Let me just start by saying I have never liked hills. I always dreaded the pain in my body, the struggle to reach the top, the exhaustion that soon followed. I never understood why people would choose to put their body through such pain… for what? To ‘conquer’ a hill? To feel like they had achieved something? To feel they could make their body do ‘incredible feats’? It all seemed such a push and drive, with a lot of pain, without much to truly gain at the end of it, except perhaps the initial high of achievement and an inflated sense of self to make up for a deep-seated lack of self-worth that is not being addressed. Climbing hills seemed to me to be clearly about ‘proving’ something.
Come many years later and I have moved to a road that has an incredibly steep, long hill. I do have the option to walk a flat road one way if I so choose.
I had been pre-warned by a neighbour to take it slow and start by only doing half to begin with. So one day I stood at the top of the hill with a view that takes your breath away, and taking the advice from my neighbour, I started my half way descent.
I knew from past hill experience that if I went into drive I would be exhausted and out of breath, so I made a conscious effort to stay with my body and feel each step. I took in the view with every breath and with every breath felt the expansion within as I opened up to feeling my connection with my environment, the world around and within me – the undeniable Oneness with God felt in every cell of my body.
In connection, one cannot help but feel every breath and part of the body as it moves.
I came to a halfway point I had noted at the beginning and turned around. Now this part would usually be my most dreaded part, but not today in this solid connection I had built with my every step on my descent. I started on my way back up, still very connected and expanded, feeling my every move. I noticed that if I stepped away from this connection and my mind would wander to some mental issue, the walk felt hard on my legs, I would lose the consistency of my step and it would become unpleasant. Bringing back the connection, my breath became steady, my body expanded, I felt the immensity that I am – not just the physical body that is walking – and I kept moving with ease.
I have now managed to walk the full length of this hill many times and every time my enjoyment increases.
I began to see how life is the same process as this hill. When we are connected within to the light of our Soul/God/the Universe, we are expanded. We feel the delicateness of our bodies; we take note of our movement. In fact, we love our movement for we are moving in tune with a far greater rhythm and not against it.
I often appreciate how this is what making love truly is. It is in our every move in synergy with the whole that we are a part of. When we are present with this movement nothing is hard, a push, or done in drive. Life becomes about movement, joy and making love. We don’t get tired, for it’s impossible to get tired from love; it’s the ultimate health pill that supports every inch of our being.
This hill has given me an incredible marker for how I can live my everyday if I make my everyday about consistency, connection and God, and wow – what an incredible life is on offer if one chooses to love hills!
By Kim Weston, NSW, a forever student of The Livingness
Further Reading:
Exercise – it doesn’t need to be hard work
Enjoying my Gentle Exercise Programme
Self-worth and self-development – does it work?
624 Comments
What a learning is given to you for living on a hill, Kim. You have learnt to hold your connection to your body as you move and not drive yourself up like in a race. Staying with your rhythm as you move has been very healing.
The love is in us. A pull we might have resisted, yet endlessly is calling us. When are we planning on answering? We might wanna schedule that soon!
Our movements show us exactly what is happening in the body so when there is drive and push, the tension can be felt very strongly. I have been unwell recently and even a short walk uphill or a flight of stairs is showing me how I am losing connection to the body. Instead of pushing through this, as I would have done in the past, I am finding it is increasingly my awareness of my movements with the body.
I have recently decided to use the stair in the flats where I live rather than the lift and can really appreciate that the way I approach climbing them affects the experience I have of doing so. Not only that but I can feel the culmination of all my daily choices.
Walking the same hill over and over again will eventually train your body. The question only is, does the fitness come from a hardening of the body or like you described Kim, from an open, fluid, honoured body. What if actually only connecting to our body and being present is already an exercise for every cell and the muscles?. Even without hill ?
“In fact, we love our movement for we are moving in tune with a far greater rhythm and not against it.”
I was swimming today and was so much in the flow of the universe… It felt easy, I could have swam forever, as it was a gliding and not a with effort moving forward. Totally in sync with the rhythm of the sequences of the body parts moving. The most important part when starting to swim is- to push away from the wall. When this push is connected with me and my body, everything is already constellated to flow.
I remember as a child climbing a hill onetime, and feeling really grumpy and had a headache before I started the climb, becaude I was in a situation that I did not want to be in and had no apparent way to get out of it. But having got to the top of the hill, my mood had cleared and the headache had gone. It is so great when we allow our bodies to move in a flow that supports them, and then they just feed us back with so many benefits!
I’ve found that bringing quality to walking can actually support many aspects of my life.
I helped someone move house yesterday into an apartment on the third floor (no lift) so it was up and down the stairs with boxes , a couch and washing machine etc, if I am honest I was dreading it and thought that maybe it was going to be too much for me, but it was just one item at a time and I was focused on my breathing and took care with how I moved and how I lifted things and the job was all done before we knew it.
What you’ve written about your relationship with hills here can be applied to anything we don’t want to do – our tax returns, finances, difficult things at work, tricky or awkward conversations, decisions that we’re not sure about.. we put them off and make them far bigger and more impossible to do or start in our minds than they actually are that it’s no wonder we put things off. Life is a lot simpler when we ignore those thoughts of ‘too difficult’ and just get on with it and do it anyway: once we’ve taken the first step, we take another, and another, until it is complete, and then move on to the next thing. When we stay connected to our bodies, anything we’re doing is an opportunity for deeper joy and connection, and to do what we do, with ease.
