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
I find it a real joy when I exercise in this way that is truly supportive of the body… especially if the hill comes with good views!
This blog has stayed with me and I remember it each time I go up a hill – especially when I start to go into push & drive, I stop, connect to me and then go on and feel each step and my body. I am much more with me and my body. Thank you.
Such a great sharing Kim. Taking it one step at a time and then reaping the rewards (the view) not only at the end but all along the way.
Taking it one step at a time and without drive or ambition is the way with hills and I have just been putting it into practice myself; I have three inclines at my feet when I step outside and how far down I go changes from day to day depending on how I feel in my body. And I simply love how quickly the body responds and how the muscles know just what to do when I cooperate.
When we are present with our body we can feel when it is true to move, or to stop and have a rest, our body speaks loudly, we just have to listen and honour its communication.
Our body speaks super loudly we just have to choose to listen to it. It never gives up but always supports us to come back to the love that we all naturally are.
Hills like life can be a struggle if we make it such, what you share beautifully is that when we choose to connect with our body and inner quality there is no struggle but a natural flow.
Exactly Samantha, life is only struggle if we chose it to be.
I love the fact of loving our movements when they’re in line with the universe. So if I’m not loving my movements this is telling me something and I can change!
When my life is on purpose it flows and I feel vital and full of joy – quite the contrary to when I loose my connection to myself when it becomes a struggle and blame the world for being ‘stuck in a rut!’
‘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…’ I love this line Kim – so very true, when we’re connected to ourselves and living our lives with focus and purpose we will never tire and life flows with ease.
Every steep hill is another opportunity to connect with ourselves and with God, to realise deeper how supported we are in life. How beautiful.
We are forever supported, all we have to do is first acknowledge it, ask for it, listen for it – and then appreciate it!
What you describe here applies to every area in life, it is how and in what quality we move that brings true flow to life and builds true strength in our bodies.
Yes I am so used to the struggle of life that now that my life has becomes quite amazing, I don’t always stay with this, I drop the appreciation of this and then find that I am again moving with a heaviness and sluggishness that no longer needs to be there.
Great that you recognize that you may drop from time to time, but what is really amazing is that you have the awareness to make the choice to appreciate and come back to this amazingness which is our natural birth right, and just bubbling right there beneath the surface.
When there is purpose in what we do divinity is felt.
Walking a hill could be a symbolism of a challenging situation in life. For me for instance I find it challenging at times to be with a lot of people and away from home and would rather avoid climbing the hill so to speak. But what I found is my life got really boring or you could say flat because not doing things out of my comfort zone. Climbing the hill brings focus, insights and learnings that just walking the flat road doesn’t do. Or at least not as quickly!
I have never really liked hills either but if walked in presence without a goal that we need to get to the top it no longer becomes a chore or a need to get somewhere, but an enjoyable moment to appreciate. If we view life like this and that we are given things that may look difficult or challenging but if done without expectation or a need to think we have to get somewhere they become a learning and another opportunity to grow and evolve.
“I felt the immensity that I am – not just the physical body that is walking” This is so key. We are more than the physical body, but to feel this we need to stay in connection with the body, not wander off into our minds.
My body always feels vital after a gentle walk with the odd hill thrown in…it feels a super supportive way to exercise.
I was walking up the hills of the town I work in yesterday and appreciating that these have equal value in supporting me to connect to my body, trees are great, but they are not greater than I am, and my connection within comes first and foremost.
Presence is a beautifully expansive quality that allows us to feel and appreciate our movements. Lovely photo too.
‘…we love our movement for we are moving in tune with a far greater rhythm and not against it.’ The times when I am moving in tune with a far greater rhythm are the magical moments that bring me back to a child-like wonder. I can feel the expansiveness that this greater rhythm offers – the playfulness of the universe – and the joy that this being re-connected brings.
I love the hill’s, trees, wood’s, dales and meadows. They hold such beauty to remind ourselves who we are.
While the terrain is quite different in my neck of the woods I share your appreciation for the beauty of nature that surrounds us…reminding as you say of our own.
Yesterday I was walking up a slight hill that can be a bit challenging for me, I found myself frequently stopping and appreciating the stunning beauty of the sunset and so enjoyed my walk.
The other day I found myself on a walk that involved climbing a hill. I so appreciated the fact that my body had to work harder to get up it, that I had to stay present and feel my body as I walked (there really is no other choice when you are asking your body to exert itself) and at the top how warm I felt and how expanded!
A beautiful sharing Kim as I have never been fond of hill-walking. As you say “In connection, one cannot help but feel every breath and part of the body as it moves.” As i have been experimenting with walking a hill with this new awareness my enjoyment has increased.
