Lockdown Walks & Remembering What Matters

When the world stopped, everything got quiet – except my head.

Early 2020 hit like a brick. One minute I was building momentum – Reiki sessions, new routines, the faint sense that I might finally be getting somewhere – and the next, it was all cancelled. Literally. I couldn’t work, couldn’t see people, couldn’t do anything but sit and stew in the uncertainty.

Like everyone else, I told myself I’d make the most of it. Read the books. Learn a language. Redecorate the house. But most days, I just stared at the walls.

Until I started walking.

Not power-walking, not counting steps – just walking. Wandering, really. No headphones. No podcast. Just putting one foot in front of the other to get out of the house and away from the static.

And then something happened. I started noticing things.

The birds were louder. The air smelled sharper. I could feel the wind properly, not just rush past it on the way to somewhere else. Trees weren’t just scenery anymore – they were there. Proper, ancient, unmoved. It was like nature had been quietly waiting for me to shut up long enough to notice it.

So I kept walking.

It became a kind of ritual. Not a routine in the strict sense – more like a lifeline. I’d leave the house heavy and come back lighter. Not because anything was “sorted” but because, for once, I wasn’t trying to sort anything. Just… being.

I started to realise I wasn’t separate from nature. I was nature. My nervous system wasn’t built for rolling news cycles and back-to-back Zoom calls – it was built for air, trees, water, breath.

This wasn’t about wellness trends or optimised routines. It wasn’t a productivity hack. It was more like remembering something I’d forgotten I already knew: that being outside, moving slowly, doing nothing in particular, is sometimes the most healing thing you can do.

And maybe the most honest.

I didn’t have big breakthroughs. I didn’t start meditating under a yew tree or find enlightenment in a daffodil. But I started to feel… human again. Present. Grateful. A bit less spun out.

And that was enough.