6 Questions to Ask Yourself While Walking

Step into what emerges with curiosity

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me what I think about when I’m walking. I shared that my approach has evolved. Several years ago, I usually listened to music or to podcasts. Or, I would engage in what Cal Newport calls “productive meditation.” During my walks, I would think through a key life, career or business quandary, intently seeking an answer.

Productive Meditation has much to recommend it. I titled this newsletter Solvitur Ambulando – solve it by walking – for a reason. Removing myself from the four walls of my office spurred a different way of approaching challenges – perhaps more creative, but at least different. 

Newport’s idea carries in it an insidious notion – one I wonder whether he perceives. We don’t spend enough time figuring out our business issues during our working hours – we’re expected to wrestle with them during all our waking hours. Productive Meditation asks that we sacrifice a beautiful moment of leisure upon the modern altar of productivity. 

I am unwilling to make that sacrifice. 

So over the past several years, I have moved away from these approaches. Today, I almost never listen to music or a podcast, or make calls while walking. (In contrast to my rucking, when I almost always do listen to music.) Today, when I walk, I want to feel myself more a part of the place I’m walking in. Frankly, some of my rationale concerns safety. When I walk in Downtown Louisville, I need to remain aware of my surroundings and happenings nearby. Cars run the red lights at the intersection outside my building with alarming frequency. I want zero distractions as I ensure the traffic turning into the crosswalk I am entering clearly sees me. When I walk in nature, I want to hear the birds and insects, the cracking of dried detritus underfoot, and the rustle of leaves. In short, I want all my senses engrossed in the walk. 

On my walks, I simply feel into the walk. Feel into the moment.

All of this said, over a series of walks – say, a week – my mind wanders. Questions and concerns and issues and ponderings emerge. I’ve found a few seem to return to me every so often. When they emerge, gently, softly, I step into them with curiosity.

1. Where Have I Experienced Beauty Lately?

We modern, Western humans have become hyper-fixated on usefulness, utility and efficiency. We stare at three computer screens in the office, and endlessly debate whether we need a full-sized keyboard or a three-quarters-sized one. We maximize countertop space in our kitchens. We build sheet-metal warehouses from which to ship us every consumer good available in the solar system. 

Where is the beauty in our lives? 

When did we go to a museum and not race through it so we could arrive at our dinner reservation only 10 minutes late? 

When did we gaze in wonder at the palm tree leaves swaying in the wind, a hint of seaspray on our skin, in our hair, in our nostrils, on our tongue?

Isn’t it remarkable that nature made the silver flame cactus coated with foreboding needles, and yet nothing more lovely can be found?

When did we peer into the royal blue eyes of our daughter, and see bubbles of joy radiating rainbows back to us?

When did we gently clasp the trembling hand of our beloved?

Where is the beauty in our lives? 

2. What Birds Am I Hearing?

One of the greatest joys of taking 30 Walks in Nature involved listening to birdsong all around and learning some of their calls. This is the one time I allow myself to interact with my phone while walking. The Merlin ID app has given me so much happiness, by bringing such fun knowledge into my fingertips. I can now recognize the screech of the Blue Jay and the call of the Northern Cardinal. I ask this question quite a lot, especially on early morning strolls with my dogs Olivia and Otis. 

3. How Does My Wife Perceive Me?

Shortly after my wife and I married, a friend and his wife separated and eventually divorced. In that process, he gave me a piece of advice: check in with your spouse every so often. Check in and ask how things really are. Don’t let issues remain bottled up. Give any pressure a release valve. 

I’ve taken up his advice in two ways. First, my wife and I check in with each other. We may not say that exact phrase, but that’s the thrust of the conversation. Second, on walks sometimes this question comes to mind: how does my wife perceive me? Am I supporting her as she hopes and needs? Am I helping row our family boat in the right direction? Do I do it all with a smile on my face and in my heart? 

Or am I snippy and pissy and self-absorbed? Do I do my family work begrudgingly, with a sneer on my face and a chip on my shoulder? 

Objective self-regard is extremely difficult for most people, including me. Asking this question takes me ever so slightly out of my bias for myself, and helps me see the world, and myself, more accurately. 

It also helps me discern when it might be good to check in with my wife.

4. How Do My Daughters Perceive Me?

Similar question as above, but asked from the imagined viewpoint of each of my daughters. My daughters, despite sharing the same blond hair color and blue eye color, possess vastly unique personalities. I try to ask this question with each of them distinctly in mind. How does Beatrice actually perceive me and my parenthood? How about Cordelia? 

Asking this question has helped me realize two rather disquieting things: I say far too many negative comments to my daughters rather than supportive ones; and my tone of voice in speaking with them tends toward the didactic, harsh and tinged with anger. 

I don’t intend to make these comments in this way. But such seems, for some reason, to be my default. Realizing this tendency has helped correct it a bit. But stepping into recent answers when the question emerges on my walks keeps my need for evolution front and center.

5. Who or What Am I Not Seeing?

Sometimes, I mean this metaphorically. Perhaps amidst the conveyor belt of Amazon packages arriving at the house, I am not seeing the quantity of time I take (er, spend … er, waste) shopping online. 

At other times, I mean it quite literally. Is there someone in my life who I am not spending enough time with? 

Should I call a friend having a tough time? 

In my hurrying hither and thither, did I not see my daughter crying in her room because her heart is broken from her best friend moving away? 

6. How Do I Really Feel?

Again, this question has a literal and a deeper thrust. With my heart defect, accurately assessing how I actually feel in my body – and calibrating that sense with previous days – gives me a clue about the health of my insides. If walking up this hill today, in similar weather, seems harder than it was last week, I need to note it. If I smoked that hill, I might inquire what I’ve done recently to lead to that result. Healthier eating? More cardio? Getting an extra push from wearing the dope Bo Jackson cross-trainers from my youth? (Am I even dimly aware of the hypocrisy of loving the Bo Jackson shoes as I muse on my online shopping history?)

In certain activities, we find stillness in motion, and motion in stillness. Walking for me combines the stillness desperately lacking from modern life, with the action I need to prompt me forward. Walking simply brings up different thoughts – and feelings. 

Pay attention to them. 

P.S. What Other Questions Come Up?

Questions beget questions. As I ponder these questions, what other questions do they lead to? Whether the new questions seem related or not, they deserve my further curiosity. 

Don’t judge the emerging questions. Don’t dismiss them. Don’t rush for answers. 

Note their emergence and see where your curiosity leads.

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Let me stress – these questions are not productivity hacks in disguise. This isn’t a checklist of questions I gotta get through on every walk. They are simply questions that come up over time. Not on every walk. Maybe not once per week. But with some constancy. 

Maybe your walking questions will differ. They likely will. 

Again, walking is a glorious, unique action. A rare one conjoining stillness and motion, thought and feeling, questions and answers. 

What questions emerge when you walk?

Friends,

In October, I am hosting two retreats with Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana. (Both in-person only.)

• On Tuesday, October 15th, we’ll enjoy a 2-hour “Bounteous Nature Walk.”

• On Tuesday, October 29th, we’ll explore the power of journaling.

Gilda’s Club does truly amazing work with and for patients with cancer, their families and caregivers. If you or someone you know has been affected by cancer, join us for these special retreats. And check out their full calendar of terrific events over the coming months.