I never knew hills were this wonderful and such great teachers – one step at a time, staying connected and being part of the all seems what it is all about to turn an arduous task into a joy and great learning.
“.. nothing is hard, a push, or done in drive. Life becomes about movement, joy and making love. We don’t get tired, for it’s impossible to get tired from love; “What a really beautiful sharing that is so real and an inspiration to be in connection with our body and the love and energy we are from and is something that I feel and relate to also.
I fully notice and feel the difference when I bring my focus to the quality of my breath, my movements and connection with my environment from this place and how this way of being with ease and flow is now to be my new normal.
I am amazed how the hills seem smaller over time, i.e. they get easier and easier for my body!
When we cherish our movements there no obstacle that can get in our way. Live disregarding them and our every day is a metaphorical mountain that we struggle to overcome. There is no need or glory in pushing through this way. Thank you Kim.
Great article. How we are with hills, we can be with life. Life flows; is a joy when we are connected to our bodies and feel all around us.
We imagine life to be an uphill battle, we push ourselves to achieve and reach the top. However what you’ve shared here is that this does not have to be the case, if we take life one step at a time we can take solid leaps forward with ease.
I love hills, I love walking and I love the feeling of connection when I put the two loves together.
I’ve noticed it’s not so much about what I do but how I do it.
“In connection, one cannot help but feel every breath and part of the body as it moves.” This is so true, and the more we move in this way, the more we are inspired to do it.
It is a great thing to learn, to walk up a hill without going into push and struggle, it is a great metaphor for life.
My body has come to love the ‘bite’ that it feels that it gets when going up a gentle incline.
‘This hill has given me an incredible marker for how I can live my everyday if I make my everyday about consistency, connection and God, and wow – what an incredible life is on offer if one chooses to love hills!’ Beautifully said Kim .where we source our energy from is the key.
‘We don’t get tired, for it’s impossible to get tired from love; it’s the ultimate health pill that supports every inch of our being.’ Free medication which reverses all ill health and yet we pretend that we do not know about it for so long and in the face of so many ills.
In relating this to all situations that we experience in life we can learn so much. Everything which feels like a challenge is an opportunity.
For me, being in connection with myself is the difference between a day that flows smoothly and effortlessly and a day that stutters along and often finds me being tripped up by the challenges of life. I have also found that it doesn’t’ take much to be in connection to me, just the simple choice to feel my breath flow gently in and out of my nose and with this gentle rhythm begin to take one step at a time, a step that is taken with every part of me in connection to every other part of my glorious body.
Kim you’re experience of the hill is no different to things that play out in our everyday life. But it is who we are in it that makes it hill or Mount Everest. Connection to oneself is the key.
I used to want to climb the biggest hills, now I am supremely happy to walk the foot hills and deeply appreciate the beauty of the vistas around me.
Being connected in everything we do is part of loving and cherishing ourselves, ‘ Bringing back the connection, my breath became steady, my body expanded, I felt the immensity that I am – not just the physical body that is walking – and I kept moving with ease.’
What I am understanding from your blog today Kim is that life can sometimes seem challenging or difficult or super intense and there can even sometimes be a sense that we are not even supposed to be here on this planet, such is the harshness of our surroundings, human relationships and the environment – this is the hill that we all live on which does seem at odds with our bodies and our being. However even in the face of this, we can choose to have a depth of connection and awareness with our breath and our bodies which supersedes this experience and allows us to move and live with ease even though the actual ‘hill’ has not changed (yet).
When we move in line with the universal flow of life we ‘make love’ or expand the love that already is there and that we are all made of.
‘It’s impossible to get tired from love’ indeed and to have those things in our days which show us that is such a gift be they hills or other.
No coincidence that in life we find ourselves in the exact situation required to challenge that which we hold onto and allows us to learn.
I always love to climb up as I do also in daily life. I love evolution and love to move my body in a flow that supports me to take all steps needed. It is a great feeling in the body.
“Bringing back the connection, my breath became steady, my body expanded, I felt the immensity that I am – not just the physical body that is walking – and I kept moving with ease” – beautiful. Breathing gently gives us our connection and in this quality connection we walk, move, live life truly where our breath becomes our eye.
I agree totally Zofia – noticing changes in our breathing due to things around us can also reveal our own reactions and bringing a focus back to the quality of breath supports us to not be altered in reaction to them.
I love walking as a form of exercise, it gives me the opportunity to tune in more clearly with my whole body and how I’m feeling, to let go of any areas that I’m holding in excess tension and to enjoy moving and freeing up my body.
‘I knew from past hill experience that if I went into drive I would be exhausted and out of breath, so I made a conscious effort to stay with my body and feel each step. ‘ I know this with getting tasks done – when I think about what I’ve got to do, that it’s all up to me to do it I get easily overwhelmed and have to rest! When I stay with me and just complete what’s there in front of me no energy is wasted and I am fine, I don’t get exhausted!
I have been studying something recently that felt like an uphill battle at first, but as soon as I surrendered to the process and made my connection to myself a constant bearing, it has been amazing to feel what is possible.
I have found that with consistency and allowing something to unfold rather than ‘pushing’ to achieve something, which includes walking up hills, then after a while what had seemed difficult no longer does and the awareness gained always surprising.
Very true Jonathan and equally that which can seem a challenge initially may be most deserving of our awareness and attention.
There is so much being communicated to us constantly on a symbolic level, all there waiting for us to open our eyes and see it.