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Walking Meditation for Nervous System Regulation | Mindfulness in Motion · Calm By Lane

0:00
Lane Kennedy: Welcome.
0:01
Lane Kennedy: Welcome to Calm by Lane, Meditations for Life.
0:03
Lane Kennedy: I'm Lane Kennedy.
0:05
Lane Kennedy: Thanks for tuning in today.
0:07
Lane Kennedy: Today, I wanna talk about something that's so simple, we overlook it.
0:14
Lane Kennedy: We...
0:14
Lane Kennedy: I-I-It's just, like, so common.
0:17
Lane Kennedy: We do it every day.
0:19
Lane Kennedy: It's like brushing our teeth, and we can use it as a practice.
0:24
Lane Kennedy: Just like we can use brushing our teeth, actually.
0:27
Lane Kennedy: It's walking.
0:29
Lane Kennedy: Walking.
0:31
Lane Kennedy: Yeah, walking.
0:33
Lane Kennedy: Not walking to get your steps in, because I know so many are obsessed.
0:38
Lane Kennedy: I used to be.
0:39
Lane Kennedy: And not walking to burn calories or close another ring on your watch.
0:44
Lane Kennedy: I'm talking about walking as a way to work with your nervous system, to change your relationship with stress, and become a little more present in your own life.
0:57
Lane Kennedy: And before we get into it, I just want to remind you that this is a free podcast supported by the Calm by Lane Premium Practice Library.
1:05
Lane Kennedy: And that's where you'll find my longer meditations, breathwork, practices, sleep stories, and guided nervous system practices.
1:15
Lane Kennedy: You can learn more about that over at lanekennedy.com/practicewithme.
1:21
Lane Kennedy: So let's get into this.
1:24
Lane Kennedy: Let's get back to walking.
1:26
Lane Kennedy: I've spent, I don't know, at this point, maybe 15 years teaching people how to work with stress.
1:32
Lane Kennedy: And one thing I've learned is that sometimes the most useful practices are the ones we can actually bring into our daily lives, just how we move about in life.
1:49
Lane Kennedy: And you don't need to set another appointment or, you know, mark your calendar.
1:54
Lane Kennedy: Uh, you don't need a special equipment, and you certainly won't need to spend an hour trying to make your mind quiet.
2:03
Lane Kennedy: Uh, like, that's not a part of this.
2:06
Lane Kennedy: You can just begin with ten minutes and your sidewalk or a dirt road or cobblestone or wherever you're at.
2:16
Lane Kennedy: But there's an important distinction between going for a walk and practicing walking meditation, and that's what I want to explore with you today.
2:27
Lane Kennedy: Yeah.
2:28
Lane Kennedy: Because your body can be walking while your mind is having an entirely different experience.
2:36
Lane Kennedy: So just think about your last walk.
2:41
Lane Kennedy: Were you actually there?
2:45
Lane Kennedy: Your eyes were open You were there, right?
2:49
Lane Kennedy: Right.
2:49
Lane Kennedy: Were you?
2:50
Lane Kennedy: Or, or were you replaying a conversation?
2:54
Lane Kennedy: Or maybe you were worrying about your laundry list of things to do, or what's gonna happen tomorrow, or spring break or Christmas break or next year, thinking about what you needed to accomplish, or, uh, I mean, maybe you
3:13
Lane Kennedy: were listening to something Like maybe you are right now.
3:20
Lane Kennedy: And maybe you were barely noticing where you were walking.
3:26
Lane Kennedy: We do this all the time, my friend.
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Lane Kennedy: I do this all the time too.
3:31
Lane Kennedy: Our bodies are moving through the world while our attention is somewhere entirely different.
3:39
Lane Kennedy: And walking meditation gives us an opportunity to bring those two things together.
3:46
Lane Kennedy: And there's some fascinating neuroscience behind why this matters, and I, you know, since my collapse and really investigating stress and the hormones of stress and the difference between joy and stress and the molecules of meditation, like I've gone
4:05
Lane Kennedy: down this rabbit hole so far that I really wanna include some information around this.
