 to everybody. Welcome to day five of the challenge. Today, we're going to talk about mindful walking to Saturday afternoon. Not sure how many people are going to pop in today, but that's what we're going to talk about today. Using walking as a way to practice slowing down and being mindful and paying attention to what you're doing at any given moment. It's really good way to do it. It's something that people tend to overlook. They think that slowing down and being mindful and that sort of thing always means that you have to be sitting still or sitting cross-legged on a cushion or something like that. And you do not. That is actually not true. So you can actually be slow and be paying attention and be mindful even when you are in motion, such as when you are walking. So today, we're going to talk a little bit about mindful walking, using walking as an opportunity to practice being slow and paying attention to what you're doing. So we'll wait for a few folks to show up. I'm not exactly sure how many people are going to be here today, given that it is a Saturday, but you know, practice on the weekends too, right? So let's see, if you pop into the chat, I'll wait for a few minutes, just give me a hello to let me know that you're here. If you're coming from the hey, Nat, if you're coming from the Facebook group, I'm sorry, I have to remind you that I will not see your name because of restream. Hey, K, what up? Folks are for showing up. This is cool. And we'll get into it in just a minute. So this is an interesting topic because a lot of people don't really think of being able to be mindful and paying attention when up and about. They tend to think that you have to be sitting quietly, you have to be laying down, there has to be like nature sounds and music playing and things of that nature, not necessarily true. We could practice these skills anytime we get a chance, including when we're walking around. So the basic premise of the challenge is that we want to learn how to slow down, even when anxiety and stress and fear are telling us to speed up. That is the basic premise of 7% slower, the book that's up on your screen right now. And when we practice this, when we don't need to, it becomes easier to do this when we do need to, like when anxiety, stress and fear are rising on us. So Anna's here, Ingle is here all the way from Norway. Good morning, says somebody in my Facebook group, which means that you are behind us, maybe West Coast, I'm guessing. So welcome to everybody. We have about 13 or 14 people here. We'll get get cooking on it. So mindful walking. Have you guys ever seen? Sometimes you see them in parks and places like that. There's one not too far from me, a labyrinth. If you're familiar with a labyrinth, a labyrinth is just a layout, usually in a garden, that sort of thing. Excuse me. And it's just a circular path of stones or stepping stones or however way that's laid out. It's a circular walking path that isn't very large. And it doesn't go very far. It just goes around in a circle, right? And it bends back on itself and you slowly walk that labyrinth until you get to the center of the circle. And then you can turn around and walk back out again. And a labyrinth is a really interesting example of something that you can use to practice mindful walking. The point of mindful walking is to just make yourself aware, right? And we're always talking about mindfulness as an exercise and paying attention. Make yourself aware of just the act of taking your steps. So when people talk about mindful walking and walking meditation is actually a thing that a lot of people do engage in. It's really just about paying attention to each step that you take. Feeling your feet, hit the ground, roll along the ground, right? The heel to toe thing. And then pick back up again. And then the next step hits. Step, step, step. You're just paying very close attention to the sensation of your feet hitting the ground, leaving the ground, hitting the ground, leaving the ground one step after the other, bringing your attention back to that sensation. You can bring your attention to your breathing as you do this. You could bring your attention to the feeling of the breeze if there's a breeze outside. You could bring your attention to the scent of the sense that you smell in the environment. Maybe the grass was just caught or there's a garden and you could smell the garden. Doesn't matter what it is. You're just trying to bring your attention to a focus point and keep it there. So the object of the game here, part of what we're practicing in terms of learning to slow down and be mindful and pay attention is paying attention, putting our focus someplace, our attention someplace and keeping it there. So this is essentially just an exercise in learning to pay attention. Really, that's what mindfulness is. We were talking, we've been talking about that. So I urge you guys to try mindful walking. You could do it anywhere. You don't have to do it in a garden or a beach or through the forest. You don't have to do anything like that. I mean, if you have those environments, that's great. But you can mindfully walk from one end of your house to the other. Next time you have to get up and walk