Self-Care Guide – Take a Hike & Listen

Today, I invite you to take a hike.

Choose somewhere different even if it’s a little bit of a drive to see it through new eyes. Choose somewhere you can become entranced in silence–in the quieting sounds of the natural world.

Bring a picnic.

Go with a friend or by yourself, but make a promise to be silent. This will be more difficult at the beginning as your mind chatters away. At the midpoint, rest, breathe, and listen.

Listen to every texture, every layer, and focus your attention on nothing but sound, allowing each one that comes into your realm of awareness to move in and out.

On your return hike, your mind will be quieter.

Stillness gives us inner stillness. The quiet of nature heals us.

Enjoy your picnic wherever it feels right and take time eating your food, being mindful of what each bite feels like in your mouth and how it will nourish your entire being.

To our environment & to quiet–I wish you happy listening,

Courtney Amber

Writing Prompt: Let the experience of a quiet hike purely centered around listening soak in. What was it like for your primary observation to be audio? What was your somatic feeling of this auditory curiosity? After, and only after, you experience the hike and its auditory wonders, capture your enchantment, your felt sense.

Recommended Listening:  On Being‘s “The Last Quiet Places: Silence and the Presence of Everything” with Gordon Hempton

Recommended Reading: One Square Inch of Silence by Gordan Hempton for an incredible look at the endangerment of America’s quiet places, and the soul-stirring necessity of them (Excerpt here)