4:13
Lane Kennedy: Okay?
4:14
Lane Kennedy: So when we're stressed, our attention becomes very narrow.
4:20
Lane Kennedy: Just imagine that for a minute.
4:21
Lane Kennedy: Think about that.
4:22
Lane Kennedy: When you're stressed, you're, you're, you're just, you're right on that one subject matter.
4:28
Lane Kennedy: We focus on the problem.
4:30
Lane Kennedy: And now that can be the deadline or it could be y-your, your child, your relationship, your job, right?
4:40
Lane Kennedy: It's like just one thing, the symptom if you're in bed.
4:44
Lane Kennedy: The thing that hasn't happened yet.
4:48
Lane Kennedy: The thing that perhaps happened yesterday.
4:51
Lane Kennedy: And we're still trying to understand it.
4:53
Lane Kennedy: We're still trying to comprehend it.
4:55
Lane Kennedy: The...
4:55
Lane Kennedy: We just focus right into that.
4:58
Lane Kennedy: And the body begins to respond to those thoughts.
5:03
Lane Kennedy: And your brain, the magic of the brain, geez, it doesn't simply observe the world.
5:10
Lane Kennedy: It's constantly interpreting information, predicting what might happen next, and preparing your body to respond.
5:21
Lane Kennedy: It's predictive processing.
5:25
Lane Kennedy: And sometimes those predictions are useful.
5:30
Lane Kennedy: They help us navigate traffic, right?
5:32
Lane Kennedy: Like we don't wanna jump out into traffic.
5:36
Lane Kennedy: Uh, they recognize danger.
5:38
Lane Kennedy: And we can move through the day without having to consciously think about every little detail.
5:45
Lane Kennedy: That's awesome.
5:47
Lane Kennedy: But when we're living with chronic stress, we can become increasingly focused on potential threats.
5:55
Lane Kennedy: And here's something I want you to just open your mind to consider.
6:02
Lane Kennedy: A lot of times when I'm teaching my students in class, I'll say, "Just open your mind."
6:06
Lane Kennedy: Just like that.
6:06
Lane Kennedy: Have an open curiosity around this.
6:08
Lane Kennedy: Consider it So you might be walking through a beautiful neighborhood, perhaps it's your neighborhood or maybe it's someone else's, and the sunshine it's on your face and the birds are singing in the trees.
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Lane Kennedy: And while your body is responding to an argument that happened three days ago, you're missing, you're missing it all.
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Lane Kennedy: You're missing the environment that you're physically in, and the experience in your brain is generating something completely different.
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Lane Kennedy: And this is where attention becomes like crazy, like wow.
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Lane Kennedy: So when you deliberately notice your feet touching the ground, and this is something I teach in class, it's like right foot, left foot, feeling the sensations of your feet, the movement of your legs, the temperature of the air
7:09
Lane Kennedy: on your skin, the sound of the birds.
7:13
Lane Kennedy: You're giving your brain information about what's happening right now in this moment.
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Lane Kennedy: You're shifting some of your attention away from the story and towards direct sensory experience, right?
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Lane Kennedy: So we're going from that closed little tiny focus to this broad open space, and that matters because attention helps shape what your brain prioritizes.
7:44
Lane Kennedy: Now, I wanna be super careful here because I've had students say, "Okay, then I'm just gonna do walking meditation all the time."
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Lane Kennedy: No.
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Lane Kennedy: Walking meditation isn't just a magic switch that turns off your sympathetic nervous system, that stress response.
8:01
Lane Kennedy: Your stress response isn't something we should be trying to eliminate, like we need it.
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Lane Kennedy: What we're practicing is flexibility, the ability to notice when attention has become caught in worry, and then we can bring it back and return to the present and give the body an opportunity to respond to more than just
8:27
Lane Kennedy: the thoughts And you can just kind of ebb and flow.
