The Mini Journey

A walk is, in a sense, the smallest journey we can undertake. It relates to a typical holiday as a bonsai tree does to a forest. However, this seemingly simple act holds profound significance.

The need to walk comes from the same place as the desire to travel to another country: a wish to restart our minds and discover new things. Sometimes, we can't work everything out by staying in one place. We've stared at the screen too long, bumped into the same inner obstacles without progress, and grown claustrophobic within ourselves. We need to breathe, but travelling somewhere isn't always possible. The beauty of a walk lies in its accessibility; it requires no tickets, no passports, and no elaborate planning.

That's why we need the sight of the three oak trees and two crows by the park or the bustle of the high street, where we linger outside a grocer's shop and wonder (inconclusively, yet again) what dragon fruit might taste like. The better part of our minds tends to get exhausted and sterile. It is also scary. Some of the most profound thoughts we need to grapple with have a potentially disturbing character. An inner censor tends to kick in and block the progress we are starting to make towards ideas that, though essential and exciting, also present marked threats to short-term peace.

While we walk, the mind is no longer on guard. We're not supposed to be doing much inside our heads; we're mainly occupied with following a path around a pavement or checking out a row of shops. The ideas that have been half-forming at the back of our minds—ideas about the true purpose of our lives and what we should do next—keep up their steady inward pressure. But now, there is much less to stop them from reaching full consciousness. We're not meant to be thinking, so we can finally think freely and courageously. Walking grants us a rare permission to daydream and reflect without the usual constraints of our structured routines.

The rhythmic motion of an easy stride helps to separate us from the ruts of our current preoccupations. It allows us to wander more freely through neglected regions of our inner landscape. Themes we'd lost touch with—childhood, an odd dream we had recently, a friend we haven't seen for years, a big task we always told ourselves we'd undertake—float into attention. In physical terms, we're hardly covering any distance but crossing acres of mental territory. We are travelling within ourselves. The walk becomes a bridge between the mundane and the extraordinary, a passageway to deeper understanding and self-awareness.

A short while later, we're back at the office or home once again. No one has missed us or perhaps even noticed that we've been out. Yet we are subtly different: a slightly more complete, more visionary, courageous, and imaginative version of the person we were before we wisely went out journeying. Our brief escape has endowed us with fresh perspectives and renewed energy to face our daily lives.

Wander more freely through the neglected regions of your inner landscape. Travel into yourself, as that's where we travel when we also physically travel. Each step taken on a walk is a step towards greater clarity, creativity, and inner peace.