reasonstobecheerful.world
Londoners Are Walking Their Way to Better Mental Health
The first rule of Walk Club, we’re instructed, is to leave something behind. Not a literal piece of baggage, but one of those metaphorical ones that many of us carry. Whether it’s something that happened earlier in the day or an ongoing feeling of discontentment, we’re asked to visualize physically leaving it on the ground before we begin our walk.
The second rule of Walk Club is to have open ears and an open mind, as we prepare to ask and answer questions from the topic cards we’ve all just selected, with people we have only just met.
The third rule of Walk Club is to bring an umbrella. It may be the middle of summer, but this is London, after all.
Walk Club takes the kinds of meaningful moments that usually happen in a therapy office and moves them out into the world. Credit: Self Space
With that, the group I’ve just joined sets off on a 2.5-mile walk. We start at Coal Drops Yard in Kings Cross, a revitalized industrial precinct now packed with buzzy bars and restaurants and vibrant clothing stores, but the scene of many a warehouse rave party in the 1980s and 1990s.
The buzz has the potential to distract from the task at hand: to walk and talk for the next hour, feeding our bodies and minds by combining exercise and therapy. Crowds have flocked to a free outdoor cinema, sipping large, orange-colored cocktails from oversized glasses. Food trucks ply their wares, while children weave in and out of the grid that makes up the Granary Square fountains. As we descend to the path along Regent’s Canal, music booms out of docked boats, while people browse for their next good read from one that’s been converted into a waterside book store. All underneath rumbling gray clouds that are expanding and darkening by the second.
As we cut away from the canal path, we pause at Thornhill Bridge Community Garden for a group check-in, before continuing up into Barnard Park. Here, the vibe visibly shifts away from the trendy scene we’ve just passed through to Londoners going about their daily lives — dog walkers, runners, commuters and after-school sports clubs.
Guided by therapists Polly and Kate, our walk now becomes less casual and influenced by what the Kings Cross crowds are doing, but more intentional, and about us. In groups of two and three, we begin posing questions from the topic cards we chose earlier, pausing at intervals for Polly and Kate to check in with the group.
One of my trio asks me about how I feel when I see other people putting their feet up, as I’ve chosen the card marked, “For people who are always tired.” Easy: jealous, I answer, and I explain why. With two young children and work to balance, there’s little room in my life for the luxury of relaxing. Time away from the family seems like an unreasonable ask, because it means someone else has to create the space for me to do that. But remembering the baggage I left behind — feelings of negativity and resentment — reminds me to shed some positive light on the situation, too. This evening, I have indeed chosen myself for once. And it feels good.
It’s then my turn to ask one of my walking partners, whose chosen topic card is focused on the inability to switch off from work. We talk about how easily she brings her work mindset home, especially now that she’s just moved in with her partner. As a product designer, her role is to think of solutions and features that make a product easier to use. Applying that thinking to home makes sense to her, like introducing a cleaning schedule for the apartment. Yet her partner doesn’t think the same, causing conflict.
Rumble
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
