Discovering Beat the Street in Merton: Transforming communities one step at a time

Welcome to a special blog post complementing the current series (Series 35) of my walking podcast, Walk the Pod! In this series, I’ve been discovering an amazing initiative called Beat the Street in my local area of Merton. This program promotes walking, cycling, and running, transforming communities and making a significant impact on people’s lives and the environment. Let’s delve into how Beat the Street works.

The Birth of Beat the Street

Beat the Street is an innovative, real-life game that encourages communities to get moving by turning neighbourhoods into a giant playing board. The initiative was created by Dr. William Bird MBE, a doctor and entrepreneur, who is passionate about the preventative benefits of physical activity. Dr. Bird created a fun, engaging, and inclusive way for people of all ages and abilities to become more active, with the aim of ultimately improving their health and well-being.

How Beat the Street Works

The concept of Beat the Street is simple yet effective. Participants sign up and receive a card or fob, which they use to tap onto “Beat Boxes” installed on lampposts throughout the local area. Points are earned for every tap, and the more points collected, the more rewards and prizes participants can win. In addition to individual rewards, community groups, schools, and workplaces can also compete against each other, fostering a sense of camaraderie and friendly competition. In Merton, the local schools are giving packs of cards (one for the child, one for their grown up) to all children under the age of 11. Players over the age of 11 can collect a card from a distribution point (libraries and health centres) and connect it to their player profile. Is there a Beat the Street app? Of course there is!

The Impact of Beat the Street

Since its inception, Beat the Street has been successfully implemented in numerous locations around the world, resulting in increased physical activity levels, reduced congestion and pollution, and stronger community bonds. The initiative has motivated people to ditch their cars and opt for more sustainable forms of transportation, ultimately leading to a greener environment. I’m delighted that Beat the Street has come to my local area, and lovely to see that Dr. Bird gave a talk at Merton Council to launch the game here.

Walk the Pod and Beat the Street: A Shared Vision

My walking podcast, Walk the Pod, shares many common goals with Beat the Street. Both initiatives focus on promoting the benefits of walking and the importance of connecting with nature, our surroundings, and each other. As the host of Walk the Pod, I have witnessed first hand, and experienced for myself, how walking can help individuals de-stress, improve their mental health, and build a sense of community. My friends at trundl love Beat the Street too, and you can Beat the Street whilst racking up kms for charity via trundl at the same time – and with Sustrans—a government department dedicated to walking and cycling improvements in London—the walking ecosystem is expanding all the time.

An inspiring initiative

Discovering Beat the Street in my local area of Merton this week has been a delightful experience. Walk the Pod can draw inspiration from this initiative and continue to encourage more people to take up walking as a way to enhance their lives.

Beat the Street is a remarkable project that has the power to transform communities through increased physical activity and social connections. As I continue to explore Merton and share my walking experiences through Walk the Pod, I’m excited to see the positive impact of initiatives like Beat the Street on local communities. So, grab your trainers, tap into your local Beat Box, and join me on this exciting journey as we walk our way to a healthier, happier, and more connected world.

Stay in touch for future blog posts and podcast episodes, where we’ll uncover more fascinating insights about the transformative power of walking. And if you haven’t listened to Walk the Pod before, or are interested in joining the Walk the Pod lunch time walk club, a global walking community, do get involved. Until then, happy walking!

Introducing trundl, the UK’s leading non-competitive walking community

Walking is a simple and effective way to improve your physical and mental well-being, and podcasts are a great way to entertain and educate yourself while you walk. That’s why at Walk the Pod I’m thrilled to announce my partnership with trundl, the UK’s leading non-competitive walking community.

For anyone not familiar with trundl, it’s an app that connects walkers with like-minded people, so they can enjoy walking together. Unlike other walking apps, trundl is not focused on competition or ‘first over the line’, it’s all about building a supportive community of people who love to walk.

I first met the trundl team, Hil and Tess, in December and it was clear from the start that we shared a vision for creating a more walkable world. We believe that by working together, we can inspire more people to walk more often, and make walking a more social and enjoyable experience.

Through partnership with trundl, I’ll be building the walking ecosystem, introducing people who share a passion for walking to one another, and helping to build the non-competitive walking community.

I’m so excited to be working with trundl this series. Whether you’re walking in the city or out in the countryside, our episodes will provide you with information and inspiration to help you explore the world on foot.

This partnership with trundl is a great way to make walking even more fun and accessible. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to download the trundl app today and start connecting with other walkers in your area. Happy walking!

Series 33 of Walk the Pod is on the way – on abundance!

Photo by Vladimir Tomić on Unsplash

Are you ready to experience abundance on your daily walks? Join me on Walk the Pod as we embark on a new series all about abundance, and how to recognise and find abundance in our daily lives.

