Walking the dog mindfully ???

[Metaphysical Me]

I don't get the idea of "over-thinking" mindfulness either. How do you think all the mindfulness books get written? Do you think Mark Williams "overthinks" mindfulness? Or Jon Kabat-Zinn? Or the Dalai Lama who *thinks* about mindfulness a whole lot too?

I agree that *thinking* is not appropriate in the moment of pracitsing mindfulness - but unless people had thought about the philosophy and the technicalities of mindfulness for centuries, there would be no practice and teachings to refer to...

[larorra]

I like this post alot, and it has given me lots of ideas for when I walk my dog,, I often act mindful while walking her in the park, noticing nature, the trees the sky, but i have never mindfully watched her actions and behaviour, except to get annoyed at her when she practices her favourite bad habit,, rolling in the mud! I will make a point of doing a mindful walk and focus on her and see how that goes! Very interesting reads here.

[Metaphysical Me]

I like this post alot, and it has given me lots of ideas for when I walk my dog,, I often act mindful while walking her in the park, noticing nature, the trees the sky, but i have never mindfully watched her actions and behaviour, except to get annoyed at her when she practices her favourite bad habit,, rolling in the mud! I will make a point of doing a mindful walk and focus on her and see how that goes! Very interesting reads here.

Cool! Yes, I'm going to be trying this stuff too and will report back on it, as I see how it goes.

I'm quite a patient dog-walker, always letting my dog sniff at EVERYTHING and I'm always happy to change our route when he decides on a whim he needs to check out a different street that day - so I think I do take joy in/ watch him "doing his dog thing" but I have certainly never attempted to make it into a mindfulness practice before.

Let me know how you go with practising your dog-walking mindfulness! Would love to hear it

[Metaphysical Me]

P.S. I am always sooo relieved to hear other ppl's dog's bad habits - especially if it is one habit *not* on our dog's list... haha... He's way too busy chasing rabbits to have time for a roll in the mud

[piedwagtail91]

I don't get the idea of "over-thinking" mindfulness either. How do you think all the mindfulness books get written? Do you think Mark Williams "overthinks" mindfulness? Or Jon Kabat-Zinn? Or the Dalai Lama who *thinks* about mindfulness a whole lot too?

I agree that *thinking* is not appropriate in the moment of pracitsing mindfulness - but unless people had thought about the philosophy and the technicalities of mindfulness for centuries, there would be no practice and teachings to refer to...

i doubt the books get written by 'overthinking'. i guess it's thinking and editing.
overthinking is trying too hard, making more of being mindful than necessary.

it's not so much about trying to be mindful 24/7 , thats almost striving and impossible,but developing an awareness of when you're not mindful.
that doesn't mean you 'monitor' yourself 24/7 but you develop an awareness, as in the body scan and mind wandering.

it takes practice, anything , pleasant or unpleasant can be done mindfully.
a lot of misunderstandings and arguments can be avoided completely by mindful listening - to another- and hearing all of what is said, instead of catching only part of what is said and possibly getting annoyed by having only a part story.

[Steve]

I understand that it is easy to be swept up by tense situations - arguing with your spouse being a great example! To me being mindful is being aware of what you are feeling and doing in such situations so you have the power to choose what to do, ie do you react so your behaviour is entirely as has happened many times in the past (usually getting upset, angry and defending yourself verbally - and usually criticising the other person too) or do you step back mentally and think what am trying to achieve here? Is my reaction likely to achieve this? If not, what other response might be better?

Sometimes you can step back mentally and just laugh at these two humans falling into the same rut yet again and just perpetuating their problems. If either of them recognise they are doing this they might have the option to try something different.

This is easy to say, most of the time I fall into the usual rut and the swiftness of my reaction overtakes any chance of responding rather than reacting - but the more one notices whats happening the more chance you have of eventually learning not to be so controlled by your reactions and instead choosing how to respond.

Steve

[Metaphysical Me]

I understand that it is easy to be swept up by tense situations - arguing with your spouse being a great example! To me being mindful is being aware of what you are feeling and doing in such situations so you have the power to choose what to do, ie do you react so your behaviour is entirely as has happened many times in the past (usually getting upset, angry and defending yourself verbally - and usually criticising the other person too) or do you step back mentally and think what am trying to achieve here? Is my reaction likely to achieve this? If not, what other response might be better?

