A Trail Walk for the Busy Mind: A Guided Meditation for Business Owners

Find a comfortable position. Take a breath in through your nose and let it out slowly through your mouth. And again. One more time.

You don't have to fix anything right now. You don't have to figure anything out. For the next few minutes the only thing you have to do is mentally take a walk with me.

Picture yourself standing at the beginning of a trail. It's cool but not cold. The kind of day that feels like a big shift is coming- a positive shift. The light is coming through the trees in that way it does in spring, all gold and scattered, kinda chilly, kinda warm.

You start walking.

The path is narrow and lined with trees on both sides, mostly oaks and maples, their leaves somewhere between winter hibernation and coming alive for about two weeks a year if you're paying attention. And today you are paying attention.

Feel the ground under your feet. The path is packed dirt and leaves and the crunch is suuuper satisfying. Every step sends dopamine shooting through your legs. You slow down a little just to feel it more.

The air smells like earth and something sweet and a little bit like rain from a few days ago and the moss on the rocks by the side of the path. You breathe it in.

Somewhere above you a bird chirps and another one sings from further away. You don't know what kind they are and it doesn't matter. They are doing their thing and you are doing yours and for a breath everything is exactly where it should be.

You come around a curve in the trail and you hear it before you see it. Paws on leaves, the jingle of a collar, and then there he is. A yellow lab, enormous and ridiculous and absolutely beside himself with joy at the sight of you. His whole back half is wagging. His person laughs but keeps her distance and you crouch down and let him put his big derpy face in your hands for a second.

He looks at you like you are the best thing that has ever happened to him on this trail today. Maybe this week. You feel loved.

His person calls him and he hops away, looking back at you once more just to make sure you saw how great he was. (You did. You absolutely did.)

You keep walking and you are smiling and your shoulders are relaxing a little.

The trees thin out and the path goes a bit downward. You notice the light changing, brighter now, more open. And then you see them.

Two small brown rabbits at the edge of the path, completely unbothered by your presence, just going about their morning the way rabbits do. You stop. You watch them for a second. They hop into the brush and disappear.

Easy. Unbothered. Gone.

Small and perfect and exactly right.

And then you hear it. Faint at first, then unmistakable.

The sound of waves.

The steady, easy exhale the ocean makes. You follow the path down through the last of the trees and the trail opens up onto the beach. The sand is warm. The water is clear blue with light moving across it where the sun breaks through the clouds.

You stop at the edge of the sand and just stand there.

You are a person who built something. Who shows up even when it's hard. Who carries more than most people know and keeps going anyway. And right now none of that matters. You are just here.

Feel the sand shift under your feet. Hear the waves come in and pull back. Come in and pull back. Let your breath find it if it wants to.

There is nothing to figure out right now. No strategy, no content calendar, no decision that can't wait until Monday.

Right now there is just this…

The beach, the trail behind you, the lab who loved you, the rabbits going about their lives, the birds talking to each other in the trees.

You belong here too. In the slow things. In the small things. In the things that have nothing to do with productivity and everything to do with being a person who deserves a break.

Take a deep breath in. Hold it for a second. And let it go.

When you're ready, bring yourself back. Wiggle your fingers. Feel the ground under you. Open your eyes slowly.

Whatever is waiting for you will still be there. But so will you. A little more here. A little more yours.

Have a good weekend. You earned it.