Starting on Monday, January 9th, I’ll be taking a daily stroll through nature and exploring the many facets of abundance – from gratitude and generosity to mindfulness and simplicity.

On each episode, we’ll explore practical tips and insights on how to cultivate more abundance in your life. Whether you’re looking to manifest more financial abundance, or simply want to feel more fulfilled and content in your everyday life, Series 33 has something for you.

I’ll be inviting listeners to send me their voicenotes about what abundance means to you. You can send me a message now, before the series even begins, so that I can share your thoughts from episode 1.

Leave a message

So grab your walking shoes, start your Trundl app and join us on the path to abundance. See you on Monday!

Two powerful principles to get you walking in 2023!

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

It’s accepted that walking is good for you, and unlike other sports, it needs very little by way of equipment. Just some trainers or boots, depending on the weather, perhaps some rainproof equipment and an umbrella. Although I have been amazed since I started recording a daily walking podcast to find that 95% of the time, I’m recording on the most beautiful day in the world, or an overcast day, but not in torrential rain. I can remember the number of rainy days on the fingers of two hands.

So when I recommend tools and tricks for walking more this year, it won’t involve a shopping trip. The greatest challenge is finding the time and embedding the habit. And it’s this principle on which I offer you the following walking principles:

No comparison

Social media is bad for the mental health because it gives us a raft of people to compare ourselves with, flipping ourselves into a scarcity mindset and making us crazy. OK, that might be me more than other people. But what I’ve found with everything, including walking, is that the more I am exposed to other people doing faster walking than me, the more demotivated I get. I do not enjoy logging onto an app to log my walk when the first thing it tells me is that my ex-girlfriend just won a medal for a 10K PB, when I like to travel at under 4 miles per hour.

Enter, Trundl. Trundle is a fantastic little app on which everyone is travelling slowly, and collaborating together to walk kms for charity and raise money for good causes. Trundl helps you give consistently to remarkable causes as well as access a platform for tracking your non-competitive steps. The non-competitive nature of Trundl is what makes it appeal to me. I’d highly recommend you download the app and give it a try. Plus, like other more competitive apps, it lets you record the pattern of your walk, so you can trace the shape of a kitten as you walk, should you be so inclined.

Don’t get bored

Walking can be boring and if there’s no awe-inspiring nature on your doorstep it’s hard to stay motivated, especially on gray and mis days. So my second principle is, don’t get bored. I would highly recommend making calls on your walks, or subscribing to book tape apps like audible, or podcasts, so that you have something stimulating to listen to while you walk. A Spotify playlist can also be a treat to listen to on a walk. If you’re really trying to pull some movement jujitsu on your brain, you could even make a rule that you’re only allowed to listen to your favourite podcast or playlist while you’re walking.

If one just keeps on walking, everything will be alright

Søren Kierkegaard

I can highly recommend the audiobook of Mort by Terry Pratchett, narrated by BAFTA award-winning actor Sian Clifford (Fleabag; Vanity Fair; Quiz). BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually; Pirates of the Caribbean; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) reads the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz (Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace; Shaun of the Dead) stars as the voice of Death. It’s truly excellent.

Very best of luck with your walking in 2023, and do share your own tips and principles in the comments.

What is stress?

A brand new series of Walk the Pod starts today and we’re going to be talking about stress and pressure.

Walking is a daily practice that can relieve stress and give us a chance to think about the challenges we’re up against — let’s take a long hard stare at stress and see if we can’t find out a bit more about it.

Thanks for reading Walk the Pod! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Stress occurs when environmental demands exceed the adaptive capabilities of the individual resulting in physiological or psychological changes – McCoy and Evans, 2005

Leaving aside the textbook definitions, let’s talk about what stress is when you’re a 41-year-old Mum of three with a full time job and a podcast.

Stress is caused by my world becoming too much for me. What I want, vs what I can do.

I want to earn enough to pay the bills, look after my children, keep the flat tidy enough to focus, put food on the table and maybe, occasionally, spend time with friends and family.

When I feel like I can’t do one or more of these tasks to the level I want to, I feel stressed. 

Sometimes the job becomes all consuming, and I neglect the flat. When I’m focusing on the housework, the kids complain that I’m not spending enough quality time with them.

Sometimes I need to dash to the shops because we’re out of milk. In these moments, I have allowed my environment to temporarily outpace my ability to adapt.

As humans, we’re good at adapting. Our ability to navigate the demands of the world is vast. We get good at working out what needs to be done for survival — not necessarily life or death survival, but survival in terms of meeting our obligations.

When the environment makes it impossible for me to adapt to survive, then I feel stressed. Yes, it’s only grabbing a couple of pints of milk, but it contributes to a feeling of being in over my head.