8:34
Lane Kennedy: And we're gonna explore more of this in a couple minutes.
8:38
Lane Kennedy: I'm gonna actually take you through a practice.
8:40
Lane Kennedy: But I, I wanna also share about this movement part, you know, this right foot, left foot.
8:46
Lane Kennedy: Uh, there's another piece to this walking meditation that I find super interesting, and it is this, this movement.
8:54
Lane Kennedy: When you're, when you're walking, your body is coordinating an extraordinary amount of information, right?
9:01
Lane Kennedy: Your feet are contacting the ground.
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Lane Kennedy: Your joints are changing positions.
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Lane Kennedy: Your muscles are contracting and releasing.
9:11
Lane Kennedy: Your vestibular system is helping you maintain equilibrium, right?
9:15
Lane Kennedy: Your balance.
9:17
Lane Kennedy: And your eyes are taking in that information about the information, right?
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Lane Kennedy: Your...
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Lane Kennedy: Like, this environment of yours.
9:24
Lane Kennedy: The ocular nerve is like, whoa, open wide.
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Lane Kennedy: And your brain is continuously integrating all of this.
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Lane Kennedy: And most of it happens without conscious effort.
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Lane Kennedy: Like, you don't have to tell your right leg to, "Okay, move forward," right?
9:44
Lane Kennedy: Like, you don't have to calculate the exact amount of force required for the step.
9:51
Lane Kennedy: Like, your body knows how to walk.
9:53
Lane Kennedy: And when you begin paying attention to that movement, you have something physical and rhythmic to return to, right?
10:00
Lane Kennedy: Left foot, right foot, the weight transferring, the body moving through space.
10:07
Lane Kennedy: And this is one of the reasons why I love walking meditation for people who find sitting meditation so challenging.
10:14
Lane Kennedy: And I've had students in class that have said like, "This, this, this, this stinks, Leigh, and I can't do it."
10:20
Lane Kennedy: And I'm like, "Okay, then get up.
10:21
Lane Kennedy: Let's walk."
10:22
Lane Kennedy: I had a student, uh, a couple months back say, "I just wanna move my body all the time."
10:28
Lane Kennedy: And I said, "Okay, then let's create a dancing practice for you."
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Lane Kennedy: And it was magical.
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Lane Kennedy: She found her stillness while moving with dance.
10:39
Lane Kennedy: So when I'm working with somebody, I really try to help them find what's going to f- get them to that nice, juicy place.
10:49
Lane Kennedy: Okay, let's keep going here.
10:50
Lane Kennedy: So sometimes sitting still can make...
10:55
Lane Kennedy: Hmm.
10:57
Lane Kennedy: It can be- It can make us ruminate, right?
11:01
Lane Kennedy: We can really start to become restless with our thoughts.
11:05
Lane Kennedy: And then sometimes I know when I was in bed, it would make my sensations more uncomfortable and it would, uh, just made things so much worse.
11:17
Lane Kennedy: So sitting still, you know, like if you have to move, I'm all for it.
11:23
Lane Kennedy: Movement gives attention a different kind of anchor and there's no rule that says meditation must happen with your eyes closed and your legs crossed and you're in kumbaya.
11:34
Lane Kennedy: Like, no.
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Lane Kennedy: Like, in fact, for somebody who's already feeling overwhelmed, adding another expectation about how they're supposed to meditate can become one more, like, source of pressure and we don't need that when we come to practice.
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Lane Kennedy: We need to have this, again, this open spaciousness, this curiosity and walking is wonderfully ordinary.
12:05
Lane Kennedy: It's so good.
12:08
Lane Kennedy: So if you've been following me for a while, you know that I live in San Francisco and if you don't and you're brand new, thanks for hanging out with me.
