Friday Book Report: The Spirited Walker

After so much sitting while studying, I hardly needed any inspiration to get walking.  Also, I have a dog, who is not shy about insisting that I get up and go.  I drank the Kool-Aid long ago about the benefits of walking for mind and body.  That said, The Spirited Walker by Carolyn Scott Kortge has a lot to offer for those of us who would like to walk more or better.  It also has a lot to bring to the mindbody conversation.

Kortge brings her journalist’s training to mindful walking.  She certainly has plenty of faith in the process, but she also has research to ground her assertions.  She suggests that we all walk for our own reasons, but that all of us are seeking both bodily and spiritual fitness, whatever spiritual means to us.

There are practical exercises, inspiring stories (and not the kind that make me want to vomit in that women’s-magazine kind of way), references, and a good list of further reading. 

It’s on my studio shelf if anyone wants to borrow it!

Go play outside.

The sun has come out!  Here are some good things about that:

• Trees.  Going outside shifts our perspective, especially if we can spend some time in nature.  Forest bathing is a thing for a reason.

• Vitamin D.  Many of us don’t get enough of it during the winter months.  As we age, our ability to synthesize it from sunlight also decreases.  A little sun time can do wonders for our well-being (and then put on the sunscreen so we don’t die of skin cancer).

• Changing up the routine.  The view from the elliptical trainer rarely changes.  When we can pick a different bike ride or hike or walk or run, we wake up our bodies and our minds.  We have to adapt to new routes and changing terrain.

Go play!

Holistic (yep, I said it)

I’ve been complaining about the continuing education course I just finished pretty much from the time I started it.  It’s integral to my learning process.  The complaining does not mean that I don’t find value in continuing education; in fact, continuing education is one of the things I like best about my profession.

Fitness, as I have said many times, is not something we do at the gym for an hour a week with a trainer.  It is much more holistic than that (yes, I have special dispensation to use that word, granted because I lived in Berkeley for 20 years).  Fitness is what we eat for breakfast, who we love, how we walk the dog, what we do about that problem knee, and how we slept last night.

What I bring to my clients’ fitness journeys is everything I know.  Some of that is about the continuing education I’ve done in nutrition, corrective exercise, Pilates, behavior modification, weight loss, blah blah blah.  Even that degree in English comes in handy.  Being a parent doesn’t hurt, either, and my work in nonprofit programming has surprising applications.  We all bring our whole selves to the gym and in an ideal world, we leave with our whole selves feeling better.

We can do this.