Often plan for our lives from start to finish. We create endless to-do lists that we can hardly work through, and then we are surprised that we are permanently stressed.
As an antithesis to this, just let sluggishness find its way into your life. At least in the short term.
What do I mean by that?
The word "Schlendrian" comes from Dutch Slenteren and actually means something like walk around very slowly. In German, it became strolling, a term for leisurely, aimless walking.
And that turned into the "Schlendrian".
It generally has a rather negative connotation, but the strolling, which is also in the word, is wonderfully suitable to counteract our to-do list stress.
On your next nature or forest walk, just focus on strolling and slow, aimless walking around (the sluggishness exercise is the smaller brother of the "Zen Walking" exercise, which you can find here in the Daily Flow exercises):
- Stroll slowly through the nature or forest in which you are walking.
- Don't think about which path you want to take. Just "follow your nose" and let yourself be surprised where your path leads you.
- For this exercise, it is best to take an area that you know well so that you can easily find your way back after the exercise. Do not do the exercise in unfamiliar terrain. To be on the safe side, you can also take a map or a hiking app with you on your mobile phone (but if possible, you should only use it if you absolutely have to. Keyword "Digital Detox)
- In between, take a look around to see what there is to discover. Walk around mindfully and with open senses.
- If you like, you can collect natural materials (of course, you should not tear off plant parts or take animals with you):
- A lucky charm
- Something in your favorite color
- Something that smells good
- Something you could give away
- Anything useful
- If you like, you can also put a nature picture out of the objects and take a photo of it home with you. So you don't have to carry everything around with you.
- Once you've been doing the exercise for a while, go back to the starting point and feel inside yourself what aimless walking has done to your sense of stress.
For me, it was usually my dog who made me walk around aimlessly and just "following his nose" (probably more like 😏 his nose).
Namely, when we came to a junction during a walk in the woods where the usual path went in one direction, but Jacky preferred to go in the other direction.
Sometimes I gave in and tried out with him where such a branch could lead us.
It's really a different feeling when you walk through the forest like this and don't just "walk" a given route.
And often enough I have discovered the most wonderful paths and places just like this!