You Think Walking Is Only About Your Body? Here’s What I Learned When Mine Was Failing.

Bronchitis on the Camino forced me to discover the three dimensions of walking everyone misses

Nov 03, 2025

This morning at 7:30am, I walked.

It was shorter than I hoped.

Work emails came early. I didn’t sleep well; a series of strange dreams from something I watched before bed left me tossing and turning. Overall, I was pressed for time and couldn’t do the longer walk I’d planned.

But the walk was exactly what I needed.

It helped me clear my mind and process my thinking. It gave me a burst of energy. The sun was out after days of clouds and rain. The air was crisp. I heard the faint rustle of leaves in the trees, some squirrels moving, the world waking up around me.

I felt connected to the natural world, all at once.

More than anything, it was a way to get my blood moving, reset my mental and emotional processes, and feel ready to move to my desk and begin the day and the week. Before the walk, I did my morning intentions, my morning prayers, which helped spiritually ground me after a night of restlessness.

Yes, it was physical. But that’s not what mattered most.

What mattered were the three dimensions many people miss: mental, emotional, and spiritual. The dimensions I only discovered when my body was failing me.

The Day I Got Sick on the Camino

I didn’t always understand this.

It was on my first Camino in France, which was actually my second Camino ever, that everything changed.

I got sick with bronchitis while walking. Not a little sick. Full bronchitis—coughing, wheezing, struggling to breathe. Thankfully, I had medication with me for precisely this sort of situation, which had happened before on occasion while traveling. I called my doctor and we developed a treatment plan.

Here’s the choice I faced: I could keep walking, slowly, managing the illness, or I could quit entirely.

I chose to keep walking.

I slowed down. Way down. I was still physically strong enough, as the bronchitis was caught in time and the medication kicked in. However, walking with bronchitis means every breath is a conscious act. Every step is deliberate. Every mile is effort.

I coughed constantly. I wheezed. I probably looked and sounded terrible to other pilgrims passing me. But I kept walking.

By the end of the week, I was fully better.

But something else happened during those days of walking sick. Something I didn’t expect. Walking slowly, walking sick, walking with my body struggling, that’s when I really started to discover that walking was about so much more than my body.

Not just exercise. Not just transportation. Not just something to check off my fitness tracker.

Something deeper. Three other dimensions I’d been missing entirely.

What Walking Sick Taught Me

When you’re healthy, walking is easy to reduce to physical exercise.

You track your steps. You measure your pace. You feel virtuous about “getting your exercise in.” You may even lose some weight.

However, when you walk with bronchitis, you can’t focus on pace or distance or burning calories. Your body is too busy just trying to breathe. So your attention goes elsewhere.

That’s when I noticed the three dimensions everyone misses:

Mental: I was still thinking clearly. Processing thoughts. Working through problems in my mind while I walked. My body was struggling, but my mind was sharp, active, engaged.
Emotional: I was feeling emotionally grounded despite being physically miserable. There was something about the rhythm of walking—even slow, wheezing, struggling walking—that settled my emotional state in ways I couldn’t explain.
Spiritual: I was more present to the landscape, the path, and the wonders of nature than I’d been when I was healthy and walking fast. Because I couldn’t rush, I had to be there, fully, with each slow step. I was in a relationship with the more-than-human world I was walking through.

That’s when I realized that everyone thinks walking is mainly about your body. But here, the body is just the vehicle. The real transformation happens in the three dimensions we ignore: mental clarity, emotional grounding, and spiritual kinship.

What We Lost When Driving Became Success

Walking used to be the only way of traveling, besides horses or carts.

When we became industrialized, driving became the sign of success.

Walking was relegated to those who didn’t have their own cars. This is an abbreviated history, but walking became less valued, associated with the inability to travel in a vehicle, and something you did only if you couldn’t afford better.

Even today, I know some people who drive or take the bus to the gym rather than walk there.

Think about that. Driving to a place to walk on a machine indoors. Because walking outside, on actual ground, to an actual destination, breathing actual air, in relationship with actual landscape—that’s not what people with places to go and people to meet choose to do. Or so it may seem.

We’ve been taught that walking is the least valuable form of movement. That “real” exercise happens in gyms. That walking is what you do when you can’t afford a car, can’t afford a gym membership, can’t afford “better.”

But I think there’s a resurgence in walking now. Running, yes, though walking is right up there in value.

It’s free. It’s relatively safe. It’s accessible to most people. We can view walking as I do: it’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, all wrapped together. Sometimes our focus or openness shifts among these dimensions to varying degrees, but they’re always there, always available, every time we walk.

The Three Dimensions Working Together

Some people walk for the physical benefits alone.

I find that on the Camino and when I walk as a spiritual practice, the three dimensions everyone misses are what actually matter most.

Even when I walk to spiritually connect with nature, the physical rhythm of my legs and walking poles and the bilateral sounds help the process. The mental clarity emerges from physical movement. The emotional reset happens because I’m present to the rhythm.

The spiritual dimension opens because I’m in relationship with the more-than-human world.

They all work together. They happen simultaneously. They build on each other. They’re inseparable.

