Our bodies know that they belong; it is our minds that make our lives so homeless. Guided by longing, belonging is the wisdom of rhythm.
When we are in rhythm with our own nature, things flow and balance naturally. ~John O’Donohue

Solvitur Ambulando:
A New Coaching Offering for the New Year

Solvitur Ambulando is a Latin phrase that usually translates as “it’s solved by walking”. My eponymous new coaching offering is a coaching session that is conducted while walking together in nature. I am offering it in response to what I have recently witnessed in my coaching practice: clients prone to anxiety, restlessness, sleeping difficulties, tied to their electronic devices and social media apps with little time for exercise, self-reflection, let alone time outdoors, and as a result not prone to engage in a self-development program while still looking to grow and get answers to some deep questioning. So, I am adding to my life coaching programs and walking events, a simple coaching while walking offering that can be purchased in single or multiple sessions. While walking with me as your life coach, my intention is for you to experience a different way of being, to learn to be more grounded and present, to ease your anxiety, to increase your creativity, to be more resourceful, and to learn a new practice that will support you for life. Of course, this can also be done while sitting, as in a typical coaching session, but by being in movement in nature, a natural alignment of mind, heart and body occurs that increases creativity, productivity and general wellbeing as documented in many studies, like this 2014 research from Stanford University Walking vs. Sitting or this 2015 New York Times article How Walking Changes Your Brain or as discussed in an earlier blog post titled On The Wisdom of Walking in the Woods (where I was extolling the benefits of walking in nature and value of another of my walking and coaching offerings, the (Inner Compass) Wisdom Walk.)

It’s worth quoting from Rebecca Solnit’s masterpiece Wanderlust: A History of Walking again:

Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.[…]

Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is a bodily labor that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals.[…]

The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it. A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along ..

Or quoting from a more recent book by Antionia Malchik A Walking Life- Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom one step at a time (see book’s review below):

We walk, and dams in our minds begin to crumble; our thoughts find new paths to explore; our prejudice and assumptions about ourselves, about other people, about the world around us, begin to erode, to shift, to blur. Our bodies become alive again and we learn, may be for the first time since we were little children, what a giddy, vital, physical thing it is to be alive.

I truly believe in -and have personally experienced- the amazing physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of a simple stroll in nature. If you already enjoy walking alone, then the (Inner Compass) Wisdom Walk may be what you need to get clarity on a challenge or opportunity in your life. If walking in the woods alone is not currently a practice of yours, and actually brings up fear or discomfort, then enrolling a guide like me can provide the structure, support and accountability you need to ensure long term adoption of this developmental and resourcing practice. 

For a limited time, both offerings are discounted:
(Solvitur Ambulando) Coaching Session
(Inner Compass) Wisdom Walk

I look forward to walking with you for a (Solvitur Ambulando) Coaching Session or to guiding you on your (Inner Compass) Wisdom Walk.

Warmly,
Anne-Marie

Next Women’s Pilgrimage:
Shikoku 88 temples route, April 2020

The next women’s pilgrimage in Japan has just been announced: we will be walking Shikoku in early April. Registration will open soon and space is VERY limited due to the popularity of Japan in the Spring. If you are interested, please email me as soon as possible with your information and intention. 

Book: A Walking Life by Antonia Malchik