What Hiking Taught Me About Navigating Life

I'm in SAFA! (South Africa for those of you not down with the shorthand) Cape Town, and will be for the next couple of months. I've found home here - it's bloody magical; sun, sea and city in perfect harmony and there's a multitude of fabulous, diverse people here, who are, un-apologetically themselves. The atmosphere and culture is rich, summer is foaming at the bits to burst out into full force, and Table Mountain winks at me through my kitchen window everyday morning. I can't resist running out to her magnificence! I've been quite the hiking buff lately and intend to continue, and of course, there's always some insight born from my time alone walking... So here goes - below; three actionable learnings on what hiking taught me about navigating life!

(View from above King's Blockhouse, Table Mountain)

Being totally engaged and immersed
The first great lesson it taught me was how to be totally in the moment, engaged with what I'm doing, and how I'm doing it at the time it is happening. For a consistent, extended period, I am thinking about 'the now'. For this reason, hiking is a REALLY good meditative activity. There aren't many circumstances where I find myself totally focused on doing what I am doing at any one time. When I watch TV, I'm on my phone, when I eat lunch, I ponder other things; what the rest of my day is looking like, my itchy foot, whether I should get a coffee or chai latte afterwards, who messaged me on Instagram etc. We are all guilty of these things - not being totally immersed and connected with the task at hand. The result of this is that mind and body are detached. We are not wholly experiencing and making memories from what we are doing in the present. I find this sad; that the human mind and our behaviour has evolved to maximise time by doing several different things simultaneously. Society's prioritisation of efficiency, and encouragement of multi-tasking culture is the root of this. If you're not able to eat lunch, meet with friends, run to the post office, reply to mum about your sister's birthday gift, and call your landlord about your water meter in your lunch hour, you almost feel like you've underachieved. But with this, you miss life, the richness and the nuances of every moment and activity. Your mind is in the past or future, and you're not fully absorbing your state, the body and the elements that allow you to do what you do. Hiking, however, brings our minds back to ourselves. You're able to notice how your body is feeling, its default response to the rocks under your feet, the change in your breathing tempo with the terrain, how air temperature changes en route, the quality of light in the woods versus the cliff face.

(Contour trail, Table Mountain)

When hiking you can also watch how your mind navigates surfaces and problem-solves. It's looking for the easiest solutions for a less troublesome journey. I find watching default thinking fascinating; how are we programmed? With time, I was able to more easily problem-solve. My mind became less conscious of the track and how to way-find effectively. This allowed me to become more aware of other elements and the beauty around me. It was insightful to see how my attention alternated between: 1) my physical state, 2) the environmental state, 3) how my mind approached problems and navigation, and lastly 4) my mood. Hiking encourages introspection.

Another benefit was my lack of urgency to check my phone. Because I was immersed and fully stimulated, my mind didn't yearn to venture elsewhere. It was excited by the moment. When I'm not really 'into something' I often want to distract myself. This didn't arise, so I KNEW I had found my flow. As explained in a former blog post, 'flow' occurs when you're totally present, happy, and have no concept of time. WIN! I find this quite rare in today's world, especially when there's so much choice, so much to do, and it's harder than ever to dedicate time to fully understanding yourself and what you like (hence my escape from the London rat-race in search for serenity...)

A friend I met in Cape Town / my hostel roomie, shared a Lao Tzu quote with me which encapsulates this first idea perfectly; “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” Go find your present, peeps!

(Along the Lion's Head path)

Focus on the journey not the end-goal
Nowadays we often have the tendency (subconsciously or not) to look ahead, plan and think about our future A LOT. Everyone's always about 'outcome, goals, the result.' This approach often robs us of time with how we're living day-today, and appreciating how life's currently unfolding. We prioritise information over sensation, facts over curiosity, and miss the subtle, worldly signals that try to nudge us to our better paths. But equally, I know it's not always clear when, why and how much to think about the future, leaving many of us confused on how to be in THE NOW'. WTF does that even mean?! Hiking explained this to me OH SO CLEARLY because if I didn't focus on the journey and focused totally on the end-goal (hiking purely for the peak), there would be dire consequences. Like death... In this section, I'ma give you a way to help you live more in the journey, and less for a moment that doesn't exist yet. What a waste of energy focusing on something that might not even happen!?

(Tree canopy bridge, Kirstenbosch gardens)

As previously mentioned, hiking helps me monitor how my body is doing at every given moment, and see how my mind navigates trails. Being so connected with myself also allows me to better react when I receive a bodily sign. Here I'll illustrate how one hike played out to land lesson number 2:

The second time I did a Table Mountain trail, I aimed for Woodstock Caves. On my first attempt, I walked WAY too much beforehand from my hostel to make it passed the King's Blockhouse (3/4 of the way up). I wanted to save energy for the descent. Furthermore, it was super gorgeous up there, and I was satisfied by the spot I'd reached. The second time, I got a bus nearer the starting point to conserve energy. However, past King's Blockhouse, it got VERY steep with less and less path... A feeling of nausea and vertigo kicked in - I could feel fear replacing comfort and enjoyment, and the sad stories I'd heard about lone hiking adventures earlier this year, stole my attention. It was harder to be present. My gut was sending me signs. I knew this was too unsafe as a lone female hiking without a South African phone line... I'd already put myself in an unfavourable position, so venturing past that point was a big NO NO. I trusted these sensations and turned back, monitoring my footsteps and nausea levels carefully. As I declined, so did these sensations.