This morning, I didn’t set out thinking, “I will now engage these three dimensions.” I just walked, and they all showed up anyway because that’s what walking actually offers when you’re paying attention.

When I was sick on the Camino, I couldn’t NOT pay attention. My body demanded it, and that forced attention. I discovered what had been available all along: walking is about so much more than your body.

Why “Mindful Walking” Isn’t Enough

People sometimes ask me about the difference between mindful walking and contemplative walking.

It’s an important distinction.

Mindful walking helps us focus our full attention on the act of walking itself: our breathing, our legs moving, the sights and smells immediately around us. You’re bringing awareness to your body, your sensations, your immediate experience.

This is wonderful for stress relief. It’s powerful for grounding. It’s internally focused—bringing attention to what’s happening in your body and your immediate sensory experience.

But it’s still fundamentally about you. Your breath. Your body. Your experience. Your stress relief.

Walking as a spiritual practice—contemplative walking—is different.
It’s a contemplative opportunity to connect with the natural world through deep reflection and our full body engagement toward a sense of natural kinship. It’s not just about noticing your breath. It’s about noticing you’re breathing the same air the trees are breathing. That you’re part of the same system.
Contemplative walking is an active reflective practice that connects us with the wider world.

It’s about kinship and transformative connection. It’s more externally and relationally focused—you’re in relationship with the more-than-human world, not just observing it or using it as a backdrop for your internal experience.

Here’s what I mean by that.

When I practice mindful walking, I might notice: the texture of the path under my feet, the sound of my breath, the feeling of my muscles engaging. I’m present to my experience. This is good. This helps me feel grounded and less anxious.

But when I practice contemplative walking, I notice: the squirrels preparing for winter, the way the trees are losing their leaves in patterns that follow the light, the cold air that tells me the season is changing, and I’m part of that change too.

I’m not just observing nature as scenery. I’m recognizing I’m in relationship with it. The squirrels and I are both preparing for winter. The trees and I are both responding to less light. We’re kin. We’re connected. We’re part of the same story.

That’s the spiritual dimension—the third dimension everyone misses. Walking not just to feel better in my own body, but to remember I’m not separate from the world I’m walking through.

When I was sick on the Camino, walking slowly through the French countryside, I couldn’t maintain the illusion that I was separate from nature. My body was struggling. The land was holding me. The path was teaching me. Other pilgrims were supporting me. I was part of a web, not an isolated self trying to “get my steps in.”

That’s what contemplative walking opens up, the recognition that you’re already in relationship with the more-than-human world. You’re already kin with the squirrels and the trees and the cold air. The practice is just remembering that truth.

Mindful walking invites us to pay attention to our experience.
Contemplative walking engages us to pay attention to your kinship.

Both are valuable. But the kinship, that’s the third dimension. That’s what transforms walking from self-care into spiritual practice. That’s what I discovered walking with bronchitis. That’s what showed up again this morning when I heard the squirrels and felt connected to the world waking up around me.

You Don’t Need France (But I’m Going Anyway)

That’s what is so good about walking: most people can engage in it and access these three dimensions at any time.

Going to France in September is terrific for helping me do this more deeply. But this morning I showed I could easily do it just outside my door. No airline or vehicle planning needed. No special destination. No ancient pilgrimage route.

Just my street. Just the morning. Just the willingness to walk and pay attention.

You can access all three dimensions—mental, emotional, spiritual—on a regular neighborhood walk. You don’t need special places or conditions. You don’t need to get sick with bronchitis to discover this, though that’s what it took for me.

Walking as a spiritual practice is open to everybody.

You need to show up, move, and pay attention to what walking actually offers: not just physical exercise, but mental clarity, emotional grounding, and spiritual kinship with the world you’re walking through.

The Walk I Did This Morning

This morning’s walk was shorter than I hoped.

I wanted to walk longer. I had a plan, but then life happened—work emails, poor sleep, time pressure. I adapted. I walked shorter, and it was still enough.

Enough to clear my mind. Enough to feel the crisp air and hear the squirrels preparing for winter. Enough to reset and feel ready for the day. Enough to remember I’m part of the natural world, even on my street, even for twenty minutes, even when it’s not perfect.

That’s the practice.

Not the perfect walk. Not the ideal conditions. Not walking through bronchitis on the Camino, though that’s what taught me. Not France in September, though I’ll be there leading a retreat, and I’d love for you to join me!

The practice is showing up, walking, and letting the three dimensions everyone misses unfold: mental clarity, emotional grounding, and spiritual kinship. Letting yourself remember you’re in relationship with the more-than-human world. Letting the squirrels remind you that you’re both preparing for the same winter.

All at once. Right outside your door.

You may think walking is about your body. I thought so too. Until my body was failing me and I discovered it was about so much more.

The kinship with the natural world is waiting. It doesn’t require perfection. It doesn’t require health. It doesn’t require special places. You don’t need to travel to find it.

You just need to walk, and remember you’re not alone on that path.

When did you realize walking was more than exercise? What dimensions show up for you when you walk?

Where Insight Meets Earth

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