Surrender Walk

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, I want to share a practice with you that I call the surrender walk. So a lot of times throughout the day and the week and the month, I have different decisions I need to make, decisions that I don't have a very quick response to. If I were to measure it out on an Excel spreadsheet and look at the pros and the cons, I can think through it logically, but it's not necessarily deeply aligned with an intuitive knowing within me. And a big part of my, you could say spiritual work, but also mindfulness, meditation, personal growth work has been less about trying to figure out how to understand something more logically and more connected to what is the deepest part of me saying in relationship to this experience? What is my deepest truth in this moment? And so that's where the surrender walk comes in.

I find that in order to get to that deeper truth of understanding, I have to let go of a lot of my ideas, at least my logical ideas of what I should do in this moment and really drop in and really listen. That to me is a form of surrender. Surrendering a certain kind of control and surrendering a certain kind of way of relating. And I particularly like to do that while I'm walking. There's something about being outside, especially in nature, the spaciousness of it outside of my apartment, that's really settling to my system.

I let myself walk as fast or as slowly as I like. And I really try and get my body into a very relaxed state, one step at a time walking forward. And I'll just drop a question into my awareness. The question is some sort of decision that I might be navigating. Should I do this? Should I spend time with this person? Should I take on this opportunity or not? Should I have this conversation? Drop it in and then I just listen.

And the whole idea is I am surrendering. I don't actually know the answer to this on a logical level. And I am opening myself to whatever form of intuition and guidance wants to come through. And this might not be something that works for you, but I wanted to share it because I've been getting a lot of enjoyment from this process. And a lot of wisdom tends to arise when I'm doing this.

In the same way that I often have my best ideas when I'm going for a walk, I often have my deepest intuitions when I'm going for a walk and I allow myself to just be held by something bigger. And I think that's why I like this as a walk or something to do outside is, there's a felt sense of the earth around me, the spaciousness of nature, the spaciousness of the sky. There is this feeling of I'm stepping outside of myself and I'm, I'm welcoming something beyond myself. And again, your orientation to this and the language you want to use to describe it is, is personal to you. This is what's working for me right now.

And if you are interested in exploring it, I would just take some time to go for a walk or sit outside or be outside or it could be indoors, maybe find a spacious place inside and just drop a question that you're navigating into your awareness and see what arises. I'm letting go. I'm open to something moving through me. What should I do in this situation? And then start to develop a relationship with that pulse of truth that's moving through you. When we can align ourselves more with that than just simply the rational ideas moving through our mind, or at least combine it with our rational way of thinking, it's a way for us to make decisions that feel deeply connected to the depth of who we are rather than just cognitive exercises.

So something to think about on your mindfulness journey. Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.