Leisure: What My Morning Walks Have Taught Me
Lately I’ve been walking in the mornings. Rain or shine, I’ve been out there, gently moving my body and noticing whatever I notice. Some days I see kids running outside, or dog walkers, or the USPS post office delivery lady taking her morning smoke break. What I love is that every morning I take the same walk, but the morning is always different. At the end of my walk, I walk down this street with trees lining each side of the road and at the time of day I walk, the sun is peering right through the middle of the trees. I take my phone out real quick and get a photo before putting my phone back in my pocket as I head home.
I like this meditative practice because what it does is it shows me that no matter what is going on around me or in me that day, the sun is always in the same spot, at the exact same time, every day. And especially on rainy days, when I can’t actually see the sun (and yes, I still take the picture), I KNOW the sun is there (because I have a sunny day picture proof that it is).
See… told ya.
I think this is a really good reminder for me every morning. Life is always changing and yet, there are also many rhythms of life that stay exactly the same.
Usually when I am walking, I am thinking about the content for the next month and how it applies to my life. This month I have been meditating on leisure. What kept coming up for me is how hard that word is for me! I met up with a new friend last week and she asked me what I did for fun. I actually never answered the question. Quite honestly, I hate answering that question because I LOVE work. I love what I do and I don’t do much else. I feel incredibly privileged to say that and I don’t take that for granted, but it is still WORK and I still need to prioritize leisure. I digress…
When I was thinking about leisure, I was thinking about how I trained for a marathon last year and I just don’t have it in me right now to train for anything else or move my body in any other way besides walking. All I have capacity for is my morning walks. Recently I thought to myself, “why do I constantly feel this need to have a goal around moving my body?” I preach the opposite to my clients all the time. I tell them to find the rhythms of life and find movement and goals and intention around that, not on what you did last year or last month even, but sometimes we know information and applying it to ourselves is so much harder!
In Myers & Sweeney's work, they define leisure as activities that are non-obligatory — done for enjoyment, relaxation, and personal fulfillment, rather than for work or required responsibilities.
Why in so many things that we do “for leisure” do we still create obligations or create rules around them that don’t actually need to be there? What if my body movement of choice or the food I nourish myself with, or the activities I do come from a place of enjoyment or personal fulfillment, rather than obligation? What if we engaged in activities that are VITAL for our psychological and emotional health, reduced stress, enhanced life satisfaction, and supported our creativity and self-expression from a place of leisure (enjoyment and relaxation) and not from demand? What would change?
In short:
Leisure is a critical part of wellness that promotes balance, joy, and restoration and it shouldn’t be a luxury or afterthought. Also, when it becomes an obligation, perhaps we need to make some small or large adjustments to shift back into enjoyment, relaxation, and personal fulfillment.
Questions for Reflection:
What activities in your life are meant to be for leisure, but have started to feel like obligations?
How might your relationship with movement, rest, or creativity change if you allowed it to align more naturally with the seasons of your life?
What rhythms or constants—like the sun in the morning—can you lean into when everything else feels uncertain or overwhelming?
If you fully embraced leisure as essential to your wellness (not a luxury), what small shifts would you make in your routines?