Description
A new approach to using walking to heal emotional trauma and bring forth optimal mental functioning
• Explores why and how we carry emotional wounds, and how they can be healed and resolved
• Shows how walking stimulates both sides of the brain to promote and restore mental health
• Provides simple, yet potent, mental exercises to use while walking
Our bodies usually heal rapidly from an illness, injury, or wound. Yet our minds and hearts often suffer for years with debilitating symptoms of distress or upset. Why is it so hard for our minds and hearts to heal? The key to healing them is simple and can be just a short walk away.
Walking--a bilateral therapy that has been a part of human life throughout history--allows people to heal emotionally as quickly as they do physically. Bilateral therapies engage both sides of the brain and unlock natural states of optimal function and creativity. Thom Hartmann examines how memory works and why emotional shock can resist normal healing. He found that the simple act of walking is effective in treating emotional disturbances ranging from temporary upsets and problems to chronic conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
Case studies have shown dramatic results. Walking consciously, while holding a distress or desire in mind, can rapidly dissolve the rigidity of a traumatic memory or negative mind state, dispersing its unpleasant associations in as little as a half hour’s time. While walking has always been a natural part of life, its importance in promoting and maintaining mental health is only recently being rediscovered. Hartmann’s simple yet potent exercises allow us to create our own walking journeys to restore our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being as well as rejuvenate our body’s health.
Praise and Reviews
“This book is a prescription for mental wellness that has no bad side effects. Walking, like drawing, is a human activity that calms the brain and induces insight. . . . Buy several copies--you’ll be handing this book out to friends.”
Betty Edwards, author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
“In presenting respectable research and scholarship on how the mundane-seeming, everyday activity of walking balances the brain’s laterality, Thom Hartmann brings a scholar’s concentration to his subject, a storyteller’s sense of enchantment, and a humanitarian’s concern with the issues that matter.”
Stephen Larsen, author of The Healing Power of Neurofeedback
“Thom Hartmann’s work with bilateral movement is a fascinating and important contribution to holistic healing modalities and a timely tool for healing many crises of our modern times.”
James Endredy, author of Ecoshamanism and Earthwalks for Body and Spirit
