The real reason I walk and take pictures

I walk to help me feel better. I don’t particularly like walking and I started taking pictures on my phone to help make the walks go quicker. I know I’m surrounded by beauty but when I’m not feeling great, I often don’t see any of it.

Since I came back back to Donegal in August I’ve been doing a lot of walking. I started out walking three or four times a week at first. Around 7–8km every day.

Now I’ll be honest, it wasn’t easy and I didn’t really enjoy it at first. I was walking between 4–5 times a week, every week for about 3 months before I started to enjoy it.

I’ve always heard the term ‘Activation precedes motivation’ and it’s true. It basically means that you have to do something before you get motivated to do it. If I was going to wait to be motivated to go for a walk I prob would never ever have gone for one.

On a good week I’m walking 5 days a week and up to 40km a week but often much more. One week I walked 60km. Eek. Definitely not something I would have even thought was possible a few months ago.

Now, for anyone looking at my pictures on my social media pages they prob aren’t aware of the struggle behind each picture.

I walk to benefit my mental health, and to help me feel better. I don’t particularly like walking and I started taking pictures on my phone to help make the walks go quicker. I know I’m surrounded by obvious beauty on my walks but when I’m not feeling great, I often don’t see any of it. I definitely don’t appreciate it.

My pictures help me see the beauty that I don’t see through my own eyes right now. So when you see a beautiful picture of that I’ve taken you prob don’t realise the struggle that has gone with it.

The fact I’ve taken the picture means I’m out of bed which is a good thing. The pic might be beautiful but I may not have experienced any of that beauty. In fact every step of that walk could have been extremely difficult. But you can never tell from the picture.

It’s literally one step at a time. One foot in front of the other. Some days it helps me feel better, but often it doesn’t. I know the walking is helping my physical health enormously. And in theory the challenge and being out in nature is good for my mental health. But I’d be lying if I said it made me feel amazing. But I know that’s because I’m in a really bad place right now. If I was in a bit of a better place I know that walking in nature has the potential to make me feel so much better. Chances are if you experiencing things like depression of anxiety it will have a huge benefit to your mental health, and you don’t have to walk as much as I do.Even 20 minutes each day can have a positive impact on your health. ( Consult your health professional before you take up any sort of exercise)

I know walking has the potential to really benefit my mental health. Right now things are extremely difficult so everything is a challenge. Maybe if things were a bit easier, I’d notice the benefits of my walking much more.

If nothing else I enjoy taking pictures, and it helps make the walks go quicker. So for now I’ll keep walking because I know some day I’m gonna enjoy the beauty for myself without needing to see if through the lens of a camera.

On one of my Instagram posts recently the mighty Lisa Maree (Follow her on Twitter) said something that made perfect sense to me. ‘The eye of the camera can help the eye of the mind.” I totally agree, when I’m out walking I don’t always appreciate the beauty as I’m often so lost in my head. However, when I look back on my pics I can appreciate the beauty that my own eye doesn’t always capture first time around.

Long story short. It’s a journey. A bloody hard one. But it starts with each step with one foot in front of the other. I’ve got this and so do you.

You can check out my pics on my Instagram page.

Originally published at unwindyourmind.wordpress.com on January 28, 2018.