While Walking: Reflections for the Distance

By Kim Cottrell

After dozens of walks up my favorite hill, it’s obvious that the quality in my movements is heavily influenced by the relentless thoughts and voices in my head. Some days, with wooden legs stiffly moving into my warm up, my thoughts are equally stiff and difficult to sort through.Other days, I float up the hill, freedom and silence growing with every step.

Whether pep-talk or judgment, the noise in my head is mostly constant, dominating all my walking experiences. Even now, after years of walking, whether with others or alone, the voices rattle on. To honor these unshushable thoughts, my warming-up period now includes time to inventory the worries, anxieties, and to-dos that accompany me. A previous discussion with a friend, errands for the way home, concerns over an ill relative, all find their way into my consciousness.

This chatter was even worse when preparing for my first marathon in 1990. Thirty-year-old Kim doggedly forced herself during training walks, constantly attempted to shave time, and neglected a painful knee and foot. Her anxieties were squashed down by efforts to perform and her walks were a completely disembodied experience. She spent more time worrying over the best shoes or the just-so outfit than changing her walking habits to improve her comfort. It was all about pushing herself to the limit, as if enduring pain was somehow required.

These days, my mind relishes every opportunity on the trail, and settling into a walk serves as my metaphor for settling into me. Deep listening, and taking a moment for my thoughts, begins with one foot, then the other, each step observed and noticed, finding my breath, and then scanning for the new and familiar. Minute after minute of noticing calm areas aching from attention, those forgotten parts of me. Pains noted, my attention washes them in a soothing focus, surrounding and cloaking them. Nothing gets asked; no changes are forced, no judgments meted out — only listening, noticing, and more noticing. As if attention alone is the salve for sore muscles.

Without really planning it, this way of taking inventory has become essential. Each walk begins with a period of listening to the thoughts, then a waiting for them to quiet. Once quiet, my attention shifts to my movements and carefully notices the internal landscape. Not surprisingly, this is easier done when my walks take me away from the sidewalk.

For some reason pavement compels me to compete, if only with myself. During my 2003 marathon training, an injury occurred while pushing myself to walk faster instead of listening to the rhythm of my body and movement. Fortunately, this injury brought me to my senses and invited a giving up of a decades-old strategy of forcing harder when the training became more demanding. Interestingly, my finish was 45 minutes faster and significantly more enjoyable despite the pulled hamstring. Because of my sense of being connected to me, I was more aware of what was going on around and within me and more able to maintain my comfort as well as my speed.

Like a meditation or running practice, with more experience it becomes easier to notice and listen to my body. In my own practice, I’ve found it vital to not judge myself and to open myself to questions that steer my awareness. I’ve also discovered that observing my comfort at work, while driving, sitting, and standing helps me on race day. In addition, walking on trails gets me off the hamster wheel of thoughts that stiffens my ankles, knees, and hips and slows me down.

Each time a particular discomfort knocks on the door of my awareness, my attention goes to some part of my movement. Surprisingly, it doesn’t much matter if it’s the uncomfortable part I notice or something else because by the time my focus bathes my entire being in a most intense scrutiny, something in how I use myself shifts, and I no longer walk exactly as I began. And after
30 minutes of awareness, those irritating thoughts and hurts are usually blissfully gone, but if they aren’t, I simply start over.

With attention focused on each moment, work, time, and the voices in my head gradually quiet. When the darkest recesses of my mind open and the voices go, I experience an incredible internal silence, a silence that wondrously opens space for more breath, for more me, for more life.

Kim Cottrell, two-time finisher of both the Portland Marathon and the Portland-to-Coast Relay, author, and Feldenkrais practitioner, facilitates self- and body-image lessons that improve the quality of her clients’ lives.