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that? ‘
When a swallow and a butterfly are there to bring you back to walking with joy how can you resist?
It is very valuable to be aware of how much we are affected by our walk and how much our walk is affected by what we have absorbed or got caught up in. For example if we walk in a slouchy or slumpy way we will feel like that and increasingly walk that energy into our body and also offer that reflection to everyone else. Much more healing to live and walk in love, joy or some other expansion.
Its so simple… we just have to be present enough to be making that choice to be with our body, or to walk in joy. All it requires is the choice…
This totally proves to me that not only do we effect ourselves by the way we walk we effect the ground we walk on, so what better gift can we give the world than to walk in joy, everyone gets a share of it.
A beautiful wake-up call for us all, standing still with how often we check out, wonder off and or walk in absence of joy and being in our body? A great moment now to start observing our ways of how we have walked, why so, and why we have been playing around with anything less than our joy?
That is true you can’t think yourself into joy but you can fool yourself that what you are thinking or feeling is joy when it is not but some form of happiness or elation which are something different altogether.
I am loving exploring how bringing greater awareness to the quality of my movements reveals the quality of connection the is moving me, and the deeper my connection to love the greater the joyfulness and exquisiteness is uncontainable.
It is indeed very joyful to bring our awareness and quality to these movements and that includes not only walking, but talking, singing and every other form of expression.
Yes, we have to start somewhere, to reconnect to joy that is naturally within us all. When we commit to expressing joy wherever we are, with whatever we are doing, life becomes a joy through and through.
Yes, I agree Willem. I have tried to think my way through to being joyful but it feels almost impossible. But once I connect to my body, bring awareness to my body and appreciate myself and what is around me, I am then able to feel more joyful. Amazing how simple this can be, we don’t have to have amazing achievements or goals to reach and connect to joy, it is always within us to connect to. I feel we are all naturally joyful.
When we live in a way that allows us to fully express joy and then when we walk, this will be naturally reflected in our body. But if we try to mentally connect and feel joyful when we walk, I find the joy we can feel doesn’t seem to last long. I realise to walk in joy, we have to live it 24/7 without perfection and I feel this can be done. I have met people at Universal Medicine who walk, breathe and live with joy consistently and their walk is effortless, graceful, divine and full of joy. What a blessing it is to see that this way of walking and living is indeed possible for us all.
Walking in joy is a simple choice that I am choosing to make more and more and I immediately feel lighter and more vital and present in my body. What I am now exploring is all the things that disconnect me from the beautiful feeling of walking with my body instead of allowing my mind to be somewhere else completely and dissipating the joy that comes so naturally when I choose it.
It’s an eye-opener when we get to feel how our thoughts affect our energy levels, moods and vitality. I recently did a walking therapy presented by Serge Benhayon, and he demonstrated to us what happens when we do not walk in presence and instead walk in what we did yesterday, or what we are going to do, or even walking as a therapist, a doctor, a teacher etc. What we found was that when we walked our natural walk (which he had to talk us through) compared to how we have been walking throughout our day, our bodies were so exhausted, heavy, depressed and yet when we went back to walking our natural walk there was so much vitality. The heaviness lifted and we felt ready for anything.
Recently my food choices have not been great and I can feel a heaviness in my body and the connection to the joy I normally have is not there. Eat light to be light is very true.
The way we walk very easily affects how we feel. And we walk a lot in the day, at work, at home and outside they are all forms of walking and when we bring attention to these moments and make them gentle and light it can be very supportive to feel light and gentle ourselves. Because when we walk we magnify the state we are in so better make sure we know what we are magnifying.
Very wise, ‘when we walk we magnify the state we are in so better make sure we know what we are magnifying.’
Now that the weather is getting warmer and drier I have been taking myself off for short walks this supports me to feel where I am with my body and it is also very energizing because I feel so much more alive and ready for the next part of the day.
Great idea Mary to dispense with the excuse that I don’t have time to go for a walk because even a few minutes is supportive when we are truly connected to ourselves.
Thank you Anne for the reminder and invitation to join you in walking in joy.
I have noticed how often I disconnect from my body throughout my day. No wonder I sometimes get aches and pains from sitting in one position for too long, working away and unaware of my posture or how my body feels. Going for a walk helps loosen my body and support me to reconnect. How often do I walk, sit, stand and work in joy, well, not very often, and like you shared Anne it is a simple choice to move in joy or not.
It is a personal choice what qualities you want to live in and, more importantly to then embody through a continual felt movement of confirmation in the body.
I enjoy walking and being with my body, ‘Now, my walking has improved one heck of a lot over the last couple of years, in that I have learnt to walk being present with, and connected to, my body and with everything around me.’
How we walk make such huge difference to how we feel and how we perceive life and work as. Joy is a choice….wow…really something to ponder on.
I have just gone into a holiday period and can feel that there is a different pace of life for me to connect to. I really enjoy going for my morning walks but often it is thinking about and running through my day in my thoughts, with the space of the holidays I can feel that there is a different quality on offer for me to connect to and I am enjoying the opportunity this provides.
I really liked your bio Anne! Walking in joy is such a good topic, it really asks us to be in connection to who we are, to our inner qualities, and to express those in how we move. Plenty of people walk in a rush, in anger, sadness, and protection, why not walk in joy instead? And I wonder what walking in joy, as opposed to say anger actually does to our body?
When we move our bodies and walk in joy we literally light up the world around us.
Anne, I love this; ‘I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?’ This is so simple and shows the power of our choices and how we can often make things hard or complicated when it is simply a choice as to how we feel.
Walking in joy I am at one with everything and everyone, just gorgeous.
Yesterday on my walk I have noticed that it is a simple choice to walk joyfully and off I go. And what if I made that choice at work? Or when leaving the bathroom? Why just reserve it for walking by myself after work?
Yes Anne, I know what you mean when you say walking in joy is simply a choice. I have often began my walk and asked myself where’s the joy and because of the nomination I have immediately felt joy. It shows us that joy is always there… we just need to be willing to tap into it.
It is empowering to realise and understand that what we are choosing is a result of what energy we are aligning to. Our movements not only reflect what we are choosing but it is also through our movements that at any given moment we can realign ourselves to the vibration of love, where joy is the natural expression of that love, hence the importance of developing our awareness in order to bringing our attention to and honour the truth we feel in our bodies.
“I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?” Yes very simple. Yet I notice although I may have the intention to walk with me I allow my mind to drift off. Yet noticing this more and more allows me to reconnect back with myself and to the joy that lies deep within.
It is so true Anne when we walk in our joy we are working with our bodies and the naturally gorgeous flow that comes when we align to our truth. When we are walking in an issue or in our heads ahead of ourselves, it’s like we are literally saying to our bodies, just hold everything till I work this thing out will you, then we have gone hard and everything then seems complicated and this is what takes its toll on our bodies as its like trying to paddle in a boat upstream.
That we have the opportunity to choose is extraordinary… choice … the fulcrum of humanity
I have been walking to work recently and the clarity and confirmation I get from this about my movements and how I am walking is very supportive of my choices throughout the day. I get to feel if I am walking in joy, or am rushed, my body tired, if so do i take the bus, my mind thinking about something else instead of being present with my body. It is an opportunity to come back to Joy.
Few years ago in a Livingness workshop Serge Benhayon invited us to walk in the magnificence that we are. It was very revealing for me to experience in my body that I am a magnificent being and that this is in fact my innate nature. Sometimes I feel contracted or not enjoying my walk and then, when I remember that I’m magnificent, something expands and my walk becomes lighter and delicious. It’s an instant shift.
Something that reignited my joy recently was at an expression and presentation workshop a lightbulb went off. As children we learn to curtail our expression because people don’t like what we say, the focus is mostly what comes out of our mouths. And while children can be told off for being too ‘excited’ or ‘hyper’ no one in my life has said ‘stop walking joyfully!’ Expressing my love and joy for life may not be appreciated by others when it comes out of my mouth but no one has ever told me I can’t walk in the lightness and joy that I am.
Walking is so much more than just walking….the walk can be affected by the shoes we are wearing, the ground we are waking on (slippery or not) let alone (and not any less importantly) how we feel at that moment in time, what we are thinking of at that moment in time, if we are walking alone or with another, if we are by our selves or walking amongst many others in a busy place…Bringing awareness to how we move is key and shows us how easily we can be empowered to walk and how this can in turn have major ripple effects in our life.
I loved reading your blog again Anne – the simplicity of choosing to walk in joy brought a huge smile to my face as I realise I too can do this far more regularly than I am currently doing.
Through walking I am able to re-connect with the humbleness of my soul and from there everything that makes sense can be clearly seen and what is not any sense at all is clearly exposed.
Just today I was walking between offices at work and I remembered ‘walking with joy’, well I wasn’t, far from it actually but even thinking about it straightened my spine, my shoulders dropped down, I felt my feet taking each step and within seconds I was smiling and en-joying myself again.
That’s just it Aimee, you described perfectly just how valuable it is to maintain an awareness of where our body is at and if our mind is with it or not. Just by remembering this blog, it was like you sent an instant message to your body that ‘hey, I’m paying attention to you now’, and it responded by adjusting your movements to be more surrendered and in a flow, which brings on that naturally joyful state of being when we reconnect like that in an effortless way without trying.
A great reminder Anne – thank you: to simply check in with the intention and purpose before starting anything. Walking is a great indicator of my presence and joy, otherwise as you share, the legs are very heavy and this echoes at the end of the day, and sometimes through the night with cramps. Much simpler and more delicious to simply choose joy first.
We spend a lot of our day walking – if we add up all the little walks we do in the course of our daily activities, so these walks are actually great opportunities to check in with our bodies and feel the quality we are in and can really support us by bringing us back to a quality we can recognise in our bodies as being more at ease and settled and light or as you say Anne joyful!
A beautiful reminder to keep observing and not to get absorbed and lost in our thoughts but instead to remain connected with our body in what we do and the quality with which we do that determines our experience. Therefore we are not a victim to how we experience life, instead is our choice.
Sometimes I never want to check in with my body and where it is truly at when I walk as this exposes for me the consequences and true qualities of the choices I have made up until that moment. A humble pill to swallow for sure and one that is well worth it if it is what it takes to bring me back to my body.
Yes, Joshua, noting how we are walking is a powerful informant to how one has been living: humbling when we have not been living in truth, uplifting, joyful and confirming when we have.
I love how you clocked that both the butterfly and the swallow were there as a reflection for you, to remind you to come back and be connected to your body and not wander off into Lala Land.
I feel the joy in my walk while walking to work in the early hours. I feel light, present and very spacious, but when I observe and clock how I am moving later on in the day, this has changed as I have went into ‘getting things done’. When I clock this I adjust and bring back presence!
Thank you for this blog Anne, it’s amazing. We walk everyday yet take it completely for granted in how are we actually walking! To be honest I had little awareness of this until it was presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, then I understood the importance of the way we move and how this affects our entire well-being. What you shared here also exposes how we let things from the outside affect our movement, even with walking ‘One day I noticed my legs felt very heavy and my body felt tired; I realised I was walking in the sadness of a book I had been reading that morning on human rights in Afghanistan.’ This has been a gentle reminder to me to be with how I walk and to ask myself why do I not walk …. in joy ????
And the thing is , we are walking all the time… so we have here another doorway of connection and reflection from a simple everyday process.
Great observation Anne – what do we choose as we set out on a walk, to work, for dinner. It can be conscious commitment to feel that Joy, or the Love that is always available….. or not. Our choice.
Hi Anne, there is here a beautiful lived example in your words of how joy and indeed harmony, are not to be taken for granted. And how they are states of being that happen as a choice, just as equally as misery or sadness are also a choice. Therefore I can see how we must always be aware of the choices we are making for the quality that we bring to the world, and by this we will walk those choices and leave behind those footprints – be they in joy or sadness.
Its amazing that all along if we don’t impose any other way or style on our bodies, joy is out natural way.
It is Harrison. Ever ask your body how it would like to move, it would definitely not say you would like to move in the unnatural, hard, protected way that many of us do. When I ask my body how it would like to move it’s like I’m instantly feeling inside me again.
Walking in joy is a reminder that we can choose to make all our movements in joy.
Anne thank you for clearly spelling out the ways we can get distracted from the natural joy that’s available for us to feel through the simple act of walking. The idea that it’s a choice means the power is in our hands at all times.
I really love the points you make here, that firstly joy is a choice, it’s a great reminder that the quality of our day is always first and foremost a choice, and every day there is a lot of joy in simply choosing to evolve.
This blog make me want to get up and walk 🙂
Beautiful Anne; “I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?” How very simple, simply a choice; thank you Anne for the timely and gorgeous reminder.
Joy is when the body is harmonious and joy is when the body is allowed to express what is true.. Walking is a great tool of this expression and walking in joy confirms the natural state of our body.
If we can choose to walk in joy, what else can we choose to do in joy? Just about anything. What a cool, foundational practice to begin given how much we walk in our day. And I love how if you’re tuned in to nature and open to the possibilities of communication, it will ‘speak’ to you.
And the length of the walk does not matter – it could be getting up from my desk to go to a meeting, or the toilet. We are imprinting our day constantly so bring the focus to walking as a foundational practice is awesome…. something to focus on today!
I love how you chose to walk in joy, ‘I was simply enjoying being with my body as I walked, appreciating the feel of the sand beneath my feet, the patterns the waves were making on the sand and the clear blue sky. This also felt joy-full and gave me a sense of complete freedom, connection and openness (with myself and others).’ I likewise have recently started to walk with joy, and find connecting with nature is so supportive with this.
Lovely sharing Anne, joy is a livingness. Going for a walk to ‘find’ joy or something doesn’t deliver, but we can go into a momentum that hardens our body. I’m finding that the more I live joy in my every day life, a walk confirms and deepens this sense of joy, and even walking down corridors at home and work etc becomes very joy-full.
There is so much in a simple walk as you are showing Anne. If we have a natural state and say that natural state is joy then anytime you are not in that or not walking that you should question why. The intention is one part I agree and there are other parts because we aren’t perfect. So equal to the intention is the honesty around the why and being open to unlocking this as a consistent question. Not to beat yourself up or down but to unlock what is holding this joy in or back. Thank you Anne.
Thank you Anne, this is a very inspiring practice, that could be applied to many activities. We believe our moods are determined by outside circumstances but in truth it is so simple to choose joy, even when we have to start with the intention, eventually when we keep steady with that intention, we will feel it.
Our moods are not determined by outside circumstances but by how we move. In a world that blames everything on the outside this is huge.
I can remember at a course where we were walking in our power. It made me realise that often I play small and hold myself back, apologetic for my presence. When I walk like this my body feels very heavy, however when I do connect to my power and all that I do offer- there is a lightness and flow in my body.
This is a great reminder of what we can choose before we go for a walk, or before we do anything for that matter. That choice then impacts us in one of two ways – it either connects us/keeps us connected to who we are, or we get lost in the distraction of what we are doing and lose that connection.
It is simple yet very powerful if we take the time to clock how we are walking. At times I notice I can be taking my mind for a walk and be totally disconnected to my body. Walking in connection and with joy feels different and allows a flow that is beautiful to feel.
Conscious presence is the gateway to joy.
Our movements are our very foundation and set up the quality of how we are. This blog shows how walking in joy can bring a purpose to our walk – beyond getting from a to b.
This is just beautiful to read.
I love how simply you took the message from the swallow and butterfly as a marker that you had wandered into your mind Anne. When nature reflects these sort if things on my walks I can very easily go into my head even more and want to work out what I am seeing and why. It’s a great reminder of the simplicity of nature and being connected to our bodies, there is no need to try, just make the choice.
Walking is indeed one of the most healing things we can do …. After an operation recently the surgeon said “just walk”
I really got so much from your blog Anne, walking in joy really is a choice. We do forget that, a lot!! Because we can be so consumed in our thoughts that we can be quite oblivious to what is going on around us sometimes, least of all what is going on in our bodies and being present with it.
