In the past, whenever I went for my walk, I was never aware in any way of how gorgeous I am. I would often try to fit my walk in, almost as part of some ‘have to do’ list of chores to complete; I was totally unaware of the power of my walk. It was like ticking off the day box by box, with no real respect for me and what I truly needed to support me.
I would then often find that my days lacked a sort of space just to ‘be’. I had spent so long each day trying to be someone – like the ‘student’, ‘son’, ‘flatmate’, ‘cook’ and many other masks I put on – that I had no real time to just enjoy the real me.
It seemed that my walks too were never really for me to enjoy my body moving, either. They were driven, needy, set to time, and often full of lots of distractions and off-topic thoughts, like how my day was going or what sort of things I had to do when I got to work. I very rarely enjoyed the spaciousness that they could offer me. I was so caught up in my day and having to be someone, that to just be in my walk and enjoy that, seemed all too much. Seems that the masks had become so much a part of me I had forgotten what I felt like without them on!
I was rarely with myself. A friend asked me to recall what my feet felt like during my walks. I could not remember. I was so off in being someone or something else that my feet didn’t seem to be a part of me at all. They just seemed to be things that carried me from A to B and needed some maintenance from time to time – like going for walks, etc. They were my personal, in-built transport machines.
Not long ago though, I had the most revealing and deeply supportive moments I had felt on my walks in a long time.
I felt me.
Yep, I took the masks off and was agape at who I saw: a deeply tender, handsome man.
For the first time in ages I could feel that my walk was not based around getting anywhere, doing anything or trying to be someone. I wasn’t even concerned about the time. I took the moment as a space for me to enjoy me.
I found that in this space I could feel the gentle spring in each step I took, and the delicate wisp of my presence that warmed my chest each time I breathed. I could feel the deep simplicity of my walk, my love, and me. It was a time that was not governed by a need to finish something because I could feel how I was complete as I was. There was no need to worry about life because I could feel that my still presence offered all the strength I needed.
The work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine has inspired me to live my life in a more gentle way, focussing on each step I take.
So now when I go for my walk, I enjoy the power of my walk and how gorgeous it is to be me, taking each step.
by Joshua Campbell (21) Living in Christchurch, NZ
897 Comments
On my morning walks I have been feeling in to how to walk with my arms supported by my skeleton rather than my shoulders and muscles. It is bringing so much more awareness to my movements and how I am feeling in my body. Painful at times due to the many years of walking with tensed shoulder muscles, but I find myself full of amazement and awe in those moments that I manage to allow this loving support from my skeleton.
This is a timeless blog, Joshua. Short, powerfull and timeless – a beautiful sharing.
Thank you Joshua, it’s such a simple thing walking but the energy and intent behind it totally changes the experience. “I wasn’t even concerned about the time. I took the moment as a space for me to enjoy me.” Gosh, how often do we do this, just take the space to enjoy being ourselves? We seem to be such a ‘doing’ addicted society, forever moving from one thing to the other and even when we physically stop we can be running on high gear still within ourselves thinking up a storm. Making space for ourselves can be the beginning of returning to live simply being ourselves in every moment.
The power of our walk can be deeply healing. The quality of our walk can essentially be very beneficial to our health, improve how we feel and support our connection to our body and its greater intelligence.
A gorgeous reminder how important our daily walk is, to connect and spend time with ourselves, ‘So now when I go for my walk, I enjoy the power of my walk and how gorgeous it is to be me, taking each step.’
I’m with you on that one Josh, ‘I enjoy the power of my walk and how gorgeous it is to be me, taking each step’. I’ve recently attended the walking therapies taught by Serge Benhayon and they are truly God sent.
I love the reminder here, that we can approach something merely from function or we can in fact be with ourselves, feeling each step and the magic and simplicity of that is there for us; it will be fun walking with this.
So often a walk is a functional thing, carrying us from A to B, for exercise, walking the dog etc. Yet each one (yes even the trip to the bathroom) is an opportunity to connect to the body, to how we are feeling, to the innate joy inside, to our Divinity, to us. Suddenly that trip to the bathroom has a whole heap more purpose!
This really shows how we can’t just live in our head day in day out and then expect us to be able to feel our body when we are walking. Even though walking is a great way to see where we are at and come back into our body by only focussing on our arms and legs moving it is not a magic switch we can turn. It is about how we live in every moment in our life that will govern the quality of how we are able to walk.