12:17
Lane Kennedy: But I live here in San Francisco and one of the things I love about the city is that you can walk through completely different sensory environments within, uh, like two blocks, uh, l- literally, you know, like five minutes
12:32
Lane Kennedy: because we have all these microclimates.
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Lane Kennedy: Uh, we have different hills, different landscapes and in Noe Valley, which is the neighborhood that I live in, out of the many neighborhoods here, you might hear children playing at the park or a tennis ball hitting a racket
12:50
Lane Kennedy: or dogs just, you know, barking and people talking outside the coffee shop.
12:56
Lane Kennedy: And you can notice the colors of the houses, the front doors, the flowers, the gardens, right?
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Lane Kennedy: There's a lot going on and then you can walk over, uh, let's say in Pacific Heights where the hills change and you're breathing and, like, you're huffing and puffing and you become aware of your legs and your heartbeat
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Lane Kennedy: and the mind starts to tell you something different.
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Lane Kennedy: And then we could walk into the Embarcadero and everything changes again.
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Lane Kennedy: You have the wind coming off the bay and the smell of salt water and that, that, mm, the sourdough and sometimes there's that scent of seafood or s- sea creatures or just the sea You can hear the ferries
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Lane Kennedy: move across the water, and sometimes you have this...
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Lane Kennedy: The bicycles passing you, and the tourists are taking photos, and people wearing shorts that shouldn't be wearing shorts and the bundles of sweatshirts that say San Francisco because they're tourists, which is all good.
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Lane Kennedy: It's a very confusing concept for visitors here in San Francisco.
14:15
Lane Kennedy: It's cold, and we bundle.
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Lane Kennedy: We wear layers.
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Lane Kennedy: And then, you know, you could walk over to, um, uh, Pier 39, and you might see Alcatraz.
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Lane Kennedy: And, like, all of this becomes a part of this walking meditation.
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Lane Kennedy: You don't need silence, and you don't need the perfect landscape You don't need to feel peaceful, really.
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Lane Kennedy: And the only thing you really do need is this willingness to notice.
14:53
Lane Kennedy: And there's something else I wanna bring into this conversation, which is I'm really opened my perspective to include joy and pleasure because we spend so much time talking about stress and depression and dysregulation and the trauma and our
15:17
Lane Kennedy: symptoms and overwhelm that we forget that our nervous system, i-it's responsive, and it's responsive to enjoyment and connection and beauty and again, curiosity.
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Lane Kennedy: So notice what happens when you see something you love Like just stand there and look at a flower or a dog doing something super ridiculous, or just a dog sometimes.
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Lane Kennedy: Like there was a ridiculous dog today that I saw.
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Lane Kennedy: It just made me laugh.
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Lane Kennedy: Or maybe it's looking out at the ocean.
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Lane Kennedy: Just you can sense how your expression changes, and maybe you can feel your shoulders drop And these experiences don't erase stress or cure illness.
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Lane Kennedy: That's not what I'm saying.
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Lane Kennedy: But they remind us that our experience, it can contain more than the difficult things that we tend to focus on.
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Lane Kennedy: And sometimes that's an important beginning, is broadening our focus.
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Lane Kennedy: And here's the part I really want you to understand, is that when you're practicing walking meditation, your mind is going to wander.
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Lane Kennedy: Of course it is.
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Lane Kennedy: There's a lot going on.
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Lane Kennedy: You're going to think about the email and your family and what you're gonna have for dinner.
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Lane Kennedy: That's not the problem.
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Lane Kennedy: The practice isn't about keeping your attention perfectly fixed on your feet.
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Lane Kennedy: It's about recognizing, "Oh, there goes my attention.
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Lane Kennedy: I'm thinking about tomorrow.
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Lane Kennedy: Let's come back."
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Lane Kennedy: And this becomes the practice.
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Lane Kennedy: This is the repetition of your attention, bringing your attention back, just as you might train y- physical strength, right?
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Lane Kennedy: We're repeating that motion, that movement.