I can fully appreciate how this has been a great exercise to practice for yourself Anne. It’s not one that you really stop and consider, let alone even truly appreciating what Jjy truly is. When we allow ourselves to connect and feel the enormous Love that we are connected to and what makes us who we are, then to be able to express this and embrace this, our walks are one aspect where we can let this out. When you start to live this Jjy truly, you don’t want to choose anything else. If you do go for a walk, it may well bring you back to this connection that you have lost. Walking is so supportive in so many ways. Before Serge Benhayon’s teachings and presentations there was no way I would have thought that walking could be so rich and nurturing.
A great question to ask ourselves, are we walking in joy, connected to ourselves, and are we honouring our bodies as we go? ‘And what did I choose at the beginning of my walk, and do I continue to choose joy as I walk, and am I appreciating myself for walking in joy and feeling the joy in others?’
“One day I noticed my legs felt very heavy and my body felt tired” I have noticed this on occasions but never really gave myself the time and space to ponder and discover why. Another example of my body speaking to me but me being too distracted to truly listen. Note to self: remember to ‘wake up and smell the roses’
Anne, I found reading through what you personally discovered about walking in joy extremely helpful and very inspiring – thank you.
Walking is becoming more and more important to my wellbeing and self awareness. It is amazing how energy that feels heavy and contracting can shift when I walk with purpose and feel the power of my physical being. I love the connection and grace that comes with walking being present with my movements.
Making the choice to walk in joy is an absolutely beautiful way to be with our bodies and bring back harmony and lightness to our lives. It’s a choice we can make effortlessly and if we waver its just another simple choice to reconnect once again. Awesome.
“I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?”
I agree Anne how simple is that; however I am pondering now just how simple it is to wander off and lose the joy and connection. As you point out it is a choice, a choice to be made in every moment. Thank you Anne for the timely reminder.
It is important to understand that the things we take on, like sadness from reading a book, flows through our movements, affecting the way we feel. This is very relevant in the fitness industry where often the focus is on the movement without any regard for the quality or energy behind the movement. It feels very supportive for your clients to have fitness instructor who understands this and being able to share your examples.
I love the way nature supports us so constantly to come back to ourselves and our natural joy. I find I am more open to receiving these messages when I am walking, perhaps because I am reminded of my connection through nature or simply feeling it in my body as it moves. I often get a sense of delight and the joy of life as I receive a message from nature.
Walking is one of my favourite things in life. If I do it in connection and harmony with my body and surroundings, it rejuvenates and lightens my body very quickly. It brings back a feeling of openness and lightness and a feeling of me being so much more than the physical me and life I can see. It is also a great check in for me, especially at work where I can get a bit lost in the computer!
I loved the way you performed this simple experiment for yourself Anne. It is amazing how different our walk can be depending on the focus and intention we have at the time. I can feel how important it is to make this choice as it can make all the difference to feeling light and connected or simply getting from A to B. We live enough of our lives in this functional state of auto-pilot. It sounds like walking in joy brings back the magic of each moment.
Such a simple and practical blog, when we set the intention and quality of how we move we then move in that way. And by virtue of setting the intention our movements magnify the original feeling. I’ve started going for morning walks – giving myself the time and space to just walk with me. Afterwards I feel much more spacous and light. Before these walks it was a ’10 minutes cram it into my break at work’ tick box style walks which left me feeling tense and not rested or light.
Hi Anne, What a simple yet amazing concept. The fact that we have the choice to walk in any particular way let alone joyfully then makes us wonder … where else in my life can I choose to be joyful and is this my responsibility?
In the work that I do, I walk a lot every day. In the days that I really bring a focus to walking in joy, my day goes so
much smoother and is infinitely more enjoyable. It really is about bringing a focus to the way that we are walking, rather than walking in a distracted way from A to B.
It is fascinating how your example of your walk when you felt heavy was due to the fact you have gone into sadness and emotional over the human rights in Afghanistan. Which makes me stop and think how many of us are walking around on the planet with emotions that we have taken on or gone into. Which then leads me to consider how much the earth is actually getting a beating because every step we take is in contact with the earth we live in. So then is not our responsibility to be aware of the energy we are walking in and if we are dumping onto the earth. Is it possible that this is why mother earth has to correct herself time and time again to release what is not supposed to be there in the first place. Walking in Joy seems to be the only way to walk, thanks for the reminder Anne and big appreciation for Serge Benhayon for sharing such crucial techniques that we can practically bring into our lives.
We take for granted that walking is something we do, it gets us from A to B but what you share here is that walking is far more. It’s an opportunity to express all that we are, a time to move in connection with ourself. If I take a moment to consider what life would be like if we used walking to appreciate, celebrate and confirm all we are then there is no doubt we would all take far greater care when we walk.
Thank you Anne, your article puts a smile on my face and a joy in my body just reading it. I have not thought to walk in joy, though at times I have felt the joy in my body when walking connected with myself. This joy, I will choose for me when I walk today.
Nature has a beautiful way of reflecting back to us where we are in any given moment. If we are willing to be aware of the messages that we are given many times every day, we would see what amazing gifts that are there for us to read. And living in this way is innately joyful, without the need for moments of elation, as there is a constant lived joy within.
I can really feel the difference in my walks, I still have the tendency to walk too quickly and then I am not really walking from and with my body. When I slow down and just take my time, my walking feels so much pleasant and supporting. And yes, then there is room for joy as well.
Indeed joy is not the high, elevated state the world would have us believe, it is a constant steady vibration within our bodies, brought about by the quality of our lived choices; there can be no greater responsibility.
“One morning a swallow flew right in front of me and then away up into the sky – I realised that my mind had wandered off to what I had been working on earlier that morning . . . so I pulled it back to my whole body again . . . only later on in the walk to have a Monarch butterfly fly in front of me, when I realised I had wandered off again – thank goodness for the reflection of nature! I understood that I could not be walking in joy if my mind was wandering off, and that the swallow and the butterfly were simply reminding me of this.” I love this detail Anne, in the days before Universal medicine I certainly would have appreciated the beauty of nature’s reflection however I never would have read the power of these messages to call us back to ourselves, to bring us out of our heads and into our bodies.
Thanks Anne for sharing your walking experiences, walking is such a good gauge of where we are at and it also magnifies where we are at so what best thing to magnify other than joy.
Anne, great to re-read your article, I noticed yesterday how I can walk thinking about things that have happened or may happen and that often my head is held low and I don’t notice what is around me, and so I have been choosing to come back to me and when I do this I notice the nature and beauty around me and feel an appreciation for what I can see, I notice my walk is much lighter and I enjoy the feeling of my body as I am walking – very different experiences.
Anne, if we can walk in joy then we can do anything in joy, cooking, cleaning, mowing the lawn and even eating… so simple when you make the choice to walk through all of life in joy. True joy for me comes from a connection with my inner heart and again this is a choice and if I have moments when I don’t feel joyful I ask myself why not, and take steps (pun intended) to bring myself back to me, which is innately pure joy, which is love, truth and harmony all rolled into one amazing package of light that is ME.
I love how nature reflects to us how we are with ourselves- in joy e.g. hearing a kookaburra sing or checked out e.g. seeing a swallow fly past us. When we practise being consciously present we enjoy the natural flow of our rhythm whilst walking opening our body to feel the joy that we are within.
Very revealing indeed Anne, realising that it is a choice to walk in joy is a big one, and does this not mean that we have the choice to do ANYTHING in joy, cooking, cleaning, taking out the trash, shopping,… bringing the quality of expression back to all of these things. The quality of joy I have in my footsteps reflects the quality of joy I hold in my heart, and that is a choice also and once made the whole world opens up to reveal its glory and I begin to notice the little signs that confirm the fact that we are not alone in the Universe and that there is support there if we need it.
‘I felt so at ease with myself and the world, as if the ‘world was my oyster’.’ Wow Anne and what a beautiful pearl you are with the joy in your steps, I love it!
I love how you had the reminders in nature to bring you back to joy if your mind wandered off, we have so much support to be joy, ‘One morning a swallow flew right in front of me and then away up into the sky – I realised that my mind had wandered off to what I had been working on earlier that morning . . . so I pulled it back to my whole body again . . . only later on in the walk to have a Monarch butterfly fly in front of me, when I realised I had wandered off again – thank goodness for the reflection of nature! I understood that I could not be walking in joy if my mind was wandering off, and that the swallow and the butterfly were simply reminding me of this.’
Nature is a wonderful element of God that we can connect and be open to the reflections that it offers us. You so beautifully share Anne how you were bringing awareness to how you are walking and in this was able to read what the birds were telling you. To have those reminders that we are going of and checking out is super important because when we are checking out it is at the expense of our own connection and health. Bring ourselves back lovingly with the influence of the nature around us and feeling the connection within and the joy that this naturally brings is super cool.
This is such a great example of how powerful the work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon truly is. That a particular point is presented with a very practical exercise to go with it and then you are left to explore and experiment with it in your own space afterwards. To feel, understand and become aware of a way you are choosing to live and how that is actually effecting you. What a blessing it is that you now know the difference of what it is like to walk in Joy or not and that is always down to you and your choices. Super empowering.
Thank you for the inspiration to appreciate the choice to walk in joy. Too often I have been focussed on maintaining my connection to my body rather than the distraction of going into my mind whereas the choice to walk in joy takes away that struggle and allows for a beautiful connection with myself and nature.
This is a lovely blog Anne, I am looking forward to exploring what you share in my next walk. As you say, it is all connected to how we live and move in everything we do.
To be aware and connected with our bodies helps us to choose the quality we live in, we choose this in every moment. It is our responsibility to then learn how to bring this quality and joy to every movement as best we can.
Its interesting to consider the recent use of the wristband that count your steps. This is a great way to promote, encourage and track our exercise, yet I have to wonder though, how many of those steps we take during the day are with joy, or presence? The steps walked which are counted, and encourage to beat the previous days step number, are they steps taken in rush? in anger? in frustration? or with connection, with presence, with joy? The step counting is great to discourage the sedentary lifestyle that contributes to lifestyle diseases, yet, to extend this further, the quality of our step, also has the potential to have exponential benefits to our health and wellbeing.
It is enormously revealing how we walk and how those walks are, I feel inspired to start paying closer attention to this aspect of my day and seeing what patterns are revealed and what indeed I am choosing.
Indeed Doug I really appreciate those daily walks where I connect to all that is around me, and am gradually bringing that level of connection to other movements during the day.
Re reading this blog reminds me that I often lack that presence of walking in joy when I walk from activity to activity at work or room to room at home. As if it does not matter how I transition from one place to another. As you so beautifully highlight Anne it is a constant choice moment by moment to choose the quality we move in.
How we live, the quality we choose to reflect is always a choice. Walking is a brilliant example of how we can choose to walk from our quality and in complete connection, which is a joy to the body that knows this so well. The joy is almost a confirming of us honouring our bodies first, and walking that, reflecting that and inspiring others to do the same. There is so much to be said for what a simple walk can do – instead of rushing, or using it to get from A to B. If we appreciate our movements, then we deepen the appreciation we have for ourselves.
This blog is an awesome reminder for me Anne, to check in with myself what energy I am choosing to walk, expressing and moving in. Choosing more awareness is a great support and the next step is, do I choose connection or disconnection, joy or sadness and the amazing thing is I am always responsible for what I choose. There is no right or wrong just an opportunity to learn and grow. Our choices can be a blessing or a repeat of irresponsibility.
Thank you Anne, from walking in joy purposefully to walking in joy throughout the smallest of moments (and in-betweens) in life is an absolute healing modality all on its own! Your experiment and discovery of how you have walked at different times has been very supportive to read about and I personally would love to explore more of my own walking in joy, from a place of equality with everyone where I ‘really want to be seen’ for the joy that I am and that I live. Holding this joy back from others seeing it, is not only crazy… it’s consequently us already choosing to walk in anything less than who we are, which is heavy and protected at the best of times. I love the simplicity of walking and the evolutionary healing that can come with it.
“So I ask myself – why these differences in the way I walk? Why do I walk in joy one day and not another?-” like you say Anne it’s simply a choice, yet most of us just get caught in the momentum of doing and don’t feel or connect to our body and make that choice. I know I am so guilty of that. What I am learning is as I bring stillness into my body, in those moments I am able to make more loving choices like walking in joy.
You know when you feel the authority in your body you are feeling a union that is there to support our next move. That is the joy for me.
Anne this is a really great blog in the importance of the choice to being aware, and the power of intention, or what’s behind everything that we do, like in your case simply walking. Being aware of the quality we are treading in, and then in a moment change this just shows the power of energy that’s flowing through and directing us at any one time, and in this the power of ourselves through choice too to be able to make that change … and walk in joy over sadness.
Recently I’ve connected to the fact that when I go for a walk I’m more aware and more disciplined about the quality I choose, Compared to when I was walking around my house, work or the shops I have not been as committed to choosing the quality I walk in because more often than not I’m focused on the ‘dong’.
We tend to think that being joyful is something we may achieve some day, like a senior position at work or a great golf score. But what your words beautifully show Ann is that this joy is waiting right here, right now, for us to choose. It is not a final destination but a quality we can move in, everywhere, every day. Or notif we align to those sceptical thoughts. But the joy is there always steadily waiting for the day when we come back to living its way.
It’s so true Anne, in any given moment we have the opportunity to walk in joy or not walk in joy, the choice is ours.
why these differences in the way I walk? Why do I walk in joy one day and not another? Great question for me today Ann, as I am aware of how quickly I can go into old ways of walking or moving that no longer support my body, and which is no longer loving.
Something to ponder on everytime I choose to go for a walk- do I walk with all of me, and therefore am connected with nature around me and God, which allows me to feel the joy of life? Or, do I walk disconnected from my body and allow worries to enter my mind, which feel like burden on my shoulders? Thank you Anne for reminding me of this important choice.
Hi Anne, there is something deeply profound about understanding the true meaning of making a choice! There is immense power in the ability to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in any given situation. It’s a choice to connect with our essence which is joy itself, or not!
Yesterday I walked together with my husband and we set of feeling a lightness and freedom in our bodies which carried us almost as if we were in the air . We walked and walked with such purpose and fun to the lighthouse around the headlands and back stopping to sit rest and take moments of sheer magnificence and beauty whenever we felt like it . The space just opened up and we went with it and were part of the beauty and it all. Passers by smiled and exchanged smiles and the sun shone and as we stopped on the cliffs for a sit down exchanged conversations with families and others out walking too. The fields and cliffs were covered with pink and yellow spring flowers and fishermen were out on their boats and dolphin spotting boats were full with spectators in the distance out at sea. All in a walk with magical moments forever appreciated .
What a beautiful study of walking our choices in how we are in this and the joy and reflection this can bring if we choose it. Being with oneself in connection and the choice we have with this is an amazing awareness we can all connect to and bring into our lives as our natural way of being . Walking nature and the abundance of beauty around us is a reflection of who we are and it allows us the freedom to choose this for ourselves and to walk as this on earth and is wonderful and true joy that can be sustained whatever to connect to and live.
It is amazing how nature is there to reflect back to us the truth as we walk. I had a similar experience this morning as to those in this blog. I was feeling a release of what I had been holding in my body through my choices and as I did so I walked past a whole wall covered in beautiful purple flowers, followed by another covered in pink and then white. I could feel the reflection offered of the beauty that is our truth and that in letting go of that which is not this is what we return to.
At the beginning of a walk I can feel uneasy and lethargic in my body, thoughts can be on my mind and I can feel sad but by focusing on my body and bringing my mind in alignment with what my body is doing these feelings dissipate and l end up walking in joy appreciating the connection with me.
The quality of my walk is often related to the depth of my self appreciation as I can feel I am walking with all of me when I am deeply appreciating my gorgeousness!
For me the difference between walking in Joy or not is felt in the way the energy flows through me. Stagnant or alive and ‘supplying’ energy. I found it absolutely magnificent how my body’s feeling and empowering itself when walking aligned and in Joy.
Anne it took me a while to understand that it is really so simple that the way of how I am walking is the reflection of how I was living.
Re-discovering the joy of walking in joy has been revolutionary. Its like confirming myself in Love and Joy with every move.
Anne it is amazing how much the way we walk and move affects the way we are feeling and also what thoughts we then have. Even the way I get up makes a massive difference. We put so much importance on the end picture i.e. point B, but forget about the journey from A to B which ultimately affects the way we will be and how we will express at point B.
I love your explorations and experimentations with your body Anne. Everyday wisdom is available so readily and flows within and around us in every moment of the day, when we pay attention.