A “pill” that is hard to swallow for some as we get lost in the ideals and believes that deliver the emotional love as mainstream, so we are walking against the tide until we connect with our “Soul” and True Love.
What am amazing approach to see hills and life, to be consistent, connected in each step and as we do we are in the rhythm and flow of life; we meet life with the solidness of who we are.
The more we appreciate what our walk brings then the more we walk and the greater appreciation helps us walk consistently, so that we then get fitter and walk more!
I love hills and dales, I love trees and streams and walking amongst them. It supports to bring me to my body.
Climbing for fun … I have never understood this! Mid-way through your blog my body felt a really lovely stillness and connection it knew what you were expressing and this naturally emanated within me. I could also feel my lungs and felt into when I was younger and for example rushing or walking fast etc how my lungs would always feel this .. they were showing me that I was not connected with me with God. So also a great reminder that when we do anything in connection, walking up a hill, making dinner, getting ready there is an ease in our whole being no stress, no drive, no push we drop into the flow. So if it feels this lovely, and from experience I know it does, why at times (or all the time!) do we continue to choose stress, push and use drive in life?
That made me remember the sharp pain in my lungs as well; isn’t it incredible what we put our body through?
Is it any wonder that we seek rewards, pots of gold at the pinnacle, sweet deals and nice words? For living without connection to joy in our body must create a deficit, a void that will be filled. So just like any natural law it seems we go out looking for substitutes to make us feel ‘good’. How beautiful Kim that you can use the very thing so many pursue to show there is another way that leaves a spring in every step we take instead.
We push ourselves so hard to achieve and yet the truth lies in us simply being. The more I can embody this truth the greater my connection to all the wisdom available in the space that surrounds us.
Beautiful Kim such a lovely reflection and inspiration “In connection, one cannot help but feel every breath and part of the body as it moves.” and the expansion in being part of the universe as one is the real gift we feel in connection to ourselves.
It is so beautiful what you have shared Kim how walking in connection is like making love, it is all about connection so that, ” Life becomes about movement, joy and making love.”
‘In connection, one cannot help but feel every breath and part of the body as it moves.’ This bodily experience is amazing in that all the concepts of how this is become so silly when it is simply felt in the body, becomes the body and from the body.
“When we are connected within to the light of our Soul/God/the Universe, we are expanded.” I loved reading this as it helped me appreciate the fact that the whole wisdom of the Universe is within me when I connect to my soul.
I agree. I find these words very gorgeous and a great reminder too David. Really it’s all there for us should we just choose to connect.
If I’ve got anything I look at and think it is going to be a long arduous journey I know I’m playing tricks on myself. All I need to do is stay present with each breath. I learn that I can deal with what comes my way and the less I’m hiding from responsibility the more I know I am fit for purpose.
Absolutely Karin, the breath is the movement that aligns us back to our true essence that knows the depth we are and the true strength we hold.
It is the push and drive associated with walking or running up hills that can make me shudder and say no thank you – but in reality if we stay with the body and its rhythm then the hills are just a flat on a slight incline! 😉
Very true. And we can listen to our body and adjust our pace and even the length of time that we walk. I find it always great to let go of rules, patterns and beliefs around how I move my body and exercise with it.
I can now say that I enjoy walking up hills too! I love the extra exercise that they offer and enjoy feeling my muscles work and build. On a recent trip to Barcelona I made a point of walking up my friend’s street that was on a steep incline a few times during my trip!
Walking on hills means no need for leg work-out at the gym. It’s an all in one workout. Add presence and we have a total body health and well being exercise for life.
I love the challenge that hills bring when we start to climb up them and then the grace of coming down the other side. Life too has its ups and downs but that ought to not deter us from how we walk our way through life.
Gorgeous analogy. Just recently I spent some time over east Australia and there were a lot of hills on my morning walk. This was completely different to the flat surfaces I am use to walking on in west Australia. I became very aware of my body and how I needed to move it in order to hold the quality in my walk.
Remaining consistent in our true commitment with our connection to our breath allows us to maintain the relationship however steep the hill maybe. The deeper we go with our self love the greater our understanding of the vibrations of the Universe and the way we can fight or embrace them.
Beautiful said Susan, consistency builds a solid foundation that allows another level to emerge.
With presence, every movement is a joy that keeps on giving, wether that be climbing a hill or attending to a customer. True movement doesn’t waste any energy, it continually builds more of itself.
And with this presence we can feel how to move and also when to stop. Always in honour of the body.
This is very important, knowing when to stop!