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Lane Kennedy: Mindfulness gives us that repeated opportunities to practice noticing where the attention goes and pulling it back The other thing is there's no score keeping here.
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Lane Kennedy: And every time you notice that, "Oh, I'm thinking about that ding-dong at the coffee shop," or, "Oh, I couldn't get that parking spot.
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Lane Kennedy: Oh, the neighbors are being loud again.
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Lane Kennedy: Oh, but I'm bringing it back."
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Lane Kennedy: Right?
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Lane Kennedy: You're just...
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Lane Kennedy: You're practicing awareness, and that, my friend, is the work.
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Lane Kennedy: I want to invite you to notice how you return, and this is really important.
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Lane Kennedy: Do you go, "Ugh, I can't believe I let my mind go again"?
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Lane Kennedy: Don't, don't, don't criticize yourself, and don't become impatient with yourself, and certainly don't think you're doing it wrong.
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Lane Kennedy: Just allow.
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Lane Kennedy: Just allow it.
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Lane Kennedy: "Oh, there it goes, and I'm bringing it right back."
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Lane Kennedy: So I hope all of this is making sense.
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Lane Kennedy: Walking meditation is an experience that we offer ourselves to enjoy, to create space with our body and our mind.
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Lane Kennedy: And I wanna now give you a short, short walking meditation that you can actually use.
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Lane Kennedy: And if you're already outside walking, then wonderful.
19:02
Lane Kennedy: And if you're listening at home, you can save this part and return to it when you're ready to go outside.
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Lane Kennedy: Or if you're driving, forget it.
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Lane Kennedy: Don't.
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Lane Kennedy: Come back later.
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Lane Kennedy: But if you're walking, let's just begin.
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Lane Kennedy: Let's have a small practice together.
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Lane Kennedy: Keep your eyes open.
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Lane Kennedy: Take a breath with me here.
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Lane Kennedy: Inhale.
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Lane Kennedy: And exhale.
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Lane Kennedy: And just allow the eyes to become aware Become aware of any traffic and other people And choose a pace that feels comfortable for your body And you don't have to walk slowly or quickly You're just walking And notice
20:09
Lane Kennedy: your feet And feel the ground underneath you And as you take your next step Notice the movement.
20:28
Lane Kennedy: One foot lifting, moving forward, and meeting the ground, and the other Notice the transfer of weight from one side of your body to the other And feeling the movement through your legs, your hips, your arms And you don't
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Lane Kennedy: have to change your walking.
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Lane Kennedy: Just notice how your body moves And now bring your attention toward your breath And don't control it.
21:13
Lane Kennedy: Just notice when you feel yourself breathing, perhaps you feel it in your chest, your ribs, your belly Maybe you notice the air moving through your nose And if you're walking up a hill, maybe your breath is becoming a
21:35
Lane Kennedy: little faster.
21:37
Lane Kennedy: Just allow the body to respond naturally to your effort And allow your eyes to move from the right to the left, and then turn your head from the left to the right And go ahead and lock in on
22:08
Lane Kennedy: three different colors.
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Lane Kennedy: Perhaps a green or an orange or a brown And now open up that space and observe three objects Maybe it's a tree or a child or a bike Feel your breath And notice something growing, perhaps a tree, a
22:59
Lane Kennedy: bush, a flower Just take a moment to look at it And then opening your ears even more Allowing yourself to hear something close to you.
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Lane Kennedy: Maybe it's the sound of your feet walking Listening to your footsteps Now go ahead and allow the ears to hear something further away from you.
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Lane Kennedy: Perhaps it's a school bell or a fire engine, traffic.
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Lane Kennedy: Just allow the ears to open, listening for something beyond you Notice the air against your skin.
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Lane Kennedy: Is it warm or cool?
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Lane Kennedy: Is there wind?
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Lane Kennedy: Can you feel it against your cheeks or your hands or somewhere else?
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Lane Kennedy: And notice if there's anything that you can smell Perhaps it's the coffee or maybe there's a croissant that you're eating Or maybe it's raining or the trees.