through the house to go to the kitchen or something, try doing that in a mindful way. Just put your focus on the act of walking, keep it there and walk from one place to the other. Give it a shot. It's it's to be very useful. And a lot of times that walking is one of those places like the shower where we're guilty of like you're running really fast, like we walk fast, we got to get walking is just the conveyance to get as fast as possible from A to B. And sometimes it is. Sometimes you do have to walk quickly. There's nothing wrong with that. But other times you can take the opportunity to walk very slowly and mindfully in practice. So let's see. Let's take a look this. I don't have a lot to say about mindful walking other than I would urge you to try it. And the challenge behind mindful walking and like intentionally walking slow for a lot of people is, you know, that thing where like, well, if I tried to put my attention somewhere, I can't because the sensations of my body keep coming up and they come to the front of my mind and I can't ignore them. I have to think about them. Or I have so many racing thoughts, whether they would be anxious thoughts or intrusive thoughts, or just thoughts about the day I have so much to do. I have this going on like I don't argue with my sister, whatever it is. So sometimes people will say I can't do this sort of thing because all of thoughts and sensations come back up in my mind and that's okay. We're not doing this to learn to stop those thoughts or thought or stop those sensations. We're doing this to learn that we can actually pay attention to something other than those things. And if you have to repeat going back again to note back to my steps back to my steps back to my steps, that's okay. You might have to repeat that refocusing of your attention every two or three steps there's nothing wrong with that if you have to do it that way, then do it that way. That's totally fine. This is a thing that takes practice. One of the reasons why I'm doing this challenge is to give you a bunch of things, several different things that you can use all throughout your day to practice. Because we have to practice. We're not going to be automatically good at these things. So let's see what the comments say today. Let's see. Ann is here. I got a lot of hellos. Stepping left, stepping right. Yes. So one foot in front of the other. Step, step, step, step. It might seem really weird. It's going to feel kind of foreign. It's not going to feel natural to you the first time you do these things. But that's okay. Again, practice is the way to go. But yes, that's exactly what this is. Let's see this comment here. We'll go through some comments. I've been trying to keep these relatively short. But yesterday went a little longer. Let me see what's going on in this comment here. I try that before where you need to concentrate on how your feet feel on the ground. And then when you lose track of it, you concentrate again. I can't even do it for one minute. That's okay. So Natalie says that you cannot even do it for one minute. That's totally fine. I'll be honest with you. There are people that spend their entire lives, like Buddhist monks, dedicate their entire lives to these type of practices. And they don't get good at them sometimes. Even the most mindful person with the most experience stumbles and our brains wander and our attention wanders. So don't think like, well, you know, if you do it for a minute, that's actually really good to tell you guys the truth. So don't feel bad that after a minute you're kind of lost in it again. I always tell people all the time, like I've been meditating regularly for many years now. And there are many times when I will sit down and I'll decide to do my meditation and, you know, like six minutes into it, I realize that I've been thinking about old song lyrics or movie quotes or old, you know, like hockey games or what I'm gonna have for dinner. Like that's just what happens. It's okay. We don't judge success or failure in this based on like, oh, I couldn't do it for more than a minute or I couldn't do it for more than 10 seconds. Totally fine. Do the best you can. Just practice it. That minute that you give yourself is worthwhile. It matters, right? So it's okay. If you have to keep refocusing and practicing, there's actually nothing wrong. So this is exactly right. It's paying attention on purpose. That is really our operational definition of mindfulness is learning to pay attention and really be aware of where you're putting your attention. Direct it where you want it and then keep it there for as long as you can. That's what this is really all about. Let's see my daily practice. Walking is my jam. Now, even though I can't see your name, I would take a guess. I would venture a large amount of money as to who that is. Is that Donna? Really great. Dan, you're very welcome. Thanks for the tips. These are just things that you can practice. Practice, practice, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm going to keep telling you that. Try these things. If you struggle with them, just go back to them. Be gentle with yourself. You don't have to judge yourself harshly because maybe you're not so good at mindful walking or mindful showering or mindful eating, which is what we talked about yesterday. By the way, if you haven't seen the rest of these videos and we'll do another one tomorrow, tomorrow we're going to do mindful listening, listening with attention and then on Monday we're going to wrap up the series with breathing because we've got to talk about breathing. We've got to do it. Be gentle with yourself. If you're having a hard time with this stuff, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. You just go back and try the best that you can every day. Make the effort. That's okay. Mia is here. Mia is here looking for more tips. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This video series has everything. It's an inside jokes here. Everybody's here for the inside jokes. Okay, you're very welcome. Oh, Anna's from Singapore. I love that, you know, the audience is so global, so welcome from Singapore. Good to see you here. You can try mindful walking in Singapore too. Works everywhere. Let's see what this comment is. I can actually do a chat overlay. I just realized this. Check this out so that your comments come up on the side, this side. Oh, my pointing is just degraded. So yeah, the pointing shows up from here, which is kind of cool. I'll turn that off and I'll just go through your things this way. I've been doing my exposure walking around my neighborhood over the past couple of weeks. Today I really tried to focus on the surroundings and walking slower and it really helped. I love to hear that. That's exactly what's supposed to happen here. Like nothing in particular, we're not looking for any particular outcome like, oh, I was able to stop a panic attack or, you know, I instantly felt calm. If that happens, that's awesome. But if you find any sort of improvement and sometimes the improvement is just a sense of empowerment, right? And competency that like, oh, look, I do have a little bit of control here. I do have some influence in this process. I can put my attention where I want it. Like if that's what you get out of the exercise out of the practice that day, then that's great. Even if your thoughts were still at a high level or they were very loud or your symptoms and sensations didn't necessarily go down. If nothing else, you got to learn an experience in real time in the real world that, look, oh, I have some control over this. I can do this. I can walk mindfully even though I'm not feeling so great. So that's great. Like whatever you get out of it is good. Let's see here. Oh, this is good. Gina says it can work for gardening too. So yes, in the... I lost my pointing skills today. In the chapter 9 of 7 percent slower, which I recorded this morning, by the way, the audiobook has been submitted or it's about to be submitted anyway. I will probably hit the button on that tomorrow. I actually use gardening as an example. You can do that if you're working in your garden and you're planting then plant slowly and mindfully as opposed to trying to get through all the plants. I need to put all the seeds in the ground. Do each one at a time. What's the rush? A lot of this is being willing to accept what's the what? What's the rush? What's the rush? Let's see. It's definitely a practice as Dan. You are correct. Dave, you're very welcome. Yep. Donna, I knew I got it. Bessie is here. What up, Bess? It says yo-yo from... Bessie, I'm not even sure where you are. But it's from somewhere in the U.S., I think. Let's see. When walking yesterday... Okay, here's another one. We got about 25 people. I'm surprised on a Saturday. I expected a slower turnout, a smaller turnout today. When walking yesterday, it felt so good to slow down as they do everything really fast. At first, it might feel really weird and awkward and unnatural and you won't be good at it, but so many people will say, wow, I really had a better day yesterday because I did try to slow down as often as I could. So that is awesome. I love to hear that. Glad it's working for you. Yep. Linda is nailing it right here. I struggled with a wandering mind. Cool to know that I'm okay and not alone. You're always okay even when your mind is wandering because really in the end, if we're out and trying to do a mindful walk, write a meditative walk, your mind is going to wander. That's what's just going to happen. It's okay. We are thinking machines. Oops, my screen is going to close down, which we can't have, so I need to disable my stupid break thing. This app on my Mac that tells me to look far away from the screen every 20 minutes. It's good for your eyes. Anyway, it's okay. Humans are thinking machines. We cannot help ourselves. We will think, think, think, think, think. So if your mind wanders, that's okay. This is a practice. There's a reason why people call meditation meditation practice. There's a reason for that. Let's see. