I'm slowly losing my ability to give a fuck at a relatively young age, and I think it's because of those "mindfulness walks" my therapist taught me.
The idea is simple, but actually pulling it off isn't.
I guess part of the success of the "mindfulness walks" can be attributed to the fact I already did that sort of thing, but in another form.
First, I will describe my form, then, my therapist's.
The need came out of my sleeping issues that are their own kind of weird. I should note - that happens fairly late at night, so my body wants to sleep, but my brain won't let it.
What I do in this scenario is I get dressed, take my cigs, my bottle of water, and my phone, and go out for the walk. Once I'm officially out of the property (another note - I live in a sort of she'd behind my landlord, not an actual house), meaning having just passed the gate, I set a countdown timer for half of the time I want the walk to last. 30 minutes is enough for the most part, so I set the timer for 15 minutes.
I light up a cig and in this half-asleep-half-awake state I "walk". It's less of an actual walk and probably looks more like a zombie shuffle, but I digress.
I relax my body "manually" as if I'm trying to fall asleep while walking.
Part of the issue is that my brain is basically losing its shit and thinking of a ton of random, intertwined shit. It "sounds" kind of like this: "it is cold oh no it is cold and I took the brown hoodie I should have worn two pairs of pants and the pajamas top too now I am cold fuck it I am doing this even if it is cold fuck it oh there's a cat over there I still want to pee wouldn't it be funny if I pissed on that cat haha it would be pissed off or pissed ON hahaha pissed ON this joke is lame..."
Sort of like a parrot on pretty much all drugs known to man. At the same time. After some time, usually about 10 minutes in the brain runs out of shit to think of and calms down. It's finally mental silence. I keep walking. About 5 minutes more and the phone rings, briefly awakening me from the zombie shuffle state. I take it out, turn the ringing off, take another cig and turn around. So far I have walked 15 minutes in one direction.
The next 15 minutes go through with mental silence, some yawning and very mild "waking up" just to take another drag. My cravings may be higher, so I might light up another cig.
Pros: once I'm home, I WILL fall asleep. No guarantee I will sleep through what's left of the night and not need another zombie-walk, but I will at least be able to take a nap.
Cons: I look high as fuck evident by how many times a very particular pair of cops (who later revealed it is only them who are assigned to patrol the neighborhood) occasionally bump into me. We've developed a sort of automated routine where I don't need to pull out my ID anymore.
My therapist's idea is different and requires a little more concentration. This type of walk can be done at any time of the day. For this I need my water, clothes, cigs, and phone again.
Again, I set a countdown, but this time for an hour. Walking time will be two hours.
This time, however, I divide my concentration into 1% my brain's rambling, 1% for not ramming into somebody, and 98% my feet.
For this I need either a very long route that is as straight as possible, or I just go to work and turn around half way.
The idea here is to block out the world and care only for your feet. Again, mild zombieness occurs.
Pros: can be done at any time of the day, doesn't look weird, great time killer, great for staying awake when preparing for a sleep deprived EEG.
Cons: overdoing it will absolutely fuck up your knees, as I've learned some months ago preparing for the aforementioned sleep deprived EEG!
Then again, walking for 36 hours straight would fuck up anybody's knees.
After doing the second type, the one "prescribed" by my therapist, I've noticed I'm starting to develop an absurd level of apathy towards what I don't actively care for.
While goodbye threads, for example, still kick like a mule, pretty much anything else is met with a Sigh Of Acknowledgement (tm), saying "I acknowledge that you exist, I don't care that you exist."