The learning here was that sometimes you need to trust your intuition along the way and not commit to the ambitions of the mind or pressure of the goal. I used to want to achieve things for how they looked and prove to myself I was capable, without acknowledging the warning signs. These days, I'm more comfortable in myself and what I'm capable of, without the need to push through to say 'I did it.'

(Feeling nicely light-headed during the Lion's Head hike)

There's only so much you can plan and foresee - actually doing it, appreciating and leaving some room for what unfolds in the process can teach you a HECK OF A LOT. Without this, I would have proceeded to go up the dangerous cliff edge alone... Google maps didn't outline this before I set off, people nearby didn't mention it, and the website recommending this trail was subjective. It described a family-friendly moderate hike of 1.5hours to the caves. This didn't match up to my reality (but then again, I could have ventured off...). The final leg was treacherous, narrow and windy, with a severe vertical drop.

Knowing that I had my own back and recognising how far I'd already come, made me happy enough. These days, I focus more on my efforts and what I WAS ABLE to do over what I didn't do. This sense of achievement is different for everyone, because we each have our own ambitions, standards, capabilities and comfort levels. I trusted mine. Notice what works for you and don't put too much pressure on yourself meeting the end-goal. If the process is enriching enough, or is trying to tell you something, so be it!

Once I'd got back to the safer track half way, I headed towards the waterfalls on the contour trail. I had some spare energy (helped by the adrenaline spike on the mountain side...). It felt right, I felt safer, and I LOVE water, so it satisfied my nature craving. After this second stint, I felt really content, nourished and UBER proud of myself! Not only did I listen to myself (something old me would have dismissed), but I'd found something equally as beautiful, unplanned. The waterfalls were humbling, and washing myself in the ice-cold streams connected me back to nature. The process blew the initial end-goal out the water (scuse the pun)!

Another conclusion here is to lessen expectations. When I took on the Lion's Head hike alone, I did not anticipate what actually happened. I presumed it would be as invigorating and physically comfortable as my former hikes. ALAS, it was actually quite bloody scary. You get 30 mins from the peak and all these metal handles, foot ladders and chains jut out from the rocks you have to climb... unharnessed. I was quite concerned - the English in me saw it as an accident waiting to happen, but I guess it was a 'beaten track' so has been tried and tested. The paths grew narrower, climbing was mandatory, it was a heatwave, and I was due on... all-in-all, I felt pretty queasy and emotionally irate, and not right to climb to the summit. Again, my body kindly gestured to stop where it needed to, so that I didn't faint off the side of a cliff... :)

(The mega view from Lion's Head )

Process-first: performance over speed
This one's a bolt-on to the former; the performance along the process is important, not your speed. How effective you are (in your own definition of 'effective'), the positive feels you get from your performance, and crafting a technique (organically or consciously) that you're happy with, is KEY! Speed is often prioritised - again by society in line with efficiency of labour and money-driven priorities - but in the case of hiking and life philosophy, I'd say performance has the edge. When you watch a play, are you more likely to appreciate the quality of performance or how long it was? Exactly. It's all about the experience, just like life itself. And once again, making speed your number one factor comes at a cost of missing all the loveliness that occurs with slowness and mindfulness.
Example: if my aim was to speed to the top of the mountain peak, my mind would be more narrowed to, approaches that assist this. It's like tunnel vision. It's single-minded, it leaves you less open to other outcomes. Here are some possible consequences:

• I follow a speed-efficient route over perhaps a more scenic route, diluting wonder and enjoyment
• I could be subject to repetition in my hiking, running and stepping techniques, leaving me less open to experimenting with my movement and reacting in the moment
• I focus purely on my physical body over my surroundings - missing out on vantage points, diversity in nature, spotting wildlife, potential threats etc.
• In the end, I could be more tired out because I didn't break as often That could tarnish my whole memory of the hike
• My memory of the hike is cut to 45minutes over the 1.5hours... This leads me to question if I want a memory based on time achievement over a fulfilling, laissez-faire experience when I recall it to myself/companions?

My aims when hiking are to feel good, see what the day could bring, and take a break in the natural environment over the built environment. My performance mirrored this: I moved with curiosity and let my eyes stop at things that attracted them, I moved with intention to make my body feel alive and enhance my fitness (this makes me feel good and powerful), I moved without expectation, allowing me to freestyle without measurable objectives. The whole thing was relieved of any pressure!

(Kirstenbosch gardens - the vast magnificent entry view)

In the end it's about uncovering and deciding what you stand for, what you value, and then deciding how you want to live to align with them. If you're like me, think of hiking when you wake up and set your intentions everyday: PRESENCE, PROCESS & PERFORMANCE. Vamos!