Slowing Down to Walk Changed My Life
I look at the ability to walk as a gift. Every day that I get to put my two feet on the ground and have them take me anywhere I want to go is truly incredible.
I have a twin sister who is profoundly disabled and who will never know what it feels like to stand on her own two feet. Even as a child I never took for granted what a gift it was to be able to walk.
By the age of seven I became a runner. I loved to race every chance I could. I loved it so much that I was recruited at the age of eleven and in sixth grade by the high school varsity cross country coach. He (my soon to be coach) met with the principal of my middle school and my parents and asked if I could join the varsity team. Not only that, he told them that I was to be the first female cross country runner for the entire school. This opportunity to join a team at such a young age helped me in so many ways. It helped build my confidence and it was the first time that I felt really good at something. I continued running competitively for 25+ years.
So why walk?
I have to be honest, for years I didn’t understand the practice of walking. I thought: Why walk if you can run? After I sold off my first business, I started to understand what walking and exploring could do for me. I began spending a minimum of an hour every day in Central Park walking my dog and photographing nature. As my dog got older, we slowed down our walks and she allowed me to see the beauty of nature that was around me every single day. I spent my entire career in the beauty industry, so I loved picking up my camera and capturing the very ingredients that are used in so many products that I worked with over the years.
After my dog passed away, I thought for sure that I would no longer walk in the park—but I found myself going even more than before. It dawned on me that I needed to be in the park just as much as she had, maybe even more so. I began my quest to find out more about nature and what it does for our bodies and even more importantly, our brains.
Walking brings wellness
My years of research and studying and becoming an avid practitioner has led me to where I am today. Through my company, Walk With Walsh, I am on a mission to get more people outdoors and to understand the health benefits of spending time in nature and what happens to us when we are without nature in our daily lives. Mindful walking, what I like to refer to as Wellness Walks, aren’t getting from point A to point B in a specific amount of time. It is more like yoga for the brain. It is a time to be present in nature and to activate your senses in a way that you would not get indoors or in a gym. It is slowly walking in nature and to understand the healing benefits that it has to offer.
Through my Nature Green Print Program, I help companies and others map out ways to effectively reintroduce people to nature. My Wellness Walks continue to grow as I lead people on daily mindful meditative walks to regain creativity and connection.
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