HOKA: What are the origins of your walking practice? Tell us why and how you started it .
Libby Delana: I started walking 10 years ago, every morning, rain or shine, snow or sweltering heat. Every. Damn. Day. Walking has been a way back to the core of who I am, a practice that grounds me. This simple act, a morning walk, has become a daily ritual that has transformed my life. It began with a conscious decision to get outdoors every day. At the time my days had become filled with to do list, sitting in meetings, running errands, dialing in to conference calls, working towards deadlines, and I began to realize that what made me me was no longer an essential part of my day. The outdoors is where I am most at home, it is where I find ideas, comfort, awe, creativity, challenges, wisdom, community — all of the elements that remind me of who I am beyond societal labels and titles. So I decided that no matter what I was going to get outside and go for a walk. My MorningWalk isn’t about pace or milage it is about being intentional, taking a deep breath, appreciating the seasons, watching the sun come up, and committing time to the thing that inspires and nourishes me.
HOKA: How does your walking practice empower you?
Libby Delana: It has turned out that my MorningWalk is my most valuable processing time. It is a moving meditation, a key to my operating system, a radical act of self care. Walking has forced me to slow down, to go step by step, to really see not just look and to tune in more intimately with the natural world. I have now walked 25,000 miles, the circumference of the earth, and while MorningWalk isn’t about distance or PR’s this is a meaningful milestone that marks the power of a daily practice, a habit and commitment to myself.
HOKA: What inspires you to get outside and walk each day?
Libby Delana: Good things always happen on a walk. I have never finished a walk and not felt better, cleared my head or seen something beautiful. Interestingly I find that the days that I really don’t want to go are the days that are most important to go.
The time I spend walking is a powerful tool for building space into my day for reflection, problem solving, and pure pleasure. I have learned a lot over the years:
Making a commitment to yourself and following through with it is what love looks like.
Meaningful habits happen daily, step by step, not all at once.
Habits are powerful because they create neurological cravings.
You can do what you set your mind to.
Suggestions for building a practice:
Begin with something doable.
Repeat for 5 days. Repeat again. The next thing you know 10 years will have passed.
Find the places where there are obstacles and work to minimize them. For me, putting my walking shoes (Bondi) in front of the door was a simple reminder to put on the shoes and get going.
Stay curious about what is possible. Starting a practice and staying with it deepens what you observe about yourself and others. There is a lot to be learned about yourself, about your community, about the natural world outside your door if you put on your shoes and head out the door.
HOKA: Tell us about your book
Libby Delana: The book is called DoWalk / Navigate earth, mind and body. Step by Step. and is published by a wonderful company The Do Book Company / Inspirational Pocket Guides for Doers. This publisher is part of the Do Lectures and organization that has inspired me for over a decade. “The idea is a simple one: To gather together the world’s DOers, disruptors and change makers, experts and pioneers, to share their stories, and encourage others to go and DO.” I feel very fortunate to be asked to write for them.
The book is includes journal entries, lessons learned along the way and photos. Yes, photos. One of the things I would do each walk was to take a picture and post it to @parkhere. These photos were my way of keeping myself accountable to my commitment and also to create a visual diary. The photos were for me, no one else. If I were a runner this would have been my training log, a way to document each walk. As a visual person taking a picture was also a way to inspire seeing things in a new way. Often I would take the same route past the same barn, around the same curvy lane with the same headwind on the way home and stopping to take a picture of that one barn was a practice in really seeing it not just simply looking. Each day the barn was different. Different light, different season, different mood, different weather and I was different each day, therefore seeing it differently.
DoWalk is a quick read. I hope you like it.
Thank you HOKA.
I have worn the Bondi for most of the 25,000.00, they are the best walking buddies.
HOKA: Feel free to share an excerpt from your book that you think will resonate with our readers
Libby Delana:
“Saturday , 2 January 2021
Good morning, New Year. Just returned from a very, very
long and beautiful walk. Twelve miles, about three hours.
It was gorgeous. Bright. Calm. Cold. It all felt so hopeful
and nourishing. I didn’t want to come in. I wanted to
breathe in the sunlight and the birdsong. I used the space
around me to discard the negative voices in my head from
last year. Left along the side of the road are all those
distracting unhelpful thoughts that worked their way
into my mind: ‘You aren’t — enough.’ ‘You are too –.’
‘Why did you say –?’ Blah, blah, blah. As I walk it is
easier and easier to leave these stories behind and
what remains? A brilliant, sparkly day, abundant
with accompanying gratitude.
Walk. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Notice everything. Notice this day.
Halfway through today’s walk I came upon a snowy owl
— a rare sight and a pure pleasure. In the past, I would
have missed it. Life can be so busy we overlook what is
right in front of us. Today is different. Years of practice
have taught me to slow down and look up. As I walked
past the snowy owl, she took off, circled around and landed
just up the road, almost as if to say, ‘Come on, keep going.’
QUOTE:
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk:
Every day I walk myself into a state of
wellbeing and walk away from every illness;
I have walked myself into my best thoughts,
and I know of no thought so burdensome
that one cannot walk away from it.
Soren Kierkegaard”
Pre-order Libby’s book, out later this month, here.
Libby is featured wearing the Anacapa.
Libby Park DeLana is an award-winning executive creative director, designer/art director by trade, who has spent her 30+ year career in the ad world. She started walking in 2011 and hasn’t missed a day since; as a result, she has walked the circumference of the earth… She documents every walk @parkhere (Park is her middle name). Do Walk is her first published book.