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, me is still here. What I got from all these is that we have to focus on the process instead of worrying about the results. That is so true. That is such a good observation and I'm glad that you're getting that lesson because the results will come later, right? Later. We can't be always goal-focused, especially when we're doing stuff like mindfulness and meditation practice and focus training. This is not a goal-related thing. This is not a goal-focused thing. This is a process-focused thing. So you're absolutely right. It's just engaging in the process more than the results. Oh, let's see. We got good news coming in. I've had a win this morning. I don't need to detail it, but it was because the morning was slow and paced. Yay me, yay you. Yes, let us share in the win. I love it. So very good. What does Emma have to say? I always feel like I need to fix me. Okay, but you don't necessarily have to fix you. The basic premise that we're all about here in these parts in this community is that you actually don't need fixing, right? This is not a broken problem. You're not broken. You're just a little bit lost. We approach these things in a cognitive behavioral scope for a reason, because I don't believe in my heart, Emma, that no matter how you're struggling, I don't believe that you're broken or need to be fixed. You just need to learn different lessons and move in different directions, and that's okay. Let's see what else we got here. Doing activities intentionally slower has definitely reduced anxiety in a lot of situations for me. It's allowed me to focus on my task much better. Excellent. That's what I like to hear. That is, for most people, the result over time. But again, not results focused. We're not trying to be goal focused. We're trying to be process focused. So if you can just concentrate on engaging in the process of slowing down and paying attention and being more mindful, then that result will sort of naturally happen as a happy side effect. So we're looking for a happy side effect. We're not looking for particular results. And I expect these things to fix me wrong intent. Yes, this is these things. Let me put this back up here. So Emma says, I expect these things to fix me. None of what I ever say or write or record or say into a camera or whatever is designed to fix you or anybody because you don't need fixing. These are designed to teach you. So just like anything else, if you really kind of, if you took a math class and maths for those Europeans among us, but if you took a math class and maybe you didn't understand the concepts and you started doing the math wrong for an entire school year and you failed the class, it isn't because you're broken. It's because you took a few wrong turns and learned some wrong lessons about that math. So all this really is is understanding like, oops, my brain learned the wrong lessons. It made mistakes and it acted on those mistakes and that's why you failed the class. But now it's just a matter of like, oops, there were some mistakes and now I have to teach my brain new lessons to correct the mistakes. That's all this is. It's not fixing. You don't have, these things are not designed to fix you. These are activities designed to help you learn through experience that there's a different way to do this, right? That's really, really, really important. Yeah, Mia, the struggle is real, man. Like I had the pointing down to, I was nailed it yesterday. I had it. I was a pointing pro and now I'm just not working out for me so well. Washington State, Bessie, is from Excellence here. Currently brushing my hair mindfully. I love it. I've not been able to make a plan for exposure therapy or finish the first book. But I think this would work for me to do first. Yes, you can, you can do this. There's no, you can do this all the time. Honestly, the idea of all of these little exercises and 7% slower are really, for me, they were meant as an adjunct, like, know the concepts that are in the big book, The Anxious Truth, and in my podcast first. And then this is just a good way to start to implement some of them or at least one of those principles, right? So it all works together, but if you want to start with this stuff, there's nothing wrong with that. It's totally cool. What else we have here? I'm going to go through a few more comments and then we'll wrap it up at about the 20-minute mark. Staying present is keeping me sane while I wait for this medical result. It's not now, so anything else is what it is. Yes, staying mindful is saving much angst. Yes, like honestly, I don't know of any better application. Dealing with anticipatory anxiety, if you guys have seen my podcast episode on that, we talk about staying present in the moment right now because of something that's coming up. You don't have to live that something until it happens. It's natural to think about things like, what are my test results going to be? That's completely and totally naturally. And if Mia is still here, by the way, Mia's latest podcast episode, her podcast. Mia, if you're still here, post a link to your latest episode because Mia just went through a bit of a health scare and she shared openly about it in her latest podcast episode. If you're waiting for test results, it's normal to think about those things. But the tools we're talking about in this little series here and in the book and 7% slower really, really come in handy in terms of trying to keep you present as present as you can. And at least short-circuit some of the rumination and catastrophizing that you