Walk Your Way: The Gratitude Walk
Welcome to Walk Your Way - Week Three
I hope you enjoyed your previous walking practice. This week, I’m pleased to introduce you to The Gratitude Walk.
Walking Practice: The Gratitude Walk
Perhaps few of us would think of taking a walk in order to practise gratitude for its own sake. But did you know that building your capacity for giving and receiving gratitude can do a tremendous amount for your social, psychological and physical well being?
A Gratitude practice works because it slowly changes the way we perceive ourselves and our environment by adjusting what we focus on. As a result gratitude can work to release us from the grips of emotions like stress, depression and anxiety.
It is also known to activate serotonin and dopamine in our brain, the two crucial neurotransmitters that are responsible for our emotions, which put very simply, make us feel ‘good’.
“Practising gratitude can build emotional resilience – helping us to face life more easily when the going gets tough.”
Brain science also tells us is that by consciously practising gratitude every day, we can help these neural pathways in our brains to strengthen themselves, and ultimately create a permanent, grateful and positive nature within ourselves.
Well, that might be the aspiration. I am not sure we can ever achieve permanence. However I do think we can consciously shift our state, and that it can be a way to build emotional resilience – helping us to face life more easily when the going gets tough.
So in this walk, you are not only going to boost your well-being and activate those ‘feel good’ hormones through moving your body, you are also going to focus your mind, while walking, on gratitude.
It’s a powerful combination.
You might decide to listen to this practice before you set out on your walk, or walk for a bit, then find a quiet place to listen and then begin your practice.
Find a peaceful location with minimal distractions or people around. The more actual space you have, the more freeing the walk will be for you really to ‘be’ with yourself.
You are going to be walking with 3 questions one at a time, so it can be handy to have a note of them in our pocket rather than fiddling with tech.
Resources
Listen to The Gratitude Walk practice
And for your post-walk reflections, here’s a handy structure to guide and note down your thoughts.