“I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?”
Simple indeed Anne and I understand that there is always a choice. The complication we so often let in is so destructive; simplicity is the key; thank you for the gentle reminder.
I am about to go for a walk with a choice to walk in joy, it’s funny really because why would I choose anything else especially when I am walking where others follow.
Walking in joy is also a choice….bringing awareness to staying with ourselves and feeling connected in every moment is a celebration of our lives we are choosing when we walk in the essence of God.
That to be, and walk in joy is a choice is truly revelatory. Thinking joy is due to external circumstances going in our favour that stimulate us to joy is now debunked by your inspiring blog.
Anne the point that you make ‘ I understood that I could not be walking in joy if my mind was wandering off’ is such a crucial one. Observing most people as they walk, 9 times out of 10 they appear to be deep in thought and so as you say, this precludes the ability to be in joy, which is pretty devastating when you consider it.
Walking in joy makes such a difference in how light we feel during that day. Thank you for sharing.
Even if we are not walking in joy, the mere adjustment that can come from aligning with the feeling of that joy emanating out from our future selves can make the most profound shift needed in our day.
lt is such a simple thing however so easy to overlook. lt pays to add to our daily rhythm the simple question ‘How am l walking today?’
The walks Serge Benhayon has presented to us over the years have been super powerful and supportive, I know whenever I am feeling out of sorts a walk can be like a healing session and through this simple choice the quality of my day changes beautifully.
Our choices are confirmed by our body, always. It seems so simple yet there is a ongoing effect on everything that we experience as a result of those choices.
Walking while consciously present really feeds and supports the body back so very beautifully with every step, whereas walking with your apparent issues or thinking about what’s next, leaves you feeling quite exhausted after the walk and as you walk the legs are quite heavy. Not like the previous walk, where there is a spring in your step and you totally enjoy the experience.
I was reminded this past week of the absolute joy and lightness we would have felt in our feet and throughout our body as we learnt to walk in our first and second years of life. It’s been very lovely remembering this and practising this movement and amazing science I’d forgotten.
As you Anne, I love walking and I love walking in awareness of myself and everything around me.
“I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?” ~ we have become masters at complication and therefore miss the simplicity in how it is possible to live
Walking is such a great way to check into how we are going as most people do it many times throughout the day so we have a point of comparison in our bodies for how we might feel if are calm and connected, or stressed or rushed.
Love it Anne – such a great reminder, it is so true the quality we choose to do what we do is exactly that, a choice. To stay aware and connected to our bodies is the only way we can ensure this quality, the moment the mind takes over we have lost it.
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Through listening to Serge Benhayon I have come to understand how supportive walking is especially around being aware of the quality I am walking in. What I have taken though from reading this blog is also the importance of “…am I appreciating myself for walking in joy and feeling the joy in others?” Thank you Anne I will take this with me on my next walk.
This is such an interesting informative blog. The quality of our walk reflects so much about the quality we have been living.
It is fascinating how we can walk around without pain, without a bump, and look to all around like we are at ease, yet in truth if there is not joy – we are suffering from a severe disease. When you walk out of the train station on the way to work, so many people may rush ahead, so many people may be in their heads dragging their legs along. But your words here Anne inspire me to remember to choose JOY in every step, to flaunt it everywhere I go, to walk big.
Beautiful Anne, there is no question that when we set out to walk (anywhere), the energetic state we are in has a great influence on how that walk will feel in the body.
Awesome thanks Anne, I will definitely give this a go as I can relate to much of what you’ve shared here.
Another beautiful learning for all of us Anne. As I was reading your blog I realised that I was feeling cold – and was going to ‘just’ finish before I went off to put on something warmer – only to realise that I was not reading your blog in joy if I ignored what I was feeling. And, yes, I too will take the sense of your blog with me as I walk – walking with joy will build more joy and expansion into my life.
Another thing. This got me wondering about toddlers learning to walk. Is it possible that those very early instructions, the way we ask them to do a few more steps, the way we make it all about getting somewhere, the way we celebrate the achievement and destination are the first moments at which we start to lose the joy of movement?….how many parents ever actually celebrate that movement, the process, the body, the fun, the joy of putting one step ahead of the other with a full connection to the divinity inside each of us. Who cares about getting to the sofa?! Who cares whether I fall over or stop? Who cares whether Grandpa was watching? I’m pure joy and that step I just took confirmed and expanded that feeling. Your video wasn’t running? Tough. I’m sitting down now!!
Talk the talk or walk the walk? For almost all of my life, I have been doing the former. Serge Benhayon and his daughter Simone Benhayon have lovingly supported me to see the power of the latter. The change in my life has been formidable and I’m only just beginning.
Deep inside us we all know that joy is our natural way and that we are all love, yet this, our natural truth, gets suppressed, hidden and forgotten over time when we do not claim it for ourselves. Walking heavy and stressed is most of society expression the more people who remember who they really are and wake up to their own love can then inspire others to also walk in this joy and we can see all around us this is much needed.
“Now, my walking has improved one heck of a lot over the last couple of years, in that I have learnt to walk being present with, and connected to, my body and with everything around me. But was I walking in joy? . . .”
Good question Anne, walking in joy is NOT walking in happiness, or elatedness, or trying to be joyful, walking in joy for me would mean walking in deep content of being connected to the true me which would naturally lead to true ‘walking in joy’ with a lightness of step and an appreciation of my body and the way it moves and sways gently.
I have recently been enjoying walking each morning Anne and I find that the most joy comes when I am walking and enjoying being in the moment. If I start my walk with a hurry trying to fit it into my day, then the walk becomes about the destination and not the journey itself, I become distracted in getting somewhere rather than appreciating where I am. I have been bringing this awareness in more at work and home and the shift in myself has been huge as I find I am feeling less tired and actually quite energised and joyful in myself and in my day. Re-reading your words inspires me to continue to make the presence of joy a bigger part of my day and my life. As you share it is simply a choice.
Interesting to feel your writings about what you say being in Joy is and the signs of nature Anne .. I just had a spider climb its way to the roof in my bedroom and I was feeling joy-full. What I realised though I had an opportunity to go deeper and it was interesting to note how more distracted I got to disconnect me from a new awareness that was possible, something that brings me a lot of Joy. More awareness for me is feeling the truth of things in more detail which is more responsibility I then have to live. Beautiful really .. more Joy comes with the more responsibility we take.
I love the simplicity here Anne. I choose Joy.
I just had my break at work and I went for a walk. I felt a lot of appreciation for myself and I could feel what kind of impact this had on my walk. Sometimes my mind got in the way and I started thinking about things, but then I just returned to my body and the appreciation (and with that the Joy!) and this made my walk very powerful and vitalizing.
This blog has made me explore what exactly is involved in walking in joy or holding myself in this quality. Perhaps it involves the way I connect to myself in essence, appreciate myself and connect with others.
I love the distinction you make Anne between exploring walking in the quality of joy and simply being present with oneself when we walk. It implies that it is a choice to the quality we walk in rather than simply being mindful and that we have that choice in each moment with whatever we are doing.
I picked up this morning on the power if the Universal Medicine retreats and how Anne deciding to walk in joy was easy and felt very light in the body after the retreat. I am reminded of the importance of a consistent rhythm in our day – sleeping, eating and work -rest -leisure balance and also the content the mind is engaged in – great topics about building harmony, well being and love centred relationships in life. All of these activities over a five day period at retreats offer such a solid foundation to then say I am going to walk in joy and that this command to self is already there in the body in the consistent foundation already chosen. It is there in the body even before the thought has entered our minds.
I wasn’t aware of the power of healing in just walking until this was presented ages ago by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. In the last few weeks I feel I have understood this more, when I have walked I can feel how my feet arent completely and fully connecting with the ground or how I am holding back in my right hip (it is not flowing in my movement but a bit stiff). The beautifull thing is I know I can change my walk in an instant and if steady and consistent with this, walking with a fluid flow where my body feels open, relaxed and steady all that I have been holding onto (tension, stress and anxiety) will start to fall away. This is work in progress ?
It’s so powerful to be present and connected and to actually choose the quality we walk in. Thank God Serge Benhayon has shared this otherwise I’m not sure we ever would have been honest about considering that we can even choose the quality of our walk. Sometimes when I feel to walk slow I explore walking in preciousness or even sacredness, feeling what these qualities feel like in my body and in my being. It’s a forever deepening and development.
And I imagine the effect this has on those around us, when we walk in joy we are leaving those imprints in our wake…
I see children walking with joy all the time…this is something that we need to nurture in them so that it isn’t lost or suppressed as they grow up and have to re-find what is already there…
Walking with joy is like an outer emanation of that which comes from within, always bursting to be expressed…
I’m also coming to realise the power in walking and even in simply moving my body. It’s so interesting that there are ways that we hold ourself that block or cap the natural joy in our body…
How often do we spend living in misery, discomfort and pain, wanting to heal and be back in our joy, love and harmony, when it is just a choice to reconnect and one we can make through movements?
Walking is a fantastic exercise and is ‘good’ for us and ‘healthy’ – but only if and when we walk in a way that actually supports us. How many times do we walk checked out or with anger or sadness? And this then compounds in our body, and we wonder why we then feel so heavy or even become ill. So what if we could use walking as our medicine and bring joy and life back into our lives simply by walking this change – pretty amazing and its FREE too – no pill to pay for and no pill to swallow, just move your legs and allow your natural joy to come out. Ok…so now that I have said this, it is also for me to put into practice! 🙂
For me the key moment is the intention I go to walk in. If I set out checked out, not thinking then that is guaranteed. However, if I walk with the intention to connect then the magic happens…. even if that is to simply show me that I’m currently locked in my head thinking about stuff, that is still the first step to me returning to walking with me, and with God.
Just reading the title of your blog brings up the feeling of joy – I can connect to how I used to so naturally walk in joy when I was a child. I love the way it brings a smile to my face every time I come across your blog.
Interesting how the book you are reading Anne made the body heavy and lethargic, and just shows the impact of ingesting things/experiences/life itself does have or take its toll on the physical frame. Noting this heaviness and then choosing a different quality/energy is what it takes as you share to regather and come back to oneself.
Walking with joy Anne, is the lightness one can feel in one’s feet, step and being…feeling how the feet move in the shoe wear and surface of the ground.. I’ve been feeling this lightness of step that has followed a lightness of being with myself. The foundation we are in, setting the foundation of our walk/walking [in life].
Great sharing Anne, we have a choice in every moment what to choose. We can essentially either choose joy or misery, the outplay of events then takes care of itself. It is the initially choice of energy that we have a say over.
It is as you say Anne a constant choice available to us which brings up the question of why don’t we constantly choose to walk in joy? even if it’s just to pick up something from the other side of the room? What would happen, what could happen in life if we did? What I’ve learnt with Universal Medicine is there is never a cap to what can occur in life, so what if we surrendered all our excuses and reasons for having a cap? Serge Benhayon reflects that a limit-less life is very possible and very successful and inspiring. Now I wonder, what would surrendering our pride feel like?
What a lovely reminder this is. Joy is a quality of the Soul, as is Love, Truth, Stillness and Harmony. It seems to me that if we walk in connection to our essence / our true selves – which is also of course in harmony with nature and all others, then we will be naturally walking in Joy.
Walking is one of the greatest ways for us to feel the marker of how much conscious presence we have put into our day.
Can you imagine if we were taught to walk in joy and awareness? that we were taught from an early age to be fully present when we walk and to feel the fullness of who we are? Instead unfortunately we are taught to hide, to dull ourselves and to not shine to bright. Imagine the future of humanity if we all were taught to walk in full who we truly are.
There is a joy to be felt in everything we do if we choose to connect to it that I’d simply forgotten until I was reminded of this truth by Serge Benhayon.
I have found that going for a gentle walk is a great way to come back to myself after a busy day. There is a simplicity and beauty to feeling how my body is which is joyful.
Reading your first walk in joy I could feel such a lovely reflection and response from my body saying “yes please lets go for a walk in joy this morning, joy and nothing but joy’. Thank you Anne for such lovely and very timely inspiration.
It is interesting to observe how it affects the body when your mind wonders of while walking, how instead of being re-energized you can feel very tired after walking. It is like when I walk up the stairs feeling my body, I know exactly how to walk in a way that doesn’t wear me out, but when I just walk thinking about things I need to do I have to catch my breath at the end.
You clearly point out the power of choice in your blog and how much we can learn from observing everything.
There is power in movement, and it is revealing. Just take time to watch people walk by. We can read exactly how they are feeling, how they are living by every move they make.
Everytime I read this blog, I realise that there are so many times I don’t walk with joy.. its a great reminder, Thank You!
I just love the feeling in my body especially the lightness in my legs when I’m walking for the pure joy if it. And the joy when nature reminds me in its sweet ways to come back to my body when I’m distracted. Thanks for the beautiful simple sharing.
I realise that when we walk in joy everything and everyone around us benefits. Joy is infectious and is our natural way of being so when we see and feel people walking in true joy it is a reminder that Love is our true way.
This article confirms the power of movement for me. Whatever it is that we are focusing on in any given moment is magnified by the way we move (walk, type, yawn, open a door – any movement basically).
I can feel how the earth would thank you for walking in joy. It would make a difference to the pounding it normally gets with the way most of us walk upon it.
Walking can be a great support for us. Not just in the physical sense where it can keep our bodies in tune but as a modality where we can feel a deep connection and appreciation with ourselves.
What a beautiful reminder Anne that quite simply the choice is ours to walk in joy or be distracted by a myriad of things that take us out.
A light and inspirational blog to read; I’m off now to walk in joy.
I love how the butterfly and swallow were there to nudge you back into the quality you had originally chosen for your walk Anne. I am still at times in awe of the abundance and absolute accuracy of the communication of God and the Universe that is there for us as a constant and consistent reminder of who we are every step of the way.
This is the absolute simplicity of the soul when allowed to just be in expression. As your blog shows Anne all we need to do is become aware of what we put in the way of this natural expression. I know for myself I can make it all a bit too serious or hard work which districts me from the otherwise natural joy and lightness of being. A great inspiration to simply choose joy and intimately know and surrender to what is already there.
It it interesting to ponder how and why we have lost our natural connection with our joy. The majority of us had it as children so where does it go and why does it go? What is it we let in that takes us away from joy?
Walking in the appreciation of life allows joy to extend to other parts of our life. We can inspire others with allowing them to feel their joy, just by walking and living this quality.
Love the simplicity of this Anne. One could argue that it is too simple but we can choose to always come back to the body and connect to joy. I will put it to the test during my walk this morning 🙂
Nature offers us some marvellous cues. Animals move with, if not grace, at least a deep connection to themselves and their physicality.
If walking in joy is possible so too then, I imagine, is cooking in joy, working in joy, brushing one’s teeth in joy. Joy is a choice!
Hi Anne, thanks for this lovely blog. I also remember hearing the concept of walking in joy (or not!) presented and feeling a bit of a startle too. It was clear to me I wasn’t, at least not much of the time. Re-connecting with the simple fact that joy is possible – literally only a step away – is a beautiful take-out from this piece.
Thank you for such a simple yet revealing blog – for many the idea of walking in joy would either seem an impossible thing, or would look like skipping around and ‘jumping for joy’. What your describing is a joy I have felt for my self – it is not a stimulation or a elation like a momentary happiness – it is a steady feeling in the body that can be consistently held for a long time should we choose. And as you say, joy is a choice we can make, be it in our walk or any other part of our day.
The joy of walking and walking in joy. Everyday when I walk, for walking’s sake, not to have to be anywhere, or must do’s, I feel more connected to my body, my inner essence, and God. It is a confirming, rebinding, religious experience and it supports my every day experience of life and how I relate to it. I am building a foundation of movement, that allows me to feel these connections throughout my day.
I love this line “I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?” We have a choice – in everything we do – in every moment – in the whole of life – everything is a choice – Serge Benhayon has given us so much freedom in sharing this.
Anne what your blog brings to me today is the fact that there are many things that we can “understand” things we can theorise over or work out in our head but in most cases we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to feel and fully understand from our entire being what they mean. Your example of walking in joy is one of them, not only did I not fully understand it from my body but I could also say that I didn’t pay attention or put the love and care into my walk to even consider that it is a constant opportunity to express joy. A missed opportunity from the past but one to make up for.