might do over those results. The results will come when they come and then you will deal with it. So staying present, this is one of the greatest applications for that in that health scare kind of thing. And I know who you are. I won't say the name because it's not up here, although I know you're open about it in the group and we're all hoping that it turns out well for you, of course. Let's see here Emma, you're very welcome. No problem. It's Nicky. I'm so pleased they stopped and talked to someone today. Ooh, let's put this up on the screen. I love to share the wins. I stopped and talked to someone today on my exposure work. That's a big step for me as I normally look down while going for my walks. That is huge. You should be very proud of yourself. That clearly is a shift. It's something that you're clearly afraid to try. Look, something new and it worked out great. The lessons of exposure are always not that it is difficult. Ooh, what's this one? I'm going to read that one a second. The lessons of exposure are never like, oh, this is so hard. This is so hard. The lesson is, oh, look, I did a hard, scary thing and I was okay. It turned out okay. I might have not felt great, but nothing really bad happened to me. I wasn't harmed by that. So excellent. Good job with that. I'm current at the place where I had my first panic attack. I was always afraid of coming back here, but there you are. Ah, so good. Really good job. You should be super proud of that. Like going back into the, you know, air quotes the belly of the beast. It's a big deal. The mechanism behind so much of this is just like being bitten by a dog. There are people that are huge dog lovers, huge. They love dogs, love dogs, all about dogs. The minute they get bitten by a dog, they are instantly afraid of dogs. That can happen. This is the mechanism. So what Dave is going through right now where like, yes, you know, back to the place where you had a panic attack is really difficult. It's like going back to the dog that bit you. So be proud of that. That is not a hard, that is not an easy thing to do. And you're doing it and it's working out, right? Nothing bad is happening to you. So it's really good. So let's see, Mia, yes. So Mia, if you want to post the link to that podcast episode, anybody that wants to listen and you'll get some good health tips anyway, because Mia's good that way. Yeah, Mia just went through a bit of a health scare and she shared about it on her podcast. So you guys should check out. Here we go. Excellent. Thank you, Mia. So go and listen to this episode. It was really good. It's a good, fast 20 minutes. And it's also funny. And you'll hear the story of somebody who was, oh, is this going to turn out for me? And it did turn out well for Mia. So excellent. Thank you, Mia. Appreciate it. So there you go, guys. I appreciate you coming by. That's been day five. We're 20 minutes. I'm going to kind of wrap it up. I appreciate everybody that came by. Well, a big audience on a Saturday afternoon. I wasn't expecting that tomorrow. We're going to do this at the same time. We're going to talk about mindful listening. So for those of you who always have to have some background noise on, there's always podcasts, there's always music, there's always videos, there's always YouTube or the TV tomorrow, we're going to talk about actually mindfully paying attention to some of that stuff. Sometimes. Another useful tool that surrounds us all the time. We can use all the time, but we forget that it's even there. So tomorrow we'll talk about mindful listening. So come back for that. Keep commenting. I'll do my best to answer them as best I can as we circle back around. And what can I tell you? Paperback version of 7% slower. If you're watching, I'll tell you it's actually live right now. Like Amazon is fast, so you can actually get the paperback right now on Amazon. If you go to 7% slower.com, I'll put it up on the thing. You can actually see the link to get the paperback if you want it. You guys are the only ones that know. Tomorrow Monday is sort of the official paperback release date and the audio book will also be out in a couple of days because I'm about to submit that. And I will ask you one more thing. If you do have the book and you've read it already, like either in the Facebook group or wherever you can, wherever you want to comment, tell me what your favorite part is because I need to have audible. I need to give audible a sample up to 5 minutes of the book and frankly, I'm not sure what part of the book to use as the sample. So as soon as I pick up to 5 minutes, I can tell them what that is and hit the button and then the thing will be released. So let me know if you have a favorite part just let me know what that is. You can comment on this in the Facebook group or whatever or wherever you happen to be watching and I will take a look. I appreciate your feedback. I appreciate your support and your enthusiasm and your participation in this crazy little seven day series which is even teaching me a whole lot about how to go live every day and make it effective. And I will see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Be mindful. Practice all the stuff. Do it. It's good for you.