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Lane Kennedy: Just notice if you can smell anything And you don't need to have every sensation come alive.
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Lane Kennedy: We're just noticing what's here for you right now Just allowing your attention to become wider instead of concentrating on one sound or one sensation Just inviting yourself to notice several things at once, broadening your focus From narrow to
25:34
Lane Kennedy: wide And go ahead and ask yourself, what does my body need from me right now?
25:56
Lane Kennedy: What does my body need from me right now?
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Lane Kennedy: Maybe it's a slower pace or a fuller breath, or maybe you need to look up at the sky above Maybe you just need to stop Maybe there's nothing to change at all, and you simply walk And as we
26:35
Lane Kennedy: come towards the end of this short practice, just notice how you feel Not how you think you're supposed to feel, just how you actually feel Maybe there's more space.
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Lane Kennedy: Maybe your mind is a bit quieter.
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Lane Kennedy: Maybe you're still distracted.
26:59
Lane Kennedy: It's okay.
26:59
Lane Kennedy: It's all okay.
27:03
Lane Kennedy: Maybe you feel the exact same way Practice isn't about manufacturing calm It's simply about spending a few minutes just paying attention to your life While you're in it, while you're living it And take another breath here with me.
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Lane Kennedy: Inhale And exhale out your mouth.
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Lane Kennedy: Feeling your feet Allowing the eyes to look around And when you're ready, just continue walking with a smile And here's what I want you to take away from today's episode.
28:02
Lane Kennedy: This doesn't need to be complicated You can begin by changing how you experience something you're already doing Can just walk to the corner store Walk your dog Open your mind.
28:24
Lane Kennedy: Take a walk around your block And remember, you just start by noticing your feet, then your breath Then you notice the world around you And when your mind wanders, because it will wander, just come back And you can
28:50
Lane Kennedy: do this for one minute or five minutes.
28:54
Lane Kennedy: And if you're in your house and you just need to get out of bed, you can walk from your bed to the kitchen and back From the inside of the house to the outside of the house Just notice
29:17
Lane Kennedy: Just notice what's happening You always have the option to bring your attention into experiencing all that's around you as you care for yourself Thanks for walking with me.
29:42
Lane Kennedy: And this brings me to something else that I've created, and you can find it over on my website, lanekennedy.com And they're neighborhood walks.
29:56
Lane Kennedy: And you don't have to particularly live in San Francisco.
29:58
Lane Kennedy: You could just use the walk, walking meditation.
30:03
Lane Kennedy: And these are little...
30:06
Lane Kennedy: They're different than what we just did now, but I have them for different neighborhoods, and I think you might enjoy them.
30:18
Lane Kennedy: And again, you don't have to live here.
30:20
Lane Kennedy: I mean, if you do, then you can go to that neighborhood and walk, or you can just begin Yeah.
30:29
Lane Kennedy: You can find the walking meditation guides at lanekennedy.com/blog walking meditation nervous system.
30:39
Lane Kennedy: I'll leave this information in the show notes And before I leave you, remember, remember your nervous system is not separate from the life you're living.
30:51
Lane Kennedy: It's responding.
30:53
Lane Kennedy: It's constantly listening.
30:57
Lane Kennedy: And sometimes caring for it can be as simply stepping outside, feeling your feet on the ground, and noticing the world around you, and remembering that you're here, you're alive.
31:12
Lane Kennedy: That means you've got another shot.
31:14
Lane Kennedy: You get another day Sometimes it's just that So grateful for your presence.
31:27
Lane Kennedy: Thank you for practicing with me today.
31:30
Lane Kennedy: I'm Lane Kennedy, and this is Calm by Lane, Meditations for Life.
31:35
Lane Kennedy: Until next time, take good care.
31:39
Lane Kennedy: Get outside and walk.
31:42
Lane Kennedy: I'll be with you next time