To walk in joy is a choice, or more correctly a series of choices. One cannot at first simply wake up and choose in an instant to walk in joy, for joy is the confirmation of love, and love is a state of being that takes time to build in the body – based on making a series of self-loving choices over time. After one has committed to building love in the body, then, yes, it is a choice available in every moment to walk in joy. But before one has taken the time and discipline to build such a body of love, it is not possible to do so, for we are restricted by the configuration of our bodies, and so we are more likely to experience and fall for bliss than true love. And that is the illusion of the spiritural journey. We like to connect to concepts of truth without doing the hard work to build a body that actually enables us to recognise what those concepts truly mean. And what do I mean by hard work – I mean dedicating ourselves at first to making self loving choices that honour the very body we reside in.
I have been walking dogs recently, something I have not previously had much experience with. Even when walking dogs, I can feel the responsibility I have in the quality I am when with them. They very quickly confirm our quality or ask us to be more present and in our authority.
What a great reminder Anne- are we walking in the quality of joy? And how does this then affect all our interactions during the day and our work? Or are we allowing our mind to wander whilst walking. Also, have we taken on burden or anxiety from unresolved issues in our body and this is highlighted whist walking? These are some of the scenarios I have experienced whilst walking. Thanks to Serge Benhayon and his explanation about energy, I now know that it is all about the energy we choose to align to that determines our outcome.
Walking in joy is a quality we bring to our everyday life.
Anne this joyful walking as you have shown can be very revealing how much it is our choice in how we are moving, thus how we are actually living. How our emotions, distractions, not being present affects how we walk as does walking in joy!
Not only can we walk in joy, but we can move in joy all ways that we move! Moving our fingers on the keyboard, shaking someone’s hand, hugging our partner, chewing our food…our whole lives are bodily movements and imaging making every move joyful…very playful yet very real!
I love this, ‘walking in joy’, it has inspired me to get up and walk in joy!
The other thing that I felt from this writing that there is never a switch on or off, but a choice to connect to simplicity, joy and power or resist this. This is then outstanding when those two are felt apart , and to feel that resisting our joy in our walk is actually a miss. There is nothing better then to feel yourself and enjoy everything inside you and around you.. Why would we want to miss that?
There are many reasons why we choose to walk but what I love about your blog Anne is that it invites us to take this deeper and consider the quality in which we are walking and that it is a simple choice we can make to walk in joy.
Thank you Anne, that is amazing and honest. I like it because it is real and we all have experienced one or maybe more of these examples. I love the question of why we choose to be walking in joy one day and the other not. As how simple it is and it is our choice – I have came to feel this, simply because I had found a way back to became aware of the energy behind my choices and this was only made possible because of the healing techniques of Universal Medicine and the tool of the Gentle Breath Meditation, amazing!
‘as if the ‘world was my oyster’.’ I love this Anne and we are the pearls. I love walking in the morning with the freshness of nature coming towards me and I feel instantly connected to my body as being part of the whole.
I have found that if I walk early in the morning this sets a great foundation for any other walking I do in my day. I can bring a focus to it and pay attention to any reflections. I also love getting rugged up, ensuring I am toasty as I head out into to chilly morning.
What an interesting blog, I am so looking forward to my walk this morning.just to see what bringing a focus to walking in joy feels like.
Everything is a choice indeed to be made every single moment. We may choose to begin our walk with a joyful presence, but then a little later find ourselves back in our headspace. It is a continuous choice to stay present, which I am more and more aware of, as I can get so easily distracted…
There is such a beautiful opportunity to connect with nature and others around us when we choose to walk in joy, especially when we are open to the many other reflections of joy that are shown to us.
No matter where I am walking or who I am walking with, I love how it is an opportunity to walk in a quality that reflects who I truly am and express this in my movement. I also never tire of watching how we all walk so differently yet there can be a sameness about us when we walk fully connected to ourselves.
Just tuning into my body, sensing my spine feet, up through my legs, hips, spine and taking a step… Really there is so much to feel in every step about the way the body moves and also the quality of the movement – hard or tender, rushed or with ease. Do I care enough for myself to allow everything there to be felt in the walk? When I do, no matter what that feeling is, the joy naturally emanates.
Thank you Anne for sharing about this simple tool of ‘walking in joy’ that is so profound and makes such a difference to our lives if practiced.
It certainly is a choice that we have and it is great to be reminded of this!
As you have experienced it can so quickly be forgotten about and then I walk with this dull feeling or a sadness even though I am just a choice away from enjoying myself in full.
I too have found that I lose my joy in walking if I walk too far. Great to feel since I used to think the further I walked the better and congratulate myself when I got home exhausted at the end of a very long walk. I would never swap joy for distance now.
Anne your blog is a great reminder of walking in the simplicity of joy. As soon as thoughts come in about my day or things that need to get done, the joy is lost the walk becomes functional and mechanical. This is a reflection of how easily I can lose joy by just thinking ahead of myself, and no longer aware of nature and the world around me.
Often we can use a walk as a way to get somewhere, which on one hand we do, we physically move from point A to point B but it is so much more than this. There is an intent to ‘get somewhere’, but this is at the expense of the body and it can be worn out so very easily. I have found that walking in connection is like pulling into a petrol station for a refill, it can almost feel meditative and like all parts of my body are talking to each other, loving the united feeling in the body. From my daily walks, it has also brought awareness to every other walk I do, be it every step I take, like making my bed in the morning and the steps around the bed are a walk as well. Every step matters.
Thank you again Anne – I am having fun with bringing more consistency with ‘Walking in Joy’ in my day, in the smallest of walks – the short distance from the front door to the car, to the kitchen to put the kettle on, collecting clean sheets from the cupboard, taking the laundry to the washing machine etc. – this is bringing a different quality and playfulness to even the most fundamental and mundane daily tasks.
Thank you for this practical inspiration, Anne. I love walking and have found the opportunities to explore how I am feeling and how I am approaching my day really supportive and revealing. Walking with joy adds a playfulness that is sometimes missing when I take myself too seriously!
When walking in the morning it is great how the joy is there when being open to everything around me and feeling one with it. Its an invitation, but when I am not present in my body and my mind wonders off this is gone and walking becomes functional. I lately had the opportunity to walk in nature and I understand now the difference and the ease that nature offers to feel this connection with the all. I live in a big city and walking there seems to be different as there is a lot of “obstruction”, there is not this ease and this invitation, but what I realized is that there is actually no difference, that the all is there on the busiest street and that the ease and invitation is me being in presence and with this bringing it everywhere I go.
With walking in the morning I feel like setting a quality in my body. This quality is then the marker for the whole day. The walk reflects me all that I have been living up to that point which is a beautiful reflection of living in cycles and that the early morning is not the beginning, but an equal time in the 24 hours cycle of my day. I walk the whole day and any walk, being it short to get something or some steps to put something into the shelf can always be a reminder and new a marker of the quality I want to move in.
Walking is a great way to clear ourselves and, in addition, to reconnect with nature.
Thank you Anne. Your blog made me realise how little we often question the true quality we are walking, much less choosing to be, in. We often just walk. And walk we do but the quality it is truly in can vary monumentally depending on our energetic choices
So many times I find myself walking from point A to point B and not even realising how I got there! Now that might not be something that unusual for most people, but I have also experienced what it is like to be with myself and walk with a light heartedness from point A to point B and I can say there is a huge difference in the effects in my body and mind! So the valid question becomes – why do we not do it all of the time? After all the feelings and repercussions of such a choice to walk with light heartedness are significant – by the time I get to point B I am feeling lighter, more energised and so ready to handle whatever is happening at point B when I have walked in light heartedness. Anne you talk about walking with Joy which too is another quality that brings so much to us all. Thank you for reminding me of this today!
Whilst out walking I have often thought back to this blog and what a great reminder it is to walk in joy. When I feel I am not in joy then I ask myself why not and from honest reflection look back at how I have been or what I have let in. My walk offers such a reflection of where I am really at. I love these regular check moments.
“One day I started choosing joy but lost the joy in my walk as I walked too far for my body that day and was very tired when I got home.”
Many time when I walk or exercise I am not connected to my body and its tenderness, I’m in my thoughts and or lost in a picture of how my body should look or be, in this disconnection its easy to push my body to far and override exactly what it needs, losing its natural expression of joy.
“I continue to bring this awareness to all my walks now: am I walking in joy, or am I walking in sadness, or walking ‘checked out’ (my mind a million miles away from the rest of my body) or in disregard (walking when I am tired)?”
I love the simplicity of this Anne, simply checking in what we are choosing, with no judgment or self-criticism, just observation of what we are choosing, and then arises the possibility to feel why that choice has occurred.
What Serge Benhayon is teaching about movement and bringing more and more awareness to the way we walk and move our bodies is very powerful, when I walk and only walk not lost in my thoughts it connects me deeper to my body and the wisdom that it holds, that connection then is with me throughout my day, when I choose to go into stress or anxiety, I come back to my movement and that connection to my body when I walk at work.
Your conclusion and reason for why we walk in joy some days and not others: that we simply choose it or not, was a very powerful reflection for me Anne. It reminded me that we have a choice in all areas of our life, to choose to listen to those negative thoughts or not, to take on another’s emotions or not Etc. Etc. Put this way it, why would I/we choose not chose joy all for the whole day, now that’s worth pondering on?
After reading your blog this morning I decided to put walking in joy into practice! It really does work which shows me that everything we do, every movement we make is just a choice. One way of doing this for me is to focus on the delicateness of my shoulders, as I do this I feel my heart open and I my face soften, and that feels so lovely I can’t help but walk in joy!
I love how nature supports us to reconnect to ourselves again. We can do this in the beauty we see around us or it might be in the gentleness of a butterfly or a bird attracting our attention. These are God’s gifts to us to assist us to live in joy each day.- greater gifts than anything we could buy in a shop!!
Spot on Anne – Nature is there to support us in every way so long as we are open to it and allow it to happen. The other day I found myself in a bit of a rush in the morning, but thankfully came to a standstill when I saw the colours of the sunrise – this was astounding. I called my husband over and we stood there for a moment together just taking in the colours and the pulse that was palpable. A moment of space that unfolded for us and allowed me to stop the rushing, and to feel the magnificence of the day.
Reading this Anne made me think ‘Who would want to walk in anything but joy?’ Even as we are walking noting when we are out and bringing ourselves back can be a joy in itself.
Imagine if we walked with joy at work.. it would be much harder to hate your job.
Yes, walking is a huge resource in so many ways, Anne. It is a beautiful way to move and connect to the body, an opportunity to check in with how present we are, and a way to enjoy nature and feel what is going on in the environment around us. Of course there are health benefits as well to a regular brisk walk, but as you have shared here, the greatest benefit to our general sense of wellbeing is in cultivating joy and taking that into the day ahead.
There is nothing that could be more beautiful than to build quality and then go for a walk enjoying every bit of it, feeling the spaciousness inside while moving gracefully, massively present because you do not want to miss even a small detail of such beauty.
It all starts with an act of will in regard to a quality we want to feel as we move and when we start feeling it and moving it (in it), everything in the body recognises the ease and beauty of a state of being where we belong. That is why when we walk in a beautiful quality we feel at home.
Walk is a word that has often a preposition that changes completely the power of the activity. I can walk towards (work)… I can walk for (fun)….I can walk in joy . When one prevails, these are three very different walks even if what I do is seemingly the same.
What walking shows very clearly is that what you choose is what you get.
For me, walking was always a dear activity. An activity I did to enjoy myself or an activity that allowed me to somehow come back to myself in hard times. It was only after I commenced my association with Universal Medicine that walking acquired a much deeper and bigger meaning and when I discovered that it is an action that can teach me a lot about life. Regarding learning, walking is more powerful than being physically seated in a classroom.
Anne, thank you for the wonderful reminder that walking in a certain way is just a choice. I realised not so long ago that I have spent a great deal of my life walking around in exhaustion and misery. It’s no wonder that people avoided me! That was just a choice too, but now I understand that conscious choices can be made, and it is our responsibility, not only to ourselves, but to others in our path, to walk in joy and have a lightness of step which I am sure nature can feel too.
Having those simple reflections that are around us daily no matter where we are is such a great way to stop and be honest and see where we are. Those moments where exactly there for you as you needed to see the sparrow and the butterfly. Like they were touching you on the shoulder say ‘hey come back’ is beautiful. When we remember we are apart the whole, one universe then the all is there to support us in our connection to ourselves and with God.
It’s such a treat activity to build presence with ourselves in all our movements. Walking and just feeling our body and how it moves in each part is very confirming.
So true Fiona. Walking is really powerful when we know this because we can fully change a mindset by simply walking in connection and magnifying that in our body.
Walking this morning I observed how other people walk and move and there are very few that feel like they are doing so joyfully – in feeling the difference in myself the only reason I could come to as to why people are walking as they do is that they have not yet made the choices to be aware of and choose an alternative.
I can so relate to the same reflections from nature, it’s a great offering given a stop moment and an opportunity to come back to my body.
Beautiful Anne, short, sweet and to a powerful point, that joy is a choice we chose in every movement.
I wholeheartedly agree with you here Anne – Serge Benhayon’s presentations have brought awareness to the importance of how I move and walk and how this feels in my body is amazing. I appreciate the reminder you bring about ‘walking in joy’ as this is another quality all together felt in the body.
“I would like to express my huge thanks to, and appreciation of, Serge Benhayon for bringing this ‘walking in joy’ thing to my attention. I continue to bring this awareness to all my walks now: am I walking in joy, or am I walking in sadness, or walking ‘checked out’ (my mind a million miles away from the rest of my body) or in disregard (walking when I am tired)?”
I love how you have shared your experience of playing with a concept that has been introduced at a workshop. It is a great example of how so many students are taking the teachings and playing with them in their own lives and how the learning unfolds to become The Livingness.
And thank you for sharing your various discoveries regarding walking in joy. I love how truly simple it is – complication doesn’t get a look in.
Anne this is a beautiful example of how we can read ourselves, where we are at and how our body is feeling simply by walking. I do a similar thing when I walk too. The way I walk says so much about how I am travelling through my day and what I am attaching to.
Walking and moving in the joy that we truly are – consciously present and aware of our body – is the most beautiful and expansive experience.
Your article is a joy to read Anne. I love walking but don’t always remember to walk in joy which takes it to another dimension. I will think of you and choose joy when I set off on my next walk.
Thank you Anne. I shall bring this awareness to my walks now and begin a little experiment about joy and how and when I feel it. Brilliant.
Walking with conscious presence can become a therapy, as the energy in which we walk in magnifies throughout our body. Therefore the way we walk is going to be either healing or harming. It is always our choice.
Anne – what strikes me here is just how accessible joy is to us. We seem to think that joy needs to be a climax, something major that happens and a means of celebrating. But in that we forget that joy can be something that we allow in our lives all the time. That we do not have to live in an up and down yo yo world where we need the bad to justify the good. I love your sharing of walking in joy, as I spent so many years walking to get somewhere rather than considering or appreciating the way in which I walked
I love what you have written here Anne, it is so simple to choose to walk in joy and yet we manage to complicate things. Thank you for the reminder of what it feels like to experiment with our walking.
How wonderful to bring attention to ‘walking in joy’, i know that I can walk in many different ways. At times with joy, but then my mind does wander off, to what I need to do that day, what happened the previous day, a conversation I’ve had with someone, replaying what I wished or wanted to say instead. All of these things do not foster being truly with myself or certainly not walking in joy. I love the simplicity of what you are sharing, it is just a choice, to buy into the distractions or choose joy! This feels really simple.
How helpful it is to be asked a simple question. It can be life-changing from inside out rather than the imposition of a solution from outside in. Do I walk in joy?
I find that my walk changes from day to day depending on how I am feeling, how I have been living, what thoughts I have been allowing, and the food I have chosen to eat. Yes sometimes my walk is naturally joyful, but on days when I have made unloving choices the joy in my walk is not so naturally available.
This is a beautiful article very close to my heart as walking with me is an important foundation for my daily life also. The simplicity of our choices and the effects of our intentions are very real and beautiful when choosing joy and so profound. Thank you.