And what can be done about it? Besides not signing up for more than one person can reasonably fit into the day? That’s what I’m hoping to find out.

What does stress mean to you? I look forward to exploring the topic with you in more detail during this new series. If you haven’t listened regularly before, join me as we start exploring stress and pressure together.

Listen to Walk the Pod

Step Up September for the Trussell Trust

This September, I’m walking for 30 minutes a day for the Trussell Trust, who are working to make sure that nobody in the UK needs to use a food bank. If you could sponsor me, I’d appreciate it. 

Thank you

Sponsor me

Some things I’ve been watching and reading

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

A brilliant film starring Michelle Yeah, written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. If you enjoyed The Matrix and have an interest in multi-verse sci-fi dropped into a bucket of multi-coloured Dulux, see this immediately.

Galaxy Quest

A film that starts off gently mocking Sci-fi conventions and Star Trek, but then defies all expectations, becoming a brilliant and gripping film in its own right. Starring Alan Rickman

Four Thousand Weeks

Oliver Burkeman was a productivity guru for The Guardian for many years, then realised that productivity is a trap, and started writing a book about time management for mortals instead. Absolutely superb, may change your life.

Walk the Pod S24 E5 | Figuring out what we want – transcript

Introduction

Hello and welcome to Walk the Pod, your daily walking show where I take my podcast for a walk because I don’t have a dog, and you take 10 minutes out of the day to walk in nature and to pay attention to what’s directly in front of you. There are two squirrels chasing each other around a tree as I walked past. This is the first Friyay episode of Series 24, Walk the Pod. You are very welcome along, the sun is shining on the cycle path in SW19. It’s the most beautiful day in the world.

Boredom

I feel an in depth exploration of something coming on as we start this fifth episode of the series. Gaynor and Tati have raised the question of boredom with me. What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to cope with tasks that are dull and tedious and that we don’t want to do? Any advice from stoic philosophy they asked me and I have been trawling, the interwebs for Stoics on the Cycle Path insight into boredom and how to cope with it.

And I have to say I am struggling to know how to explain what I found. I want to thank Leaping Lord Stephen, who lent me a book called On kissing, tickling and being bored by Adam Phillips, which I read bits of and never really never really connected with it. But now, I feel I need to borrow it back from him again, in order to re-read it. I’m going to try to tell you in advance of reading some quotes from that book, what I think Phillips is getting at.

I think he is trying to tell us that being bored is actually very important for discovering who we are. And that one of the big problems of modern life is that we don’t allow ourselves to be bored for a second, we jump onto Instagram or we jump onto eBay or Amazon or Etsy or wherever we like to buy things. We buy things, we consume stuff, we put a podcast on, we stick on the TV, we do anything to stop ourselves from being bored for longer than about three seconds.

And in actual fact, boredom is a fantastic opportunity to work out what we actually want. One of the things that I read on my, on my trawl through trying to find things about this was that being bored can crystallise for us our heart’s desire. And so we should cultivate it. Maybe not boredom, but idleness in order to work out what we actually want to do with our time.

How we spend our time is how we spend our life. I think Annie Dillard wrote something slightly more articulate than that, ‘how we spend our days is how we spend our life’ I think. So, it’s our Stoics on the Cycle Path today. Not really a stoic, I think the longer I do Stoics on the Cycle Path, the more I realise that half the time they’re not Stoic philosophers at all, but you don’t mind I don’t think Poddies, if Stoics on the Cycle Path features Joni Mitchell or… Captain Tim actually sent me a quote from the film Gladiator for Stoics on the Cycle Path.

So if you’re, if you’ll forgive the fact that most of what I’m reading from the Stoics on the Cycle Path isn’t stoic philosophy, then we’ll all get along fine. Tim’s suggestion was ‘what we do in life echoes in eternity’, which comes from Maximus Decimus Meridius from the well known documentary film, Gladiator. He says, ‘say it in an Australian accent, and it sounds really deep.’

Stoics on the Cycle Path

Stoics on the Cycle Path today comes from Adam Phillips On kissing, tickling and being bored.

“Every adult remembers, among many other things, the great ennui of childhood, and every child’s life is punctuated by spells of boredom. Boredom is actually a precarious process in which the child is as it were, both waiting for something and looking for something in which hope is being secretly negotiated. And in since boredom is akin to free floating attention, in the muffled, sometimes irritable confusion of boredom, the child is reaching to a recurrent sense of emptiness out of which his real desire can crystallise. The capacity to be bored, can be a developmental achievement for the child.”

Now, whenever I’m talking about parenting, I’m also talking about self parenting so the child can equally refer to the modern adult. And I think what Phillips is saying here is, if we allow ourselves to become bored, and we don’t immediately leap to anything that can stop that from being the experience that we find ourselves having, we can really discover a lot about what we actually want in our lives.

