I seemed to have discovered a new form of therapy, self-induced therapy that is, that can be used to clear your mind, unwind, relief stress or simply to have a moment with yourself. Believe it or not, spending time confronting yourself is extremely important to find that much desired peace of mind.
First, wear some comfortable clothes, hopefully its nice and sunny outside. Grab your Walkman, your cellphone and perhaps some water, but nothing else. The idea is to carry with you the least amount of things possible so that you don’t have to be preoccupied about anything other than your walkabout. if you don’t know what a Walkman is, you missed an awesome 90’s joke and you should do some research and educate yourself. Make sure you have some good quality headphones as music is a big part of this.
Before you leave home, ensure you have a clear purpose for this walkabout therapy. What are you trying to achieve? What do you expect? What ideas do you want to untangle inside your brain? Once this is clear, go on and walk outside.
As I previously mentioned, music is key, in my case, I started walking while playing the song Walkabout by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I highly recommend this song as I had some unbelievable effects that had not felt before. I am not sure if it’s the perfect mix of sounds and rhythm or if somehow my brain was stimulated by some sort of placebo effect. Bear in mind this is not scientific evidence, I am not a scientist, far from it. This is anecdotal evidence coming from your average Joe.
I will try to do my best to explain in layman terms what this therapy is all about by describing my first walkabout therapy session.
I stepped out for a walk with my beautiful dog, Ella. I could write an Encarta Encyclopedia about how much I love her and my wife, but I’ll save that for next time. I do make sure I let them know how much I love them every time I see them so do not worry about that. By the way, if you do not know what Encarta is, you just missed another awesome 90s joke!
Back to the therapy, I put my headphones on and started playing the aforementioned song. The world famous and strongly pronounced bass played by Flea starts playing. Your brain immediately kicks off, you can just feel it. Every note travels through your eardrum like a laser and it ricochets of the walls of your head back and forth. Then, the funky guitar comes on, your brain lights up even more and it start sending euphoria signals to the rest of your body, basically telling it it’s having fun so the rest of the body should too. By this time you feel good; you know something good is happening. Chad’s drums come into play, it gives this song an amazing rhythm and it overloads your brain with stimulation. More and more lasers come through your headphones; your brain is busy trying to figure out how to address all the different stimuli your body is receiving. The rhythm in your head, the sun beams hitting your skin, the air, hopefully fresh, filling your lungs, all cylinders firing! When you think your brain is going to overheat, along comes Anthony and his legendary voice. It is said that Anthony uses that same tone of voice Jesus used to make Lazarus walk again. Being a huge RHCP fan for over 25 years now, I believe it.
