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Walking and Freedom Within Structure

July 2024

For the first half of this year, there has been the opportunity each month for email subscribers to win a spot on a group intuitive consultation. However, group calls from July onwards will be focusing on the Clear Channel Course, and not all subscribers are participants of this course. So, from now until December 2024, the monthly giveaway will be a 30-minute one-on-one intuitive consultation with me, which anyone can take advantage of :)

Instructions for how to enter the draw will be sent via email, and winners are chosen using an online random selection tool.

Freedom Within Structure

When I first began my intuitive business, I was initially thrilled to leave a Monday to Friday 9 to 5 job, as it would mean having the freedom to do what I wanted each day. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the excitement to give way to stress and overwhelm. I had too much time, with no structure in place and no boss to say what to do or when to do it.

When life is hectic, the idea of having lots of free time may sound like a fantastic problem to have. The reality is that this doesn’t always inspire creativity, fun, or the motivation to be productive.

I’m currently reading a book called It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again (An Artist’s Way Program for Retirees and Other Creative Souls) – not that I’m planning to retire any time soon, but I’ve loved other works by the author, Julia Cameron, and there’s no harm in considering how I might choose to live during my older years.

The sense of being stressed, overwhelmed, and just plain lost that I experienced after quitting steady employment is apparently very normal among retirees, who may find themselves faced with long stretches of free time, and a lack of clarity on what to do with it.

Any transition that leads to a lack of structure in one’s day can lead to anxiety, low mood, and/or an existential crisis. This is true whether it’s due to retirement, a career switch, unemployment, or even a holiday. For example, it's common for people to be hit by an unexpected wave of depression or panic during the same period of annual leave that they had been looking forward to so much in the weeks or months beforehand.

Walking

During my phase of trying to cope with a lack of daily structure, it would have been great if someone had said to me, “Hey Jess, you don’t need an external person or job or deadline to do what you need to do. Just create a routine for every day to help get the most important things done, and that includes movement. Make sure you get some exercise and perhaps go for a walk each day.”

I wasn’t given this advice, but I ended up learning the value of structuring walks into my day nonetheless.

There was one memorable moment when I felt so aimless, with a sluggish body and underused brain, that I sat down on the floor and stared into space, bemused at how much time I had, yet so little energy or drive to do anything meaningful with it. Not long afterwards, while wondering how I was going to pay my rent, I arrived home one day to receive a letter stating that my apartment was being sold. That was the day when I hit a low point that, thankfully, became a turning point.

Without thinking, I put on my shoes and went outside again. I walked for over an hour, first around my neighbourhood, then to nearby suburbs and beyond. By the end of it, nothing on the outside had changed. Yet on the inside, I had a sense that there was a higher force available to guide me. I also felt a shift from being angry, scared, and sorry for myself, to a state of certainty that things would change. And they did.

I went back temporarily to a fulltime job that I enjoyed, with a team of people I loved. With much less free time, I somehow felt that I had more freedom. Thanks to the new structure I had in my life, I didn’t have to think about what to do at work, as my tasks for the allotted time were clear. My nights and weekends felt a lot freer than all those completely ‘free’ days of the previous months. I could really relax at those times, knowing it was fine to do nothing particularly productive if I didn’t want to. I had more energy, and despite being busier, was able to do more intuitive readings than I seemed capable of previously when there had been seemingly endless amounts of time to do them. And I continued to walk a lot.

Structuring Walking Into the Day

In It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again, walking is recommended weekly – a minimum of two twenty-minute solo walks per week. Halfway through reading the book, I realised that I hadn’t allowed myself to go for those walks on my own. Walking with other people is fun, but not the same as going by oneself.

I resolved to do the solo walks for just one week. The two twenty-minute walks turned into every couple of days, for 30 minutes or more. I’m now keen to continue them daily when I can, because the same sense of being guided that I felt on that long walk back in 2014 seems to reliably return again and again whenever I go on walks alone, especially when there’s no rushing and no set destination to get to.

The Destination is Not So Important

At first, I thought if it would be a waste of time to walk with no planned place to arrive at, but it’s almost as though the lack of destination helps to switch on our inner sense of guidance.

It seems true of life generally – when we’re not fixated on a particular outcome, we allow ourselves to be guided more easily. That feeling of guidance is reassuring, energising, and its own reward, no matter where we end up.

So, whether you have a very structured life or not, or whether you have clear goals and desired destinations for your life or not, I invite you to include a solo walk or two each week with no purpose other than to walk. See what happens!

If walking is not possible, try structuring another 20 to 30-minute activity into your day, whether it’s journalling, stretching, doodling or something else, without distractions and without anyone else there if possible. It’s funny, but the more we add such structured activities into our days, the more we can find the freedom to allow our consciousness to let go, and for our inner guidance to shine through.

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