And he goes on to say something along the lines of being busy, is the best way possible, of preventing anyone, including ourselves, from knowing anything about us. Because the busy person can be doing all kinds of things in order to be productive and efficient. But actually, none of the things they’re doing are providing them with their heart’s true desire, because they haven’t allowed themselves to be bored enough to find out what that is.

What I can see directly in front of me

What can I see directly in front of me? Well, I’m recording this a little later than usual. And oh, very much later, it’s two o’clock at the moment. And due to the beauty of anchor and modern podcasting software, you will be able to listen to this probably at about half past two, if you want to.

What I can see is the sun striking the grass just ahead of me beyond the railway bridge, and many houses that are just off the cycle path interrupting that light with shadows as I walked past a wrapper for a Ben & Jerry’s Peace pop on the floor and walking under the railway bridge now to find that the bottle of Lipton iced tea that somebody put there, and I mentioned in a previous episode, has now fallen over. That’s the big news on the cycle path today.

I can see a cyclist in the distance. Also a person pushing a pram, it’s actually very quiet on the bike track today. Few people walking around some tiny, beautiful flowers on a little tree here. Not quite sure what this tree is but five lobed flowers, beautiful white flowers with a little bit of I don’t know what you call answers could be anthers Poddies, I don’t know, botanists, please get in touch. Little little blobs of pollen on the ends of on the ends of the strands coming out to the middle of the flower. Good grief my botany is very bad, isn’t it? Don’t do any of the proper botany words. But you know, I’ve never been good at identifying trees or pups. It’s not something I excel at, unfortunately.

What a beautiful day though. It’s absolutely gorgeous out here. If you’re thinking of going for a walk today, get out and enjoy the sunshine. The birds are singing everywhere. It’s just lovely. And on Friyays, I offer you a formal invitation to join the Walk the Pod walking club. Please go to rachelwheeleyisfunny.com and join up for behind the scenes content. There are lots and lots of things you can enjoy. If you sign up to the Walk the Pod walking club you can see daily photographs from behind the scenes on the podcast of my actual life on Mondays through Fridays. You can join the Walk the Pod community message board which features a number of channels, including our film club, which will be meeting tonight to watch What We Do In The Shadows, our book club, our cloud spotting, cloud appreciation club, we have Poddies posting pictures of their favourite clouds from all over the world. It’s just, it’s a really lovely space, it’s a very good vibe. And if you are on social media and think that it can get in a bin, you’ll enjoy this particular social media platform because it is just, it’s just a lovely, friendly, happy space for walkers celebrating their daily walks.

Supreme Cross Border Selector, Nige of Galicia, shared a Twitter thread yesterday under the banner, ‘social media can not always get a bin’. And I think we’ve agreed collectively that if social media can get in a bin, you may be following the wrong people. So that’s me told. And I think there’s an enormous amount to be said, actually, for not following people who are trying to do the same thing that you’re trying to do. Because that causes inevitable comparison, and sadness.

Best thing to do is probably to follow people who inspire you. And maybe I just need to recalibrate who I’m following on these platforms. I don’t know. Oh, lovely. It’s really, really nice out here. Very excited to go back to my flat and have a cup of tea and a bit. And then I need to do some tidying because Captain Tim is coming around for the Walk the Pod Film Club. So gotta clean the place. And that’ll be the end of our first week of series 24. A whole week nearly over already. And this has of course, been my healing week. So I’ve been resting really hard. And I feel much better for it. The kids are on half term next week. And then towards the end of the week, I will be tentatively back to work. So thank you for walking with me. It’s been an absolute delight to walk with you on the bike track this week. I really appreciate you coming with me every day.

Outro

I hope you’re enjoying the pod if there’s anything you’d like to request on the pod, if you’d like to say for example, Rach, why don’t you put Stoics on the Cycle Path in the show notes for every episode so that I can also read what they what they have to say as well as listening to you – something I’ve been considering doing, or any other feedback, email, rach@rachelwheeley.com. Or you can go to walkthepod.com. And you can leave me 59 seconds of your beautiful voice as a voice note. I listen to every single one, I read every single email I get. I deeply appreciate every single email I get. Because I am a very needy content creator. So I absolutely love any kind of message or contact from anybody at any time. But I will be trying to cultivate idleness and boredom a little bit over the weekend and actually spend some time reconnecting with myself and what I actually most desire in that space. And I’d love it if you would do the same and maybe let me know how you get on. Take care of your beautiful mind, and I’ll be back with episode six on Monday.

Walk the Pod S24 E3 | Nothing lasts for long – transcript

WtP S24E3 | Nothing lasts for long

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Walk