The set up
While my recent articles have been about actual physical walks, my thoughts this week centre around the notion of emotional walking. Everyday in my life I encounter mental and physical walking with other people. People that may walk towards me, walk with me side by side, walk through me or even walk away from me. Through these walks with others there is always a feeling or an emotion that emerges and encompasses me. Sometimes a good one, sometimes a bad one, sometimes a neutral one but never the same feeling.
Walking at work
At work as I walk from my desk to the kitchen for a coffee, I walk with other colleagues and share the typical office banter of small talk or it will be the chance to get a work-related matter sorted. A feeling of relief and achievement comes through when new ideas emerge from these walks with others in the office. And through the walk of small talk you get an insight into others’ feelings, moods, news and lots of other interesting information that can shape you as a person. There have been plenty of times that through the small talk I’ve seen something in a different perceptive or realised that what I was considering as right is wrong and vice versa. As a foreigner who has become a British citizen, small talk is also my source of acquiring knowledge so that I can embrace and understand my new culture, but also for me to share my Greek culture with others.
As I walk in the corridors towards a meeting, my walking will be shaped according to what lies ahead. The pace of walking might be fast when realising that I’m running late or it will be calm and steady when I’m certain that it will be a good meeting. My thoughts will be occupied with setting my personal expectations of what I’m trying to get out of a meeting or what will be expected of me, who will be there and how will their presence affect me. When walking away from a meeting, there will be plenty of emotions and feelings there too! They range from the good ones like satisfaction, relief, excitement, anticipation, hope, energy to the bad ones like frustration, puzzlement, anger, tiredness, anxiety and uncertainty.
Walking with my best friends
When work finishes, emotional walking with friends and new acquaintances has dominated my feelings in the last six months. I’ve been very fortunate and privileged to have my closest friends walking side by side with me through life’s ups and downs and even through my daily routine. They have walked side by side with me, without expecting anything but just to be myself and have been glad for having me there when they need me too. I’ve thrown quite a lot at them recently from practical solutions and queries to the more sophisticated ones of coping with days when I feel that people have walked all over me. One of the funniest recent practical solutions, was the answer to a complex technical problem that I couldn’t sort out with my laptop’s Wi-Fi connection – “Sweetie there’s a switch at the side of the laptop you need to have on!!!”
Mostly though they have helped me with keeping my smile, my energy, my hopes and most importantly they’ve encouraged me to keep on dreaming when I felt like giving up the habit. They’ve been the voice of reason when they felt that my dreaming went too far and helped me be strong and reasonable. My emotional walks with them is shaping me every day and gives me the most precious and rare thing in this life…undevoted love.
Walking with new acquaintances
As for walking with new acquaintances, there has been quite a bit of activity in that front. More than I’ve ever thought that I would do, but which alas has not yet been enough to get me to where I want my walk to end. New interesting and exciting personalities have walked through me in our mutual pathway of discovery that have eventually walked away from me. Each one was a different emotional walk which has taught me a lot but still not given me the strength or perhaps the skill to accept the walking away bit part. They have all been good walks while they lasted and for that I’m grateful. I also feel that I have taken so much and experienced so many new things through these walks. I have grown a thousand times as an adult because of them and even if someone gave me the gift of turning back the clock I would do them again all over.
The one thing I have yet to learn though is not let my emotions walk wild and too far before the pathway in front of me reassures me that I can do so. Perhaps with me being such a passionate character about love and life itself it is the hardest lesson to learn and perhaps I may never get there. After all I think there are some things that one cannot learn no matter how much practice they do. There is certainly a very strong will from my mind to learn, but my heart is a very bad pupil who refuses to do its homework and pass the exams!
I’m leaving the best for last by devoting the end of this blog to the last romantic walk I experienced recently which was the sweetest of all. It revived my confidence in being a woman worth of respect and admiration. It took me to beautiful new places that I’ve not been before and stretched me to go outside my typical boundaries of cautiousness. While it lasted, it was one of the happiest walks of this type and for that reason I have no regrets. With this walk there was a sensation and feeling that the person I was walking with was interested in discovering my soul, heart and mind rather than a walk all over me. It was a walk that made me so happy that I didn’t want it to end. And perhaps it’s because of this that this was not an easy walk away. I devote Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy to this beautiful walk which will remain a sweet memory in my walks of life. As I’m writing this, there is a beautiful winter moon outside my window and very fitting for the occasion allowing me to dream that my heart will walk again soon.
Walks and Smiles 