A New Way of Walking

I was reading an article with tips for taking a tech break recently and read about something called a “color walk.” I thought it was a great idea, so I tried it the other day. Before you start taking a walk, you choose a color and then look for it as you walk. You can even let it guide your route. Doing this connects you to your senses and grounds you.

I chose the color blue, thinking that it would be a difficult color to find as I walked up and down my street. Was I ever wrong: I passed a blue car. I passed a person wearing a blue T-shirt. I passed a blue fire hydrant. I passed a blue children’s pail in a yard. I passed blue spray-painted lines over water mains on the street. I passed blue recycling bins. I passed a worn blue and yellow Ukrainian flag hanging from a porch.

Instead of walking along and trying to tame racing thoughts about my to-do list, work, family stress, I was able to focus on the simple task at hand. It felt a bit like meditation, being grounded in the present moment. It also reminded me of playing car bingo during the five-hour car rides to my grandparents’ houses when I was growing up.

Have you done a color walk before?