Decluttering is all the rage just now! Clear desk, clear room, clear mind….and there may well be something in that, although as someone who prefers Einstein´s theory that a tidy desk is a boring mind, as an excuse for encroaching on the personal space around me, I may have to disagree…

I have a cluttered mind. I have intrusive thoughts, racing ideas, amazing and convoluted plans that come to me at 3am and are becoming totteringly grandiose by dawn…I am getting older and I have so much left to do and see …but my brain exhausts me..bipolar is a tiring business and often I am just out of control of the dramatic fireworks that are going off in my head.

I need to clear my internal desk on a regular basis and I declutter in the most minimalist way I can. I walk.

To me, walking is minimalism at its most pure. You need you and a decent pair of shoes, plus a coat that fits the climate. Nothing fancy. Forget the step counter and the heart monitor… You can get up and go when you want, where you want, and for how long you want and each step is the engine running down.

You are guided to see the teeny tiny sensations. A breeze or a gale on your face. Different textures of ground beneath your feet. A smell of smoke or blossom or wet earth. You see changes on the trees, in the sky, new flowers grow and die and grow again.

You can sit where you want, for as long as you want and time begins to become elastic.

The Ancient Greeks believed that meditation was a vital part of education and a stroll without an end point counted as part of the meditative process…you are part of the line of history that stretches back to that wisdom. That just to BE in the cycle of life is enough.

Back to the untidy desk!