Sometimes you can step back mentally and just laugh at these two humans falling into the same rut yet again and just perpetuating their problems. If either of them recognise they are doing this they might have the option to try something different.

This is easy to say, most of the time I fall into the usual rut and the swiftness of my reaction overtakes any chance of responding rather than reacting - but the more one notices whats happening the more chance you have of eventually learning not to be so controlled by your reactions and instead choosing how to respond.

Steve

Exactly

And for me, early morning walks, when I'm still really sleepy, with a VERY challenging dog, in a neighbourhood that is everything but calm, is one of these challenging situations, where I notice (despite years of practise) that I end up in my usual rut, suddenly operating on "automatic pilot".

Hence my question for tips re walking the dog mindfully...

[Metaphysical Me]

So, I tried to be mindful in the chaos of our evening dog-walk today.

I managed to listen to the sounds that I and the dog make.

There's the rustling of my parka, and the wooshing sound the legs of my ski pants make, while I walk (yep, it's coooold here). There's the sound of the dog's toenails tip-tapping gently on the pavement, there's his panting as he leans into the harness and leash, trying to reach his favourite hunting grounds as quickly as possible...

What was nice about this was that it got me so focused on those sounds, that I didn't notice the noise of the traffic.

Because our walks are quite chaotic (former street-dog, lots of hunting, traffic) I can't do long stretches of "listening to sounds" but I'm going to try and get 20 - 30 second blocks in, in the less hectic parts of the walk (i.e. moments where there are no rabbits in sight).

Maybe that will have to be my goal for other mindfulness practices for the dog-walks too? Maybe trying to sustain longer periods of focus in a situation that is stressful and where you "need your wits about you", simply isn't a realistic goal.

Maybe I'll just have to work in as many 30 second mindfulness intervals as I can, hoping that the peacefulness of those moments will sort of radiate out on to the rest of the walk, leaving me feeling less stressed overall.

[Metaphysical Me]

So, another adventure dog-walk was just had. (No two dog walks are the same, with this dog.)

Trying to be mindful about it, I just noticed that this dog is extremely emotional about his dog walks.

As I've already mentioned, he is a former stray, having been born and grown up on the streets, as far as we know. This means that he's very much "got his own mind" and is not particularly inclined to do what anyone else suggests (including us, of course).

He grew up in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania, where it's often minus 30 to minus 40 in the winters. This has given him a real distate for cold weather (and an abhorrence of rain), which has him being extra capricious about walks at the moment.

His mentality seems to be that unless his bladder is full to the hilt and unless he needs to do a poo *now*, it's better to stay inside, snuggled on the bed, next to the heater.

If and when we *do* get him outdoors, basically every single thing he does or doesn't do is emotion-driven.

If he thinks a street looks "yuck" or "ugh" then he simply won't walk it. And he's forever finding new, sometimes puzzling reasons for which streets are "yay" and which streets are "nay".

We also suspect from what we know about his time on the streets that he has witnessed other dogs being shot. Anything that sounds like a shot (which according to him is basically most loud noises) fill him with sheer dread and he insists on racing home at break-neck speed.

While this has wildly improved over the 9 months we've had him (excruciatingly patient training + him finally starting to "get the gist" of being a non-stray dog...) it's still a very large part of who he is.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm someone who was taught that emotions (especially *acting* on emotions) is silly, ludicrious and only permissible on the occasional exception.

So the idea of walking round a suburb + park based solely on how which street makes you FEEL today is kind of a foreign concept.

(This process also often has us standing stock-still for up to 1-2 minutes, while the dog is pondering which of the available directions is "least yuck" to take...)

Also, this means that the length of our walks are highly unpredictable. On a "good" day, our dog would gladly go on a 5 hour long mega-walk. But more often than not, our walks are 3-4 minutes long (walk in a certain direction, with the dog relieving his bladder til he's ready to poop, and then *immediately* doing an about face and rushing back home, to "safety").

So today's dog-walking mindfulness makes me think that I'm going to have to stop being "sensible" or "logical" about dog-walks and be prepared to embark on the adventure of "emotional walks". (Which is not to say that we've not already done this - I guess we've just got to go a LOT further, still.)

I feel a bit stumped as to how these emotional-walks will be (?) but I also think they may turn out to be an interesting opportunity for unexpected learning.

[James123]

Based on reading what you have written about your dog walks, I think you should be giving yourself a pat on the back if you manage to get any mindfulness practice in.