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Walking for Therapy

This morning I woke up in a less-than-average kinda mood. One look at the window did little to improve things, the weather was honestly miserable. I had two options... Sit inside all day and dwell on my bad mood, or make the most of it and get out. I chose the latter. I chucked on my coat and put my headphones in and got in the car to head for the woods. I'm not sure why the woods in particular jumped out today as the place that I wanted to be, it just felt like that's where I should go.









For years I've struggled with mental health, mostly bad anxiety that gets the better of me quite a lot of the time and on days like this I'd often stay inside and my mood would only continue to decline. One of the things that has always helped is walking. I walk and I explore. I like to discover new places and sometimes, like today, I just like to walk around places I've been before and observe. The anxiety can make that hard at times, because some days I wake up and I just don't want to leave the house. Sometimes I want to just bury my head and keep to myself and hope that people will forget I exist. Other days I crave the outside and just have to get out there and experience it. I was grateful for the weather today as I knew there wouldn't be many people around to disturb me.

















Now, when I say the weather was miserable I mean that the rain was heavy, it was windy and it was mucky. The perfect conditions to go to a place that I really like that is normally full of dog walkers, today I bumped into only a few. I stopped and chatted to one for a few minutes and he asked why I was out on my own in this weather and I didn't have an answer. I just simply replied "It helps my head" and he accepted that and told me he hoped I have a good day.









Walking can be the most beautiful kind of therapy as you can participate in it alone, or you can do it with friends. I sometimes quite like walking alone as it's a good time to gather my thoughts and take in some sights and it's also keeping your body busy. The best thing about walking is it can take you to some places that you would otherwise be unable to get to. I often find that those are the most beautiful places as they're the ones that haven't been disturbed or mutilated by humanity. Places that run wild and free are the most therapeutic for me, personally. I like the idea that nature can still prevail and that when left undisturbed, these places still flourish and still grow. I like places where you can see nature reclaiming land that people once tried to make use of, abandoned sites and overgrown clearings.









I like to take my music with me on walks like this and I've been including a few of the tracks that I listened to today, I have a playlist built up of things I used for walks like this and I think it's nice to share the things that calm me and help me to relax. They may be able to help someone else too. Today really helped to clear my head of a few of the things that I was worried about so I'm glad that I made the choice to get out and participate today.









Autumn is my favourite season for walking because you get such a beautiful contrast of colours and it has some of my favourite conditions for walking, as much as some of you might think I'm crazy going out in the pouring rain. (N.b I'm definitely crazy) I hope to get out more over this Autumn and try and find some new places I've never seen before as few things make me happier these days. If anyone ever wants to come exploring with me they're more than welcome, it's nice to have company sometimes! If not, or you're a million miles away from me, then you should definitely try walking the next time you're stressed or feeling down. It can definitely help.

Love, always. x

(I apologise for the awful image quality)








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