This was fabulous to read Anne… how inspiring our choices can be!
Your joy in walking can be felt, as can the heaviness of your sadness walk… which exposes how much we can affect others with the choices we each make.
I went for a walk this morning and felt very light and free in my body – however, was there joy? Not this time but to bring joy in my next walk feels gorgeous – thank you for your inspiration Anne.
This is an awesome blog, so simple but profound, do we choice to walk in joy or do we not? We love to make things complicated when often it is so simple but we do not belief it could be that easy.
Anne to read about your experiences how you discover your walk in joy was really a great learning for me. I cannot wait for my next walk choosing to walk in joy as well.
It is empowering to feel how our movements effect the quality of our choices. There is such wisdom that is naturally present when we remain connected to the body and all it communicates.
I love how natures reflections are ever calling us back to ourselves. I have often had this this happen while I am walking. At times it can stop me in my tracks, like when I walked into a spider web. Nature can also be very confirming and pure joy when I have been living and moving in a way in respect to the quality within me. The same action such as walking can be a very different experience depending on the quality of connection we live with ourselves.
Simply beautiful Anne. How powerful it is when we bring our presence and quality to the way we move…very naturally joyful.
Beautiful blog Anne, great timing for me to read as I too started to be more aware of choosing to walk in joy. I have become so much more aware of my thoughts and how connected I am with my body. Walking in joy feels so different to how I usually walk and I too wondered why I kept switching walking in joy on and off. I agree it is as simple as a moment to moment choice to be joyful or not. By practicing and naturally allowing myself to feel the joyfulness that is within me and around me I will return to my natural way of walking with joy, just like when I was a child.
This is such a beautiful sharing Anne and such a simple choice. Do I choose to walk in joy? A joy-filled yes from me!
When we learn to walk in joy, we can become aware of everything that is not joy in our walk and elsewhere. It is such a beautiful process.
Taking ourselves for a walk in joy feels like a gorgeous idea, instead of the ususal walk where you are taking all of the situations/issues/thoughts with you as you go and never feeling your body and how it can naturally feel without all of that stuff lumped on top of it. How lovely would that be for our bodies and the space that we are occupying as we walk.
I love what you’ve written Anne, the importance of what energy we choose to walk in and magnify as we walk. I know if I walk in an energy that’s not me, so sadness or stress then I feel awful at the end of the walk- achy legs and knees so I feel what energy I’m in and ask myself do I want more of this or not. By walking with me, with joy I feel greater vitality. Such a great reminder to be super discerning of what energy I’m multiplying.
I love how Serge Benhayon brings much more awareness to the simple things in life, such as walking and breathing. By observing the quality we are in when we do this it can make a huge difference to our day.
“And what did I choose at the beginning of my walk, and do I continue to choose joy as I walk, and am I appreciating myself for walking in joy and feeling the joy in others?” This sounds very much like life itself, what do we choose to live like in our days and do we keep choosing joy in our lives every single moment?
Love the detail Anne – I find walking to be a really great way to check in with how my body is feeling and what this might be telling me about how my day has been, and how I can learn from my body.
Anne what strikes me is the fact we grow up and walking is about getting from point A to B, it is pure function and although as kids we run around and play by the time we “get older” many of us loose the magic of play. I love how you show its possible to walk in joy, that as Universal Medicine presents this can be our natural way of living and that including walking. There is a deep feeling on contentment I get when I read and consider this.
Thank you Anne, what a joy to read your blog, which has deepened my understanding of the true power that is available from simply choosing to walk in an energy of true connection.
This is the key here Michelle – what Anne has shared IS our ‘normal’, we’ve just let ourselves get so far away from it… But, all is not lost! The joy of true connection ever awaits our return to it.
I agree Willem, and this has been my experience since being introduced to this way of choosing to actually be with my body, through the teachings of Serge Benhayon. It does take time to build a consistency, it’s never perfect, but boy are there vast differences to be felt through embodying such true connection.
How profound this blog is Anne. Knowing there is a choice to simply ‘walk in joy’ (or not) is a real ‘walk-changer’.
My body feels as light as a feather and totally connected with every step and it is as if the birds are singing with a richness and fullness as never before all around me confirming the joy.
As Joy is a confirmation of who we are in truth, I can choose to walk (and live) in accordance to my natural being and where I am coming from – or against it. One offers me joy – the other …not.
Gosh, that is really simple and on point “I simply choose to walk in joy then I do “. Joy is always just a choice away…if I choose so. 😉
Thank you Ann, for what you have offered here through your experience. Your sharing helps me understand when my head is rattling with all sorts of mental thoughts while walking it is impossible to be in any joy.
My intention has always been to walk for exercise and most likely check out in my head in nature. I will certainly make the choice in future walks to bring my intention to walk with me and enjoy my body.
Anne, I love this article, this really stood out for me this time, ‘I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?’ This is so simple and can relate to almost anything in life – it is simply a choice, this is very empowering and takes away all of the complication and blame, knowing that we have a choice to be joyful, loving, honest, playful or not.
Yesterday I did not not walk in my fullness and joy was not walking with me. It felt like missing a long lost friend. Yes I was missing me. This really confirmed to me that each step in life is a choice and to miss out that true connection with ourselves has a huge knock on effect and until I truly ‘stopped’ that momentum did I allow joy back to walk with me as I connected within to each and every step thereafter.
Awesome Marion, it is so true. It does feel like we are missing something very dear to us when we are disconnected in our walk, movements and other forms of expression.
Since reading your article Anne, I have become more aware of the way I walk and how I move. Yesterday I went on a walk with my newly married husband and our friends around a lake, the sun was out and the nature around us was just glorious, walking I felt such a simplicity and joy of feeling love all around me. When we walk in Love the world celebrates.
I observe that intimacy with myself, also expressing intimacy in movement brings me naturally in the connection with my joy.
The quality that we walk in as you describe Anne can either be in joy or in an emotion that we may be carrying. So if we are in sadness or anger we can pump that around our bodies and leave that as an energetic imprint as we walk. Conversely walking with all of me in joy, I can leave that as an energetic imprint and move that joy around my body. What is clear is that we have an energetic responsibility that we can live and if we ignore, the imprints are still left to return to.
This blog reminds me of the simple joy of walking me when i am present to the moment, my body and my environment around me. If there is a level of connection to my innermost and what my body is communicating to me there is more awareness of the details of how to walk and for how long. Similarly I am more aware of my surrounds and able to respond to a changing environment and enjoy nature and people around me.
Thanks Anne, it is awesome how nature has a way of bringing us back to order, reminding us and bringing focus to what is real instead of getting lost in thoughts.
Going for regular walks reminds us that we always surrounded in an ocean of energy, and we cant escape the fact that everything is connected to everything. Walking can be a chore, a thing to get us from A to B or it can be about surrender, the body, the joy and the connections that this brings.
the begins to touch on one of the very profound presentation by Universal Medicine about the power of movement to cement or change a certain way of living. I love your sharing about the power of choosing to walk (move) in a different energy or state and how is magnifies that same state throughout your body….change your mood…no problem…change how you walk!
Joy explodes with appreciation and wonder and is a choice we can all make. The time has come to claim it as the natural way.
It is empowering to realise that in any moment, through any movement, it only ever us that chooses the degree of joy in which we live.
Through the presentations of Serge Benhayon over the years I have learnt and become aware of so much in regards to walking and the quality of my movements. I have been, and continue to be inspired to pay attention, to develop my awareness as to what I am surrendering to as whenever it is to my connection to my Soul I naturally feel joy, the joy of God, and the joy of soulfully connecting with others. Living in this way is what feels natural in my body and it is this quality that humanity deserves to experience through my all movements and expression.
There are so many evidenced based claims to what is good for us, for example a glass of red wine per day for antioxidants. Yet my body says the exact opposite, red wine makes me feel ill and depleted.
Since reading your blog the other day, I have seen so many little willy wag tail birds being ever so cute and playful in random places throughout my day. Your blog reminded me to connect more to what nature was sharing with me all the time…. it is always sharing but I am not always open and aware to what it is offering as a reflection so thanks for the reminder.
Joy is always present whenever we surrender in full to the Love we are within, our connection to Soul, as it is Love that we are, our Soul, that then moves us naturally. This movement is a joyful reflection of the activity of this Love that is always naturally expressed whenever we choose to connect to our Soul. And so if we are willing to pay attention, the quality of our movements reflect what it is we have chosen to surrender to and whether we are walking with ourselves in full or otherwise.
Our walk tells us so much about ourselves and where we are at, far more than we think. Rushed short steps, or light ungrounded airy ones. Hard stomps, and driven strides, all say so much about where we are in our heads and what our relationship is with our body. Do we lead with our head, or does it follow us? Do our hips lead the way? Do they even move when we walk or are they locked? Can we feel the gentle sway in them and with that the subtle twist in our spine with each step? What about our shoulders?
There is so much that our body can tell us when we do this most basic and everyday action which we can so easily take for granted.
A lovely blog Anne, that I love to return to. My reading this morning triggered a very different response in my body to the last time I read it. I have had some swelling ankle problems for almost a year now, which has concerned me for quite a while. In the past, before I discovered Universal Medicine, I led an extremely active physical life and people used to comment on the way that I walked, a very smooth walk which I was aware of. As I have become older, and have not had that active life, spending many hours at the computer, I have found it quite difficult to (willingly) make time to do a regular walk each day. I now realise that up to recently when I walked, I have not felt really confident in my style of walking, have not been able to walk in a true rhythm that feels comfortable to me. This had been disturbing me, and holding me back from taking these walks, until yesterday, when I took a beautiful walk beside the lake, totally on my own, and to the best of my ability really connecting to myself. Yes, a little straying mind occasionally, but mostly connected. A sudden memory came to me of a walk that we did at the first retreat, where after I had done a little walk down the hall, I was given a few words to say to myself, before I then repeated the walk. I remembered the fact that for the first few steps I stumbled greatly, before I then reverted to a very different, but beautiful walk down the hall. From this memory, I have now realised that my body has had a lot of healings and configurations during the past couple of years, and my natural walk has changed, resulting in my recent lack of confidence in my walking. I now know that the key for me is to keep connected to myself, and let my body do the walk that it is now meant to do, which is quite different to the old walk, yesterday’s walk felt so much more purposeful, much more rhythm, it is walking a very different body to that of some years ago. I look forward to my walk again today, with a completely new approach – letting my body do the walking, not trying to tell it what to do.
Anna that is great what you share about walking, I have too noticed on many occasion I have been walking in joy and others my body or legs have been heavy, what you share its just a choice we can make before we walk this is beautiful. I am going to bring this awareness to my walks and support myself in waking in joy.
Thanks Anne. You have pointed out how it is a simple matter of choice. I often find I am walking checked out. My mind in constantly running through things. Of late I have been bringing the focus to walking with me and being in my body while walking. This feels great, but I like the sound of what you offer. If I wasn’t feeling unwell I would be off for a walk!
Thank you Anne, I like how you studied your walking and came to the understanding that it comes back to what you choose in every moment. This process is science to me, the observation and ‘testing’ of everyday, practical situations. There are so many things that we can observe and see and then learn from in us, around us and in relation to and with each other.
To discover that we actually always have a choice and thus it always comes back to choosing is enormous and very empowering. It breaks the belief that things/life just happen to us.
I love to walk but have never started one with the intention of doing it with joy. I am looking forward to my next walk and making this new choice.
I enjoyed reading about your walks Anne and how different each one was. Its great to observe how we are, and start to question why our moods can be so changeable. I know nature can bring me back from being distracted by my thoughts, so I smiled when you mentioned the swallow and the butterfly.
Could it be simpler? Thank you so much Anne for sharing your experience of walking in joy. And for showing that we do not have to berate ourselves when we ‘forget’ to walk in joy (most of us have got a lifetime of habit to shift) but simply to choose it again with the next step.
So easy isn’t Anne – ” If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?” A great reminder that we can choose anew at every single step we take. Thank you.
And the photo completely reflects the quality of your blog and walk Anne… this lady is radiating the joy she is feeling.
Love this Anne, there are so many ways we can walk and for most we would never think of walking in joy or the fact that we could even choose it! You make this so simple and tangible by all the signs you received from your body and nature that you were out in your walking and to come back again to joy. I also find looking at my intention for going for a walk is a biggy as well and very much has an impact on the quality of my walk. Gee my body feels like walking now!
What you’re presenting here is quite amazing – that the what we choose actually effects the way we move, and the way we moves actually effects the way we feel – it’s so extraordinarily simple that you have to try it to believe it!
It’s interesting to consider what we are in when we walk. To take responsibility for the way we are when we move, yet do we go that step further and walk in joy? Joy is a full appreciation for the wonder of us. To walk in joy is to bring hope and grace to everyone around us. It says that joy is possible. It is also great to realise that we have to live in conscious regard for ourselves. We can’t push ourselves until we are really tired and expect to walk in joy. Joy will come when we love and care for ourselves in that nurturing, lovely way.
Recently I have been more aware of how often my mind wanders off during the day and how exhausting it is on the body. When I walk with myself I feel lifted and energised and I’m no longer exhausted at the end of the day. I love stopping when I’m walking to reassess where I am at and to make little adjustments which make so much difference to how I feel in my body.
Your blog Anne has reminded me that every step matters, that the way we walk today makes a difference to the way we walk tomorrow. It is interesting how much you felt the impact of reading the book about human rights in Afganistan effected how you felt on your walk and that you were carrying with you sadness from reading the book.
When I truly connect to me as the beautiful women I am and move in a way that celebrates and honours this I feel so much joy in my step.
The day I connected to walking with me and with joy I was amazed how simple it was. We spend so much time on our feet often rushing around with absolutely no regard for the way we are moving our bodies or how they feel. We use our minds to distract us from feeling the impact this is having. When we move in connection with our bodies and with ourselves there is a grace and a flow to our walk and we cannot help but feel the joy as we move.
It is amazing when we walk and it is just something that we function in doing because that is what the body does, we are completely disconnected to our bodies and what they are telling us. Let alone that way we are walking has so much dis-order to how we can be from our natural essence. This Joy that is felt when in connection to this and fully surrender to it is harmonious to the tenth degree and beyond Joy.
I guess once again it comes back to responsibility for our choices. I know for myself more and more I am choosing to be present with every step take and if I do wander of in my mind I bring myself back from distracting thoughts. The quality I choose to live in supports me to walk in joy.
Walking with joy, changes your whole body and the way it moves, there really is nothing like it.
Anne – you share here so beautifully and simply that we always have a choice in how we are.
And that this choice can make a huge difference to how we are in our bodies. To walk in joy is to simply connect – to be aware, and I love how you are shown through nature to come back into your body.
Walking in joy is walking our true selves, not holding back, but bringing all of us to every step we take. Anne, a beautiful reminder that every movement matters and how we walk, each step we take can be a movement that magnifies the innate joy that we are.
Anne, I love this article, it is so practical, this really stands out for me, ‘and what did I choose at the beginning of my walk, and do I continue to choose joy as I walk’, this shows us that joy is simply a choice that we can make, very gorgeous.
Walking is super powerful in terms of both the reflection it offers and the ability to change the energy we are in. It seems crazy that I have been doing this daily most of my life and not had an appreciation of this before. Thank you to Serge Benhayon and those who are showing the way and revealing these magical aspects of our lives once again.
Just the other day whilst walking my husband said how much of the walk was I present, very little was the answer, so often I will walk checked out thinking that what I am thinking about is more important than me and my body. I was lying in bed the other day and was thinking which I clocked was actually abusive, to lie getting ready for sleep and to be thinking about other things was actually hurting my body as I was not with it. We are bought up to feel this sort of way of living all around us and we learn to be like this but as babies we only know presence and our bodies. It helps me realise my responsibility to offer something different to the normal of checked out business and to offer a body of presence to others so they have the opportunity to return to their presence also.
Once connection is chosen over all the other distracting things that take us away from ourselves, a whole new world of feeling a different way of being opens up. The expansion within and around our body changes and time becomes available like never experienced before. When walking with this expansion I feel 9′ tall and so different, all from choosing to be in connection when I walk and move.
I once was at the airport with Serge Benhayon and saw love in action for the first time – first time I saw it – the way he was in his body was all love, totally precise and effortless it was amazing to see someone walking through a crowded airport and see how much he stood out for the quality of his walk – it was inspiring as Serge tends to be!
Walking can be anywhere, from how we walk about the house, our workplace, in the street. Often we say that we are walking without thinking but that’s not quite true – we are not thinking about the walking, true, but we are often thinking about what we have to do next, what just happened, or something completely random. Walking focused on what we feel in our body is lovely. Letting go of all that mental stuff feels great and sets up us for the day. When I avoid walking, it makes me wonder if I am avoiding the connection with myself. Avoiding that joy. Why? It doesn’t make sense.
I love what you share here Anne – the simple choice to walk in joy and feel the greatness of who we are.
Yes, we can interrupt at any time what we are doing, including walking in any other way and start walking on joy. It is a choice that is always open.
I can relate to what you have shared here Anne. Often when I walk I am thinking about work, what I need to do, how my day will be, what I need to organise or finish etc. I appreciate what you have shared here to remind me to walk with joy not ahead of myself. I too love when nature stops you in your tracks- its like its bring you back to life and out of a robotic state.
How important is it to appreciate all we bring to that moment when we make ‘the choice’ to walk in joy? Is it possible that the choice exists outside of time and therefore there is no start or end to joy?
Serge Benhayon has presented a variety of ways to walk, with a different quality of intention, and I can attest to the power of these. Walking magnifies the quality that we consciously express and we then carry this with us into our daily activities, so it is well worth choosing the quality of our walk.
Esoteric Massage is so powerful at supporting the change in the body to allow walking to be joyful once again, because otherwise we carry energetic imprints around with us that hinder our natural expression. And it is these that Esoteric Massage so beautifully and simply clears away.
I love feeling the lightness and delicateness of my body as I walk. I am finding that I can’t rush anymore and must allow myself the needed time to get from A to B. When I am present with every moment of my day, walking in itself becomes a delight and an opportunity to receive divine intelligence.
A gorgeous reflection Anne. I was at that course but don’t recall hearing about walking in joy, which is interesting in itself! The very concept of it is freeing and indeed it is a choice we can make, to confirm ourselves in our being as we walk or choose to get caught up in thoughts and emotions that pass through our mind.
I would have never seen walking as healing but Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have shown this in a very tangible way. Now I am starting to get a deeper understanding of movement and the importance of how we move.
Neither would I Vicky and like you I’m beginning to appreciate how much can change by simply changing the way we walk.
Walking is a great time to celebrate my connection, starting with feeling my feet on the earth, and to the magnificent reflection nature offers, like the butterflies and the swallows that serve as messengers. It brings it back to such simplicity and I am able to practise not being busy, racy, distracted and spend the time in the quality and appreciation of my body.
This is great sharing Anne, it adds another depth to the power of choice. A depth that extends to our attitude affecting the way we move and the way we choose to move affecting our attitude. I love how Serge Benhayon always delivers the most brilliant stuff in the simplest and most practically applicable ways.
‘I realised that I felt very light in my body. My stride was naturally long and my pace naturally brisk – effortlessly so.’ I’ve experienced this effortlessness too Anne, and it’s quite awesome. It’s like you suddenly have no expectations of yourself or your body and you just allow it to do it’s thing. Such a different feeling to pushing your body up a hill or striving to pick up the pace by tilting your upper body forwards and almost dragging the other half behind you. A completely different experience when we trust our body know what’s it’s doing.
It’s an amazing tool to have, the old awareness chestnut. I’ll often go for a walk and find myself completely unable to stay with my body for more than 1 second. It requires some practice when you’ve spent so much of your life practicing being in the future, and therefore being in the present can feel uncomfortable. I always imagine my head being 10 meters in front of my body and my poor body trying to catch up but never quite making it.
Thank you Anne for a great reminder of walking in joy, sometimes I walk in joy with the movement of my body, and as i observe nature all around and sometimes my mind is going off in every direction, the answer for this is in the conscious choice to walk in joy at the start of each walk, that is the key factor.
Hi Anne – you have certainly made conscious the fact that we can choose ‘Joy’ as we walk and that it is as simple as that. We can also choose to take this learning to every other part of our lives and ask the same questions about ‘joy’, about being consciously present and being in the moment. It is the momentum we are living in that informs what is happening and so to choose to feel the joy consciously, the flow of the momentum of our everyday will change.
I never really paid much attention to walking before Serge Benhayon presented on the topic. Well that’s not entirely true – I did love to stride purposefully like a woman on a mission, pounding the pavements so to speak. But since Serge Benhayon has presented on different ways we can walk if we choose, it has been revolutionary. I no longer ‘pound the pavement’ and walk with much more gentleness (and still with strength and purpose) and I can feel the earth on which I walk on is grateful. I mean 7 billion people bashing away as they trod through life, has to have an effect???
Walking is INCREDIBLE therapy – being fully present and enjoying being with ourselves when we walk is medicine.
And we do it so often. So literally we can heal ourselves with each and every step when in presence and walking our joy.
‘I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?’ Recently I have begun to deeply understand that EVERYTHING is a choice – and it has been a bitter pill to swallow because I appear to choose not to be in joy for much of the time. We are responsible for our every moment and our every choice. Everything which occurs in all our moments are a simple result of a choice. This is actually very joyful to come to know, because we are able to choose how our lives play out! How revelatory is that! But deeply sobering at times when we can see we don’t choose joy for ourselves but instead live to create drama, sadness, chaos or overwhelm. It’s all a simple choice.
Connecting to your “walking in joy” yesterday really resonated with me to choose to connect to joy in every possible moment yesterday, (and there is potential to choose this in all moments). The difference was very clear at the end of the day. There was much more of me still with me. The way I feel this is that I have a natural steady vitality. It is a wonderful way to live and close the day.
We allow so much of our day to be driven from the mind and what needs to be done that when we walk we are usually preoccupied with all the things that are going on in and around us, If we make the choice to start the walk with joy, all the thoughts we had, no longer have a place in our walk, as being joyful is a state of being and needs no thoughts.
It is amazing how amazing it feels when being present with my body and there is nothing lovelier than feeling the simplicity of the connection to myself. Walking is a great way to bring myself back if I have slipped into thought.
I agree Rachel.
Joy as a choice Anne. You have undone something here – a binding thought that joy is either a random bolt from the blue or needs another person to make it happen.
A choice, in movement, made in connection to ourselves.
How simple is that?
This is very special. I had always seen joy as something that happened or that crept upon us as if by magic whilst doing or sharing something with another. Not something that I could actively choose to activate within myself. It shows how deeply lost in connection we have become to not know this for ourselves…when we actually have joy on tap!
What I really got from one of Serge Benhayon presentations about walking it that it magnifies the energy you are in (imagine what happens when you are sad or angry) and it is a great way to make you feel vital and get energized.
Anne, I absolutely agree with you, to be able walk in joy presence and feeling your body are necessary and then it is super easy and light.
Thank you Anne, your blog has reminded me that Joy is found in the space brought by being present with your body.
Gorgeous Anne.
And what a profound yet simple choice it is – to walk in our joy, or not to walk in joy….
I currently have discomfort when I put weight on one hip so walking is not a pleasant experience, but even then there are times when I am more in the flow and in appreciation, whilst there are times when I am in struggle mode and everything tightens and ceases up. Reading your blog I was captivated with your realisations and insights from observing your walks. And I loved the fact that there was no self-criticism talk or I should have’s. The open and honest observations show the joy that we can have in observing, learning and expanding through life whenever we choose.
There are so many moments through my day where I walk without even realising the quality I am walking in.
It’s a good point Abby. We do have so many moments where we are walking and we have the choice to bring our quality and attention to each of them. I have been playing with the different beautiful walks I get to do in my day from the way I can walk in connection while on duty at school, or getting from one place to another, or walking the dogs or simply moving around my home. It’s gorgeous.
Oh the joy of walking with ourselves and yet we deny ourselves this joy and instead wander off into our minds! I have done this many times . . . what a utter waste of time when all the time I could be affirming and appreciating myself with every move I make!.
Wow, Kathleen. Reading what you wrote, ‘….and yet we deny ourselves this joy…’ stopped me in my tracks. It is as simple as that isn’t it? We deny ourselves this joy when we could just as easily choose to allow ourselves this joy. Each step along our walk is a choice.
What a great blog inviting us to feel the quality in our walk and how this can determine the quality in our movements. I can relate to times when I have not felt joy and gone into the head space of getting things done or not stay in tune with myself at that moment. The body does feel heavier and there is dense weight felt throughout the body.
What I took from this article is that joy is not a place to get to, but a movement – it is a fluid thing, something which expands – the more we connect and move with that connection.
Thank you Anne for writing this blog and bringing the whole concept of “walking in joy” to my attention. It makes so much sense that there is nothing super complicated in order for this to take place, we each simply have a choice as to how we will walk in each moment of each day.
Thank you Anne, what a joy to read!
Thanks, Anne, for reminding me of the effects of disregard. How often do we do something, because we have learned that it is good for the body? Then something “good” can become harming.
After having a day feeling a degree of heaviness, reading this blog reminded me of the joy that is within me and it made me smile. Thank you, Anne.
Swallows and butterflies and everything in nature is there to provide us with whatever we need to know at any given moment.
What you describe here Anne is that the quality of our movements determine whether or not we can feel joy in our body. Its a great reminder in that if we aren’t at least connected and present with our body we won’t be able to feel the joy that is naturally always within us.
Great to be reading this after my experience of walking this morning. Something that came to me on my walk was how much my attitude to walking has changed. I used to do it mainly for fitness but would only power walk as otherwise it wasn’t really exercise was it and only as a last resort instead preferring to do a high impact aerobic class. How foolish that was. Now I thoroughly enjoy the movement of my body as I walk, feeling my feet on the ground and noticing how my body feels. I could also feel the joy in walking this morning but – as you mentioned Anne – I also clocked that I’d walked too far and allowed myself to tire and noticed that there’s a delicate balance of knowing how far to go and when to stop – it’s the difference between ending my walk feeling vital or drained. Unlike other forms of exercise walking allowed me to have a connection with myself.
I like the simple but very effective article you have written, walking can be so enjoyable, relaxing and evolutionary when done in the right energy.
This truth that we can choose joy in each and every moment is absolutely huge. Tonight I find myself feeling frustrated and angry after being stuck in traffic for hours after a very long and busy day. Your blog reminds me that my frustration and anger is a choice and I can choose joy now regardless of what I have chosen before.
Thank you Anne for pointing out that being in joy is not complicated, simply a choice to be with our bodies and choose to move in joy. I also appreciate how you have stated it is easy to wander off and how some choices do not support us to remain connected and present. Being aware of this certainly helps to understand why building consistency and commitment to presence and connection is important, but not in a heavy, joyless way.
Walking is a joy, it is something that I have always found supportive, but the more I have begun to be aware of my body the more supportive it has become. I have ben really aware of my feet recently and how connected with how present my legs feel. I have noticed that I can feel a flow where I am with everything that is all around me, in conscious presence, no more tomorrow, yesterdays and what if’s, this brings a natural joy and connection.
I loved the little hints you got from nature, calling you back to be present. I’ve noticed what a difference it makes to walk/do things and be present. I also know how easy it is too wonder off if we are so use to checking out and not wanting to be responsible for us 100% of the time.
The power and simplicity of our choices is awesome to feel and bring into life. I felt so empowered when I first considered in this life that I could choose it all, no more being at the mercy of my emotions and circumstances. And so I now choose joy in my movements more and it brings an ease, support and connection that feels like really living and being connected with the universe.
Love this Anne, gorgeous reminder that there is a choice in everything we do. I was feeling down today about my life, then I remembered to appreciate, and all of a sudden my joy returned. Everything is a choice. And it’s awesome to make it so.
Thank you Anne. I look forward to giving this a go..
If I choose to walk in joy at the start of my day and my day does not continue in that same light something has unsettled that gentle, light, self-loving and natural rhythm. ‘Something’ I allowed in through choice. So here’s to feeling all of me all of the time. (a work in progress) and thank you God for the gift of having ‘awareness’ as this serves us well.
So much can come in to distract us…thoughts about work, did we lock the door, I should have brought in the laundry in case it rains etc etc. There are multitudes of things to think about so as not to have to be present and certainly not to walk in joy! But should we be able to put aside such distractions, then lo and behold what can open up for us and how this can transform our day! Thank you Anne!
My mind very often wants to wander when I am walking but with this reminder Anne I know that there will be no joy if it does. Walking can be so powerful when every step is done with presence, staying aware of the body in its movement and enjoying the flow of all the body parts in the process. In that it is simple to feel that walking is a joyful act and can be every time if the choice is made to be in the moment, not behind or in front of what is unfolding.
Thank you for sharing this Anne. I really love going for walks outside and have found recently that it’s impossible to really think about anything when on a walk, and trying to work out an issue or contemplate my day/things that need to be done feels wrong. After feeling this I became a bit critical with myself as I felt like I should be utilising my time on the walk to do something productive by working out things I need to do, or even revise schoolwork in my head, but as you’ve shared walking shouldn’t be the time to work or go into issues – we should give ourselves full permission to walk in joy and en-joy nature that surrounds us.
A very great blog Anne. Thank you. This sums joy and walking with joy up for me perfectly ‘I felt so at ease with myself and the world, as if the ‘world was my oyster’.
True Joy is a total at ease feeling and not the elation feeling that joy is often referred to as being.
The power of choice and what this can bring. This definitely sounds like a big AH HA moment and as always until we experience for ourselves and feel it in our bodies you can be told don’t really get it. Bringing that loving dedication to being with ourselves and giving ourselves permission to enjoy the Joy is the best gift in the world we could give ourselves. Joy it is… or not – the choice is mine.
I have felt that when walking I have allowed a feeling such as tiredness in my body to dominate and become the ‘theme’ of that walk rather than the simple reflection it offers of the choices made to that point. In accepting how my body feels and then fully appreciating the fact that it is communicating with me I move past the ‘theme’ and back into the gorgeous feeling of walking in connection to all of me, not just a part.
Anne, I love this, ‘what did I choose at the beginning of my walk, and do I continue to choose joy as I walk, and am I appreciating myself for walking in joy and feeling the joy in others?’ this is great to be aware of as we walk, thank you for sharing ‘walking in joy’, i can see and feel that this is what young children do, they are joyful when they walk and run and as adults i do not see this, so wonderful to re-connect to this joy as we walk as adults.
I am just beginning to appreciate how powerful walking is when I am present in my body and walk it. It is teaching me all about myself and opens me up for inspiration to flow through! Thank you Anne for your inspiration.
I also have found in my daily walk for myself that even though may walk the same place and route sometimes; everyone is different. I also have the signs from nature to bring me back, but the things I feel in my body are the signs I am aware of the most. These are the barometer of the way I am living.
A beautiful sharing, Anne, and really great for me at the moment. I am so inclined to go into my head pondering decisions that need to be made and actions that need to be taken. It has been a great reminder to me to make the choice to walk in joy, and as you share, it is our choice to do this, it is not dependent on anything from outside of us, but purely a choice to be made. So simple, so why do we make this choice seem to be so hard? I love the incidents with the swallow and then the butterfly, how blessed we are to be given these little reminders through nature when we stray off into the mind, leaving our true selves midstream.
Bringing joy as the focus of our walk is such a good thing to choose when you take into account joy is what you leave in your wake and add back to the earth when walked in this way. Certainly beats stomping around angry or frustration and having that magnified in our bodies.
And when you consider walking like this I cannot help but feel the responsibility we have with every step we make.
Something that I have discovered for myself is the power in walking. I find that it has a guaranteed way of supporting me to re-connect back to my body if I feel disconnected from myself. The thing that I need to work on is the fact that I tend to characterize walking in the supermarket as different from ‘going for a walk’. How supportive would it be if all of my walking was re-connective.
Anne this is such a simple sharing and yet stands to be a revolutionary one, considering how much we all walk during the day. I am going to experiment. Thanks for the sharing.
Some mornings on my walk I am aware of a tightening up and tenseness in my body and as soon as I recognize this I focus on feeling my connection to my body again letting go and just enjoying nature. Bringing my focus back to my body I feel the lightness and joy in just being me.
I love this Anne so thank-you for sharing in this way. A saying I wrote down for myself once was, “if I’m not with my body then where’s the love?” Now I can say, “where’s the joy?” and move my body in a way that confirms that joy I am feeling. Lovely.
If we walk in the sadness or frustration of what we feel about the world today, where humanity is at and where we are at, we simply add to it. If we walk in the knowing that we and all of humanity come from a place immensely grand and that this is where we are all eventually heading we reflect this to everyone else as well. We have a huge responsibility in how we walk…
Walking every day has become a must in my daily routine. It’s great to keep yourself in check and inbalance.
How lovely Anne! Thankyou for exploring what Serge Benhayon said about walking in joy, and for sharing it here. I will also explore this now. I also appreciated your sharing of how we can walk in sadness or disregard and how this feels to the body (heavy, tiring etc) and how nurturing and supportive joy is when we walk it.
Dear Anne,
I love how you have shared so clearly that choice has a huge impact on how we are, be this walking, working or living all aspects of life. Your blog is but a microcosm of what is available to us in our days when we choose to be with our bodies and the joy that they behold.
Yes, a choice in every moment to choose how we want to feel. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like we do have a choice, when our reactions and patterns of behaviours are deeply ingrained, but when we look more closely, we see that all the moments that led up to that reaction or behaviour were also choices. Becoming aware of how we’re feeling in any given moment is the start of changing our choices and making more supportive ones, that help us to feel more like ourselves. Not in a hyper vigilant way where we become paranoid about our every choice, and every movement, but just gently bringing awareness to what and how we’re feeling: observing how things make us feel, what feels good, and what doesn’t, and continuously refining as we go.
How beautiful that nature steps in when we lose ourselves. To have these simple blessings is a joy in itself. To appreciate them and walk in joy too is heavenly and most definitely deserves our full appreciation.
How gorgeous are the reflections of nature – we are part of something so spectacular if nature knows that we have ‘wandered off’ into our thoughts and lost connection with our body that it needs to send a messenger to arouse attention to the matter. Now that’s a magic of God moment.
Our bodies know Joy, it probably takes more effort to walk out of joy and that’s what makes us exhausted! For me, trying to walk in joy doesn’t work, in the trying I am being something I am not, but in truth I am Joy so there is no need to try – just be it.
Imagine walking in joy and the wonderful imprint that leaves behind for others, as opposed to walking ‘as a must do’ exercise and the difference that can be felt not only in our own bodies, but the impact that has on others also, even if they are not fully aware of it. Thank you Anne for sharing the joy with which you choose to walk in and the reflection that nature offered you to bring you back to walking in joy. We can never underestimate the gifts that nature is always revealing to us.
Thank you Anne for your sharing. Joy is our essence, and we have a choice to move in such a way to keep appreciating and confirming this as our lived quality. Like you, until I encountered Universal Medicine, I didn’t know that it was a choice I can make.
What are we actually saying when we say “I’m going for a walk”, is it about the route that walk will cover? Or is it a choice to walk our body, simply to be in the joy of that connection with our body in motion.
Anne I love your honesty. I too find that walking (and not walking!) reflects my different choices too. Allowing my mind to wander is my nemesis, so I’m constantly bringing my attention back to my body. The more I stay present in my body in my daily activities the easier it is to walk with presence too. Simply walking with me, or being with me as I attend to my everyday activities brings joy.
It’s amazing isn’t it, something most do every day, something we often do without a thought, except that is the thing it is often done filled with thoughts and rarely with simply being with the movement of our body. The difference it makes to walk conscious of our body cannot be underestimated.
We cannot understand true joy unless we live it.
For a deeper understanding of what Joy truly is, go to: http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-joy.html
To walk in joy is to walk in full surrender, allowing God’s light to fill us up and move us forward. To resist this we fill ourselves up with all that is not of this love and in this self-imposed denseness we drag our bodies from A to B, totally identified by our thoughts and emotions. This is the fight we employ to resist living and expressing the love that we are. And it is this chosen denseness that sees us walking around in these ‘lumps of lead’ instead of the light filled chalice that we in our bodies so naturally otherwise are.
Wow you offer us many things to ponder on here Sally. I feel I have been given a great lesson in walking thank you. A great reminder to check in and choose to walk in joy.
A beautiful article to read on the power of making such a simple choice… and how not choosing it, can affect us so deeply. So many of us do not live in joy on a permanent basis, but to consciously choose to bring this into out lives in this way, is a great and deeply healing start that will inspire us through it’s beauty to want to embrace it more throughout our day.
I too can appreciate the amount that the way we walk can tell us about the choices we have been making and in turn we can feel the choice of how we walk in itself.
A great reminder of our choices we make from moment to moment, in all that we do.
Thank you Anne for this lovely reminder of what Serge Benhayon presented about walking in joy. Every step and how we move our body is a choice and yes, we can choose to walk in the grace and amazingness of who we are, or we can choose to walk as less. That choice can be made in each moment.
Important to acknowledge that the way we walk will reflect the way we’ve been living right up to that moment and that we continue to move in that vein unless and until we choose otherwise. So walking becomes a great opportunity to change our perspective, our thinking and feeling. Great reasons to make it a daily commitment.
Pondering on this blog made me realise how often I accept life as not being Joyful. And how sad and sabotaging this actually is. Where there’s so much simplicity in life as you’re sharing Anne. Whenever I ‘just’ connect to my body, I – in fact – not only connect to me, but to everything and everybody around me. I’m more and more often experience this connection which in Truth is very beautiful and Joyful.
The other point that stood out for me was about the reflection of Nature. My experience so far is that nature is reflecting a lot to me. But that I often choose to go into thinking what the reflection is, rather than connecting to it and feel… Thank you for your reflections Anne which have given me the possibility to learn a bit more, be a bit more honest.
I really love the simplicity and power of what you share Anne, that every walk or movement we make we have a choice to make it what we will – whether a joy (simply being present with ourselves) or one where we become checked out in thought. It’s something I have been noticing lately too, that if my mind is elsewhere I simply bring presence back to my body and movements and although I may need to do this several times it reveals how much we can choose to either be present with self or not.
When we walk, we are usually going from one place to another, whether it is just down the corridor to another room, or walking outside to the shops, work, or just going for a walk to enjoy the surrounds and get some exercise. But the way we walk in any instance magnifies in our body and then that feeling is what we take into our next interaction. So walking is not just a harmless activity – it can either be very healing or harming for us, and for others.
Like you said Anne, it is a simple choice, so its not impossible to find joy in the most difficult situation. We tend to think its a ‘happy’ thing with excitement or elation, but I have experienced Joy to be something that is confirming of myself and connection.
Thank you Anne, very much. Walking is a great opportunity to get a gauge of how we are feeling – joyful, tired, angry, sad, etc. And with this awareness, understand that whatever feeling we do have as we walk, we are leaving an imprint of that as we walk. And so, we can bless others by walking in joy and harmony with ourselves so that they too can feel this within themselves, or we can leave a trail invisible to the eye, but felt by the body, of emotions such as anger or sadness and contribute to the unrest and dis-ease that is epidemic in our society.
Anne thank you for sharing your joy through your walking. As I read I became very aware “did I sit down to read your blog in joy”? I can feel what you share applies to all aspects of my life. Every moment I can choose to connect to my innate joy and breath and move with this. A simple choice offering the most amazing foundation to build my next movement on. Wow I’m feeling the enormity of each new moment and movement evolving from joy.
I have found when I walk in presence especially in nature it feels like life is in stereo as I feel and hear and see so much more around me but all the while choosing to stay with my body. Thank you for sharing this is a simple choice.
I love walking and what I find quite interesting is how often I am not present with my walking. Thoughts creep in and suddenly I am thinking about something I am going to do later that day. Just walking and actually being with myself and my body is something I am practicing every day. And yes, once I am really present and not busy with past or future, there is room for joy….!
I walk everyday, (don’t we all?) and one of the things I have been experimenting with lately is to allow my hips to sway, to move and to not be stiff. When I do, it feels great but It’s new to me as I have for most of my life, tried to keep those hips still and not let them move. I was afraid that if I let my hips move naturally it would attract the wrong kind of attention and look too sexy. What I realize now is that in doing that, I was controlling my natural way of walking and hiding my own true sexiness. I was holding back me from the world and the result on my body is huge because so much of our gait is affected by how our hips move. Still a work in progress, still something I have to consciously bring my awareness too, and then allow my body to change. Somethings we have done for so long that it does take a while to re train the body that there is another way and it is okay.
Walking with joy is walking with God. It is a feeling of absolute confirmation and holding that we can’t but smile at as it warms us from inside out. Makes me wonder why we do not choose to walk this way more often
Thanks for sharing your experiences with walking and how it can change not just from day to day but from moment to moment, and the only one who can make those changes is you.
‘If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?’ Thank you Anne. I am much more connected than I used to be when I walked. But after reading this blog I can see how I complicate things and choose distraction. This blog reminds me that if I want to walk in joy and feel joy in my body then it is simply a case of choosing it.
Thanks Simone, this is something that I understand from this blog and that it’s the quality of the movement we choose that is magnified when we walk. Even when I’ve started a walk feeling not quite myself it doesn’t take long to return to my connection, as the movement of walking brings me back to my body, then I can feel my body more intimately and get to a place where I’m walking in joy.
What a beautiful way to start the day -to walk in joy from my body. I love the way nature can gently bring us back to our own stillness- so gently, so lovingly. We are so well supported to feel joy in our walks and in our daily lives -maybe we do not appreciate this enough. Thank you, Anne, for sharing.
Thank you for posing such simple, yet very important questions about a mundane thing like walking. Simple, straight to the point, – make the choice.
What is interesting to observe is how the choice to walk in joy is also the choice to call others to bring the same quality in their walk through the reflection. Watching another person walk this way is such a welcoming sight.
It is so clear that all is a choice, we so often feel like we can’t do something different, because of the way feel or what just happened to us. But we always have a choice, so it is just like that with walking in joy, being present and allowing ourself to confirm the beauty and love that we are inside.
Having read this I look forward to my next walk and walking with the initial choice of ‘joy’.
“I understand now that the difference is choice.” – This is so significant Anne. It shows us that we can magnify anything in our bodies by either not being aware of our choices (which is still a choice), or making the choice of the quality we walk.
Anne, I love how you make this so practical and simple: “If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do”. Your examples make it very clear that it is something we can all do if we so choose.
This is definitely something I can work on! I often find myself walking and being distracted or thinking about something else… When I’m not totally with my body when I walk (or do anything for that matter!), I can’t be in joy… And this simply means I can’t fully be with me.
I love your astute observation of the differing quality of your walks from one day to another, depending on what is going on and the fact that we always have a choice.
I agree Gabriele Conrad. There is a selection that we can choose from no different to the clothes we select from our wardrobe each morning. Just yesterday I chose to spend some time walking through the isles at the grocery store as my evening walk whilst buying some household items. I got chatting to a number of people as they were doing their meal shopping. The joy was the movement in talking with other people and hearing how their day was.
Walking in Joy, my mind has the propensity to take me away from that at times, but in every moment I can make the choice to come back to Joy or not. Why do we ever leave it as it is exquisite.
Being in joy I agree Anne is simply and foremost a choice, a choice made moment to moment, bringing ourselves back to the body whenever we catch our mind wandering……consistently choosing to return to the body is what builds presence and joy.
And what I’m realising is that it’s very simple. Even if I’m in ‘stuff’, anxiety or tension, all I have to do is walk and feel my body. That action just turns around the anxiety and what I’m left wth is my natural state, my body in its flow.
It’s amazing to come to understand that there is so much more to walking than just placing one foot after another on the ground, that it is the energy that we are feeling through our body at the time that influences how we walk and therefore how we feel when we walk. Serge Benhayon has brought a whole new understanding to the way we walk and how we move, which in turn has had a profound effect on how we live in every moment.
I love the simplicity of your blog Anne and the great reminder that our walk is a reflection of how we have been living and to walk in joy we must first be living in joy.
This is so practical and true, Anne. Joy is a beautiful confirmation of either how I have slept or lived that day and this is what I am taking into my walk morning or night. This is self responsibility all the way as I choose what choice I make to be living in. Thank you.
Wow Anne, simple and beautiful! And you know I feel that the swallow and Monarch butterfly were operating on multi-levels with their symbolism. Yes they were bringing you back from a little mental meander, and yet I also feel a joyful reminder and confirmation in their appearance before you – of the angelic harmony you are so capable emanating as you walk your joyful walk.
‘Walking in joy’ can seem like suddenly discovering your car has a 5th gear. But to me, its more akin to realising you body is not a bicycle but a Ferrari. Wow, what power we have inside when we know just where to turn the key. For we think that joy is something that can happen occasionally, but as you show here Anne, it is actually incredibly normal, constant and natural.
Love the analogy Joseph! Turning the key and putting my foot down – with dedicated and conscious presence with my own body – right now. This would make a great blog: “Embracing the Ferrari body” 🙂
Walking in joy is just a choice but that choice can only be lived when our mind and body are in union, that is being together, as one. Thank you for reminding me to honour this connection.
“I understand now that the difference is choice. If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?” Yes, it is. But it is not always simple to connect with the simplicity for me. Sometimes there is a kind of dissatisfaction in me. My mind asks me “That’s it? Anything else?” This feels awful in my body. Then is when I need more self-love and care to choose to come back to myself, accept where I am at this moment and re-choose the quality that I want to feel. Gentle Breath is a basic tool in my daily life.
Walking is a huge reflection about how I am in my body and I can feel on it the consequences of my choices so clearly. The good point is always is a good time to return and choose walking in a joy-full way. There is no more yummy thing than this! Connecting with this quality makes me smile, and being open with everyone who I find in my path. I smile and love everyone for who they are, then many people smile to me, even who look more “strong” and hard physically on the outside. Walking with this energy can affect in a positive way, can be a healing for us and for everyone.
From what Anne is saying it is all about the quality, which I know in theory but putting into practice it is amazing how many things get in the way of this. It is actually very easy to walk and make it about how my body feels, and the awareness I can bring in doing this is immense, yet it is a discipline as the mind will want to wander and one that I have varying levels of success with. I see from what Serge Benhayon presents that this is my choice, as it is in every moment whether I stay there in the present or wander off to the past, future or my own little fairyland.
It is so easy to take walking for granted, after all walking is something we do all the time. To be aware of how we are feeling when we walk, if we are sad, or letting our mind wander or feeling joy is not something we are made aware of, yet can be a great marker of how we are in the rest of our day. How often do we walk just for ourselves and not to get from A to B or for exercise. Walking in joy is a beautiful way to start the day, thank you Anne for sharing.
So, not talk it – walk it! 🙂
Yep– we said Sandra ☺️ Walking our talk takes on a whole new meaning.
To bring attention to my way of walking is so beautiful. When I do it (after I ‘forgotten’) I am able to choose again consciously how I want to walk – and what I walk, I bring to the world, this is that I offer and what I will get reflected. So if I want to have joy or love in this world (which is my world) – I have to choose it, and I have to walk it.
A wonderful sharing, Anne, and a really great reminder to me. A very important point you made, we just have to choose to walk in joy, how simple is that? So often we walk with our minds working overtime working out things in the head. How can that be joyful? A really important question you pose here, “what did I choose at the beginning of my walk, and do I continue to choose joy as I walk, and am I appreciating myself for walking in joy and feeling the joy in others? We need to ask ourselves that with each and every walk we take, until we build a pattern in our bodies that means that we naturally choose to walk in joy every day. A special walk just for us. I love how nature showed you little reminders when your mind strayed, nature is so magical.
This is such a great reflection Anne and allows a real understanding of the importance and simplicity of our choices in everything. What an amazing realisation to feel for walking with Joy is often the missing part of a walk if our mind gets in the way and can take us away from the beauty,the joy and our the connection of the all. It is wonderful to feel your sharing and the knowing our choice of walking with joy and the living of this is can be so profound.
Thank you for sharing that question Anne, Am I walking in joy? This coincides with the recent claim like you’ve shared, I now walk much more from my body than I ever have and when I do I feel much more stable, steady and more able to be me in life. As such if I am feeling unsettled at work I know the walk to the bathroom – the quality I walk in plays a huge part in then what occurs while in the bathroom. From having complete breakdowns in stress – walking in a hard and fast way, desperate to escape the working environment and lingering and avoiding the situation for as long as possible. Compared to walking in my body, feeling the quality of my feet on the floor (gentle or stomping) and feelings my legs when I get to the loo in presence I find that my self-talk is far more open to understand and doesn’t entertain any break down but lovingly allows me to pick myself back up and get back out there, knowing that I have a choice as to how I relate to the situation.
Saying all of this – what if I chose the quality of my walk even more? if this one work example has such an impact, and I don’t just walk at work, what could happen?
The simplicity of this is profound and beautiful Anne.
Anne I simply love what you have shared in your blog, walking in joy. Something that as I first started reading I was unsure how to do that, unsure in the fact that most of my walking during the day is to get from A to B and the question about walking in joy simply doesn’t register. Yet as I read through each sentence and paragraph I could really feel how I have simply not made the choice, not considered it important to choose the fact that I would walk in Joy. Sometimes it naturally happens but what I can now feel is that as with everything in life I have a choice.
A choice indeed David. And so much to actually ‘play’ with… Sometimes I walk with a focus on the joy within, or appreciation, or amazingness, awesomeness, power…. What I’ve discovered, is that the difference felt is very immediate – experienced from my body. Why are we not taught (or reminded of) this in school, is the question we need to ask!!
This is so profoundly simple! “If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?” I often walk but haven’t chosen to walk in joy…that’s all about to change! Thank you for sharing and writing.
When I go walking it is in the very first step that seems to set the pattern of how the rest of my walk feels. If I start with a gentle focus on my connection to how my body feels and step out in the fullness of ‘all’ of me – the miracles of just ‘being’ and observing nature I capture each and every magical moment and joy is ever present. As you pose the question Anne “why do I walk in joy one day and not another?” I realise now it is how I have been living and the choices I’ve been choosing prior to ‘walking with all of me’ that determines every movement, every thought/action thereafter. Thank you Anne for sharing the beauty and ‘joy’ of walking and ‘walking in joy’.
Joy was felt in my body on reading the title of this blog Anne and this continued to expand throughout the article. It is beautiful how you have shared the differences in your walk dependent upon how you are feeling or being distracted by thoughts – this is so true for all of us and this blog is a great reminder of the subtle ways we can all get caught up with and thus not choose to be walking in Joy. The Magic of God moments are well worth appreciating and bring more awareness to make different choices to change our ingrained ways and thus supporting our evolution.
“thank goodness for the reflection of nature! I understood that I could not be walking in joy if my mind was wandering off, and that the swallow and the butterfly were simply reminding me of this”.
I love walking, and it’s something I have been focusing on bringing into my everyday rhythm. I haven’t ever consciously walked in joy however, when I walk fully connected to my body, feeling my feet on the ground, bringing awareness to my hips, knees, ankles, chest, arms – every part of me, I feel joyful and then every step is a beautiful confirmation of who I am. I see myself being reflected in the natural world around me – in every tree, bird, in the sunrise, in the river….. each playing their part to confirm that I am a Son of God and I am divine.
Anne, this is a beautiful article, i love the simplicity of what you have written here, ‘ If I simply choose to walk in joy then I do – how simple is that?’ I have noticed this in many other things in my life, that it can be a simple choice; to compare myself to others; to hold myself as less or to not do this and to instead to feel my loveliness, its amazing how we can make things so complicated unnecessarily.
This takes walking to a new level. I’ve learned to walk with myself, more often than not. There are times when I lose connection, my mind wanders here and there like the butterfly. As soon as I’m aware of this, I bring myself back. When we walk with our minds in the future or past, our walk takes on the energy of our thoughts: anxiousness, regret , upset whatever emotion we engage with in our heads. Staying consciously present is always a work in progress. It is a choice and Anne has says to walk in joy begins with a clear intention to do so.
Thank you for sharing your appreciation of when you chose to walk in joy and also for sharing the very practical examples of when your mind or an emotion has intervened and robbed you of this joyful connection with your body and nature. For me I still too often get lost in the twists and turns of my mind rather than coming back to the simple choice to walk in joy and I appreciate the inspiration to consistently choose joy.
Thank you for this Anne, walking is often seen as to only get us from A to B but it is so much more. I love to walk and especially that it can shift how I am feeling very easily. When I am feeling a bit heavy, I might not want to go for a walk, but always when I do and I really connect with my body and my playfulness it starts to express, and magnify throughout my whole body and I will feel totally different after my walk.
Sometimes the meaning of words can be lost, like ‘joy’ for example – do we really know what this means? Anne however has brought a great light to this word, she introduces to us that Joy is a bodily experience, and any time we are out of our body with our minds wandering off, we are not able to feel the Joy that is naturally present without any effort required – just a simple choice.
Beautifully said Shami – the simplest of choices, that as a humanity, we have become so adept at avoiding. As Anne’s blog and the comments here attest to, the richness and joy to be discovered, if we so choose, is profound.
Thank you Anne, the truth is always simple and this is a great reminder to walk with and in the quality of joy. Walking is such a healing when we are with our body, it always amazes me what the effect is when I choose to be present in my walk and I agree it all comes down to choice, in every moment of the day thus in every movement I make.
Joy sits in our body waiting to be revealed and lived. It is not exhilaration or excitement it is a true connection that we feel part of the whole; the whole part of the whole of divinity that we are. Joy is the bringing together of harmony and stillness, truth and love embodied. Walking in joy is the movement and celebration of the Will of God and has immense power to change the world.
I would never have imagined that the way we walk would have such profound effects, but like you Anne, I have been discovering the effects of the different ways of walking as presented by Serge Benhayon. Walking in joy is an exquisite way of walking and what I have discovered is that it makes me so much more aware of everything that is going on within me and around me.
I agree Elizabeth, I find when I walk I feel super aware of my body and how my body feels when its walking. When I’m not feeling myself it doesn’t take long while walking to connect and come back to me.
I have found that each walk brings with it a quality that others respond to. From the way I swing my arms, how I support my hips and whether my pace is slower or faster depending on the day and how I feel. So much to appreciate about a simple walk that support our connection to one self and others.
How we are when we walk can be an incredibly powerful reflection of what is going on for us. Are we mulling over the day, working on a problem, stuck in our heads… or simply feeling how our body is. Smooth and gliding, weary and sore. I had the most surprising revelation having spent many months just bringing it back to how my body was feeling, bringing it back to the now… I discovered that God was walking beside me! In fact he had been there the whole time, I just had not noticed.
That is so gorgeous Simon. It feels so supportive to know that God is with us all the time.
Beautiful Simon! How can God ever leave us? We just forget He’s there! How non imposing and patient is God?!
Love this, Bernadette – ‘How non imposing and patient is God?!’. Indeed!
As I read that I felt God beside me and a joy-full smile came to my face.
A truly divine sharing Simon. Boy, what we miss out on – such a relationship with God, the richness of who we are, our connection with others… through being ‘anywhere but here’. There is just so much that has always been waiting for us to simply come back to ourselves.
What a beautiful revelation Simon, it’s amazing how something as simple as feeling how we are when we walk allows us to connect to God and feel our universal connection.
Walking in joy is simply a choice – I love the direct simplicity of this message, Anne – thank you 🙂
Absolutely gorgeous Anne.
Walking in joy feels spacious and light and a movement that celebrates me for being in my body.
It’s absolutely my favourite daily exercise. Walking with my heart joyfully so.
Presentations by Serge Benhayon have introduced a whole new meaning to walking. Walking with the mind aware and connected to every step, feeling the earth beneath my feet and the energy I put into the earth and the energy that returns, feeling the quality of the movement, being aware of the magic of God in nature that surrounds me, bringing this openness to meet everyone I encounter on a walk, choosing to exercise my body and not my mind as I walk; there is a joy in appreciating who I naturally am as I walk through life – if I choose it.
Yes here is joy indeed in walking with appreciation of you.
I would walk in joy as well if I had sand beneath my feet, could watch patterns in the waves and had blue sky … but we don’t get that in London! Just joking ? ✨ What I really love about your blog Anne is your honesty, I can really relate with what you have shared in how our intentions to do something fizzle out, or we get tired, or distracted. What I have learnt (one of the many many things from Serge Benhayon) is that we can change and build this by constantly and consistently doing it. For example, over the last few days it has been brought to my attention how I move to places, this isn’t just walking outside but how I walk and move within my home from one room to another and at the moment it feels like I am dragging a sack of potatoes around with me! On some level I feel this is old energy and momentums of unloving ways I have lived coming up in my body to be cleared but I also know if I connect and choose to be present with me in every moment this will help to easily clear it.
Loved the ‘sack of potatoes’ Vicky, so descriptive of how you felt! It is great to bring honesty to how we are feeling in every moment and then we can choose ‘where to from here?’
Walking has a whole new perspective for me now – when I walk and connect with my body, it relaxes, which makes me realise just how much my thinking has created unnecessary tension. The joy comes naturally when I let go of my mind.
Oh Carmel! aint’t that the truth – “The joy comes naturally when I let go of my mind.” – so I wonder why we don’t just choose to be present, consciously present with every step, with every breath we breathe in gently. I guess the answer could be that it is a choice, and to be in the awareness constantly that there is a choice and why would we not want to choose the joy and connection with all that is – indeed why would we not, we are sons of God after all.
Encapsulated in the neatest nutshell Carmel Reid. The tensions, disharmony, discord, pain, illness and disease we have created via our own lack of presence with our bodies, and our preference for living from our heads, is today off the scale.
I have experienced this also – just how profound it is to come back to being with my body in what I am doing, and the vast difference this makes to my health, wellbeing and yes, consistency of connection to the joy that is within.
Anne, thank you for your sharing. I can relate to what you experience, and I discovered the choice you are talking of cannot be made from the head but can only come from the body to be a true choice. And when I make it from my body The consequence is that I do walk in joy, but if I choose it as an ideal what I should do the consequence is that I more feel in a struggle.
Joy is discovered in the quality of our movement . The simplicity of this revelation however does not suit the construct of our reality whereby we believe that we have to strive and achieve something in order to feel amazing. Meanwhile, nature is all around us showing us everyday that simplicity is everything.
How true Adam. Recently I have started walking and then feeling where I am at. If I am not feeling light and joy-full I change the quality of my movement by aligning to the energy that brings me the joy. I find nature is a huge support in thus aligning.
This is where we have got it so very wrong Adam in our methods of analysing life. The quality of a butterfly will never be found when it is pinned to a board. Nor will we understand a bird when we kill and stuff it, plain it on display in a museum.
Their magic is in their movement. It is by their movements that they reveal truth to us, should we be willing to pay attention.
I love what you are saying here Rachel, “The quality of a butterfly will never be found when it is pinned to a board. … Their magic is in their movement.” So superbly beautiful and true. It shows how very much we have made life rigid and static, plain lifeless, by thinking and practicing that everything can be captured and put on hold to be studied. All the while missing out on the true movement in every moment around and in us.
“The quality of a butterfly will never be found when it is pinned to a board.”
Rachel, you have redefined science. This would make the most poignant and truthful title of a book on the art of true science – and not reducing things (including ourselves) to component parts, but rather viewing the whole, in all its glory.
Great point Rachel, when we are analysing we are not in the same quality of movement as we are when we are just with ourselves, moving from the stillness within.
“Their magic is in their movement. It is by their movements that they reveal truth to us, should we be willing to pay attention.” This is the absolute truth Rachel, the quality of an animal, of a leaf falling is only known to us through it’s movements by what we feel when we see it. It either feels true or it doesn’t, a science and wisdom known that can be applied to everything we see and feel before us.
Well said, Candida – and for me, with nature, this always starts with appreciation of what is before me.
beautifully said Adam!
Beautifully said Adam. That we need be no more than all we naturally already are…
The ‘amazingness’ felt via the attainment and striving is but transient and not the true lasting and eternal joy that is actually accessible to us all, 24/7.
What a delightful reminder Anne that any moment we can choose to connect to the natural joy of our inner hearts and that any movement made in that connection is joyous. Similarly if we absorb life or react emotionally to aspects we carry that in our movements there after. Such a simple yet powerful observation of our bodies, we are indeed a living science that can be studied and appreciated for all its natural order and adherence to energetic law.
After my shower, I like to massage my feet with cream. AFterwards, when I walk I have so much more awareness of my feet, and they feel so very light. And my feet appreciate the attention and care I gave them.
I love that Jacqmcfadden04, and will start applying the same care to my feet.
Inspired also jacqmcfadden04. The simplest gesture of care and attentiveness, can offer us so much…
Do we truly and fully appreciate all our bodies ‘do’ for us – I’d say no, not by a long shot.
I agree Victoria. We don’t. At this very moment I am sitting in a hospital waiting room as a family member gets some support. And looking around at the discomfort, unease, obesity, disregard I see a lot of abuse to the body. It is amazing that our bodies still function, even poorly so with all that they get put through in society. Now if we allowed a true way of living this support from our body would be for vitality and vibrancy and not just to get through struggling in life. I feel we are to really become aware of just how much our body can support us.
I recognize jacqmcfadden04 that when I give my feet extra attention that my awareness of how I move them increases. This then has an effect on how I walk.
The way we walk tells us much Anne, as you so beautifully described. We can either walk in presence with our body and every step we make of we can wander off into our minds, in whatever we are distracted to, but in this way we are not with our body and are not able to feel the joy that is lived with every step that we make.
And wow oh wow is that a beautiful reflection to see – someone walking with presence and joy.
A gorgeous sharing Anne, that carries great power. What if we truly walked ‘with ourselves’ in our every step? What if we acknowledged that there is a wellspring of joy we can tap into within, and that our very movements can determine our connection to it, and its consistency?
I have learnt so much about walking and the way I move from Serge Benhayon also. It has completely changed my levels of vitality, the sense of knowing the intrinsic beauty of who I am, and my sense of purpose and ability to connect with and relate to others. These are no small things of which you speak here – ‘education 101’ that everyone deserves to know.
‘What if we acknowledged that there is a wellspring of joy we can tap into within, and that our very movements can determine our connection to it, and its consistency?’ This is beautiful Victoria and the more we connect to it, the more we inspire others to do the same.
So true Victoria. Walking is often seen just as a means to get from one place to another. The quality that we move and walk in and how it affects not only us but all others was not something I had ever considered before I heard it shared by Serge Benhayon. As you say, everyone deserves to know.
This is also true for me Victoria – even when things come up to feel that may not be so pleasant the authority of the body and walk still remains.
‘It has completely changed my levels of vitality, the sense of knowing the intrinsic beauty of who I am, and my sense of purpose and ability to connect with and relate to others.’
I to have much more awareness when I walk these days. And I observe that I start off walking with presence and feeling my body as I walk, but soon enough I am off in my thoughts. It is a constant work in progress.
Or a constant ‘walk’ in progress 😉
Love it Anne – such a great reminder, it is so true the quality we choose to do what we do is exactly that, a choice. To stay aware and connected to our bodies is the only way we can ensure this quality, the moment the mind takes over we have lost it.
And the mind is always trying to take over yet it has no power in comparison to the presence of being with the body. When we choose to not be with our body, there is a myriad of thoughts just waiting to take over.
Absolutely Eva. Yesterday I did not feel quite like myself and when I went for a walk knowing the power of reconnection it was so supportive to allow me to stay with my body and all that I was feeling. By walking in my knowing of who I truly am and not falling for me being what I feel, this walk yesterday allowed a huge shift and clarity to take place.
That is a huge learning alright Anne! The quality of our walks is a reflection of the quality of how we have lived up until that point. I realise it is not actually just about the choice to walk in joy per se but the momentum of how we have been that we take to it that becomes the founding quality of our walk. So we could ask instead, “if we have not been walking in joy then why have we not been choosing to live joy in our day?”
Yep, a very good point Joshua! The quality of our every movement is dependant upon what we choose in every moment -love or lovelessness?
Yes great point Joshua. There is much that we can look at and feel around this, although it is very powerful that at any moment we can choose to connect and walk with that Joy. It is our responsibility to then learn how to bring that to every movement as best we can if we are wanting to remain with our beautiful connection.