As I climbed to the top of the O’Hill trails behind Kellogg Dorm, I welcomed the cool spring breeze blowing through my thin sweatshirt, a welcome change from the icy bite of the 30-degree weather we faced only a few weeks ago. I was racing the fading sunlight, trying to get to the other side of the hill before the sun fell behind the mountains. I took off my headphones and paused when I reached the trailhead. Then, I took off my shoes.
That afternoon, I had decided to escape the mid-semester crush of my to-do list and the cloud of sickness that seemed to have settled over my entire first-year class. I wouldn’t say the workload of college hit me like a brick, but maybe more like the thick stack of readings I was suddenly required to do for my Biology class every night. It was certainly an adjustment, and that’s without even mentioning the weekend nights spent hopping between frats and bars until 2 a.m.
I have realized that this new college lifestyle is always moving, there is always something to be finished and then something else to immediately start. And unlike at home, I didn’t yet have the same layers of memories and routines on Grounds that helped to keep me balanced.
In short, how I was approaching this new life was unsustainable. I knew that I needed to find a way to ground myself in this new home and lifestyle, to slow myself down and reconnect to the things in life that may not fall on my agenda, but are important all the same.
Luckily for me, I was taking an Engagement designed specifically to teach students practices to access their consciousness and better their well-being, called “In-Consciousness: How We Know Who We Are.” One of the techniques we learned about in this class is forest bathing, a practice that originated in Japan.
The practice places an emphasis on staying quiet and being truly present in the natural world that surrounds you. By focusing very closely on what you are experiencing through your senses, the goal of forest bathing is to completely immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the forest instead of just taking a distracted nature walk.
I have always loved hiking and walks in nature as sort-of meditative practices that allow me to step out of my day-to-day life and just enjoy the moment. In my senior year, I would often take a break from the chaos of college applications by driving to a nearby trail around a pond, just to spend an hour or two in the woods. However, I would still listen to music or bring another person to keep me company, and I definitely never took my shoes off.
One of the modules in my Engagement was titled “Nature,” and its goal was to practice accessing a deeper consciousness and mindfulness state through the options of three different practices, provided by our professor, throughout the week. One of these was barefoot forest bathing. So, after learning about the concept, I decided to embark on a barefoot forest walk on the O’Hill trails behind my dorm. I wanted to try a new experience, one where I could develop a deeper awareness of my consciousness, and I was confident that forest bathing would completely fit the bill.
It was late winter when I decided to try it for the first time. Music off, shoes off, I started walking, careful to avoid the snow on the ground. As there was suddenly nothing between my skin and the forest floor, I truly felt my senses and thoughts become clearer, easier for me to understand.
Physically, it’s amazing how much walking barefoot can improve proprioception — body awareness. Feeling the ground beneath my feet changed the way I experience my own body, especially when walking. Part of this, of course, is the extra awareness necessary when choosing where to place my feet without any shoes to protect them. The other part is the fact that I can actually feel my connection to the ground. Barefoot walking — fittingly, also known as earthing or grounding — is a very unique sensory experience that has undoubtedly changed the way I am aware of my body.
Mentally, barefoot walking can improve sleep and decrease stress. I’ve noticed over the past months that I have practiced this that my stress and anxiety levels have noticeably gone down, and my mental balance is much healthier than it was six months ago. But what’s most important to me, personally, is the increased mindfulness that I’ve gained through being immersed in the present, as I am able to quiet my stresses and as a result, protect my inner peace.
When I returned to Grounds for the spring semester, I had the mindset that I needed to work on establishing my life here as a University student and find ways to deal with the new sources of stress that came along with it. Though walking around with my feet out was not how I expected to accomplish that, it seems to be working. I have started to feel significantly more comfortable calling Grounds my home.
Since my first shoeless venture on the O’Hill trails, I have tried to go at least once a week, or just whenever I need a way to slow things down. I go most often right before sunset and stay for about an hour, just listening to the birds and the wind and grounding myself through the dirt, rocks and leaves. I’m surprised that I’ve never gotten tired of it — it’s the same trail, the same trees, the same silence — yet the experience is always different.
I have found the path to centering myself in the present — and I walk it slowly, quietly, observantly and, unexpectedly, without shoes.
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