For some time now I’m exploring the way I walk more deeply. It’s amazing how much I can feel, understand and even heal about myself just by being present in my walk, in every little bit of my body. I’ve been able to observe very ingrained patterns that aligned my body to a very self-destructive movements. Being aware of this has allowed me to make the choice of moving myself in a very different quality, by aligning to a loving source of movements. What a big difference this is! I can now feel the space that is available to me, to simply expand my presence in it by honouring the treasure of who I am… and bringing that fullness in every step is being life-changing for me.
Love this reminder that walking, like anything, is something that we can use to either feel more deeply who we are, as we move, or to disconnect and move further away from that.
So true, Bryony, if we master walking with deep connection to our essence then it should be easy to do the same with everything else that we do and in all our movements.
Always a choice, and always good to be reminded of the choices we have in every minute.
Through our movements we can explore our connection to deepening, embodying and magnifying our Soulful light, who we are in essence. And when we simply just are with this, yes, it is exquisite beyond measure as we are walking in the activation of our true power.
Thanks for the reminder Josh – when I surrender to being with myself whilst I am walking not only is it so enjoyable but the expansiveness that I feel in my body supports me throughout my day.
A great reminder that surrendering to being me, being with my body whilst I am walking supports me throughout my day.
I never used to pay much attention to my walk but now, I have learned that our walk is very important and it can be deeply powerful when we walk with joy and connected to our body. It changes our posture and the energy we align to when we walk with joy.
What I love about walking is exactly this: this opportunity of checking in, feeling where our body is at, how we’ve been moving and living. Have we been bringing our all in every moment, or walking in smallness and contraction? It’s a stop moment and an opportunity to reset, to reconfigure our movements, and invite more space into our bodies – through simply feeling where we’re at.
There is something magical about a walk: what we practice during a walk, transfers throughout our whole day. So when we practice experiencing joy – a joy that is always there but just needs reconnecting to – we experience more joy in the day.
Absolutely and when we walk with ourselves it supports us to maintain this connection in whatever activity we move onto next.
I totally love this blog Josh, it’s so gorgeous to read a mans love for his tender self.
Absolutely Kim – and inspiring to feel power in not being afraid to claim it.
Thank you for this beautiful blog Josh. It is a beautiful reminder for us to connect to ourselves, the tender, gorgeous and glorious being we are in our walk and in everything we do. To allow the world to see who we are and share the joy we can feel from within through reconnecting to our innermost and express from this gorgeous place.
Just recently I have felt my walk shift and re configure into a deeper more powerful one which has come from me not contracting and not wanting to be seen to actually embracing all that I am and sharing it will all that I walk past. The more I feel how awesome this is the more I can’t go back to the old way of walking in contraction.
This is amazing Natalie, the shift you are experiencing. I find this kind of shift is very difficult to do mentally, it has to come from a shift in how we live not just in how we walk that we can then move without contraction or holding back. It is incredible to feel and see the change when we commit to living in our power more and more.
You would say walking is simple, but there actually is a lot in walking, which we do a lot. We walk with an energy that is loving or an energy that is unloving and there is no middle ground. One of the keys in walking with energy that is loving is really feeling your body and having your mind with what your body is doing.
When I used to go for walks my mind would often wander off but after Serge Benhayon pointed out some things about the power of walking connected to your body, it has changed the way I walk. I am much more light on my feet and much more purposeful in my walk.
‘ I was so off in being someone or something else that my feet didn’t seem to be a part of me at all.’ And you are not the only one Joshua our feet seem to be so faraway that a lot of people don’t truly care for their feet and are disconnected from that ‘far end’ of their body. When I just hold their feet in my hands (in my practice) they feel they come back to themselves and feel the love flow through their body. Our feet are so much more than ‘in-built transport machines’
Yes and how lovely to feel our feet when we walk , how they touch the ground, the relationship they have with it, with the rest of our bodies and with us. There was a period when I was massaging my feet every night before I went to bed. I put esoteric medicine cream with a few drops of bergamot and massaged my ankles first and then my feet. I was only thinking the other night how lovely this was and how I might bring this back in in to my nightly ritual which feels much more solid now. Thank you Annelies for reminding me to appreciate my feet and to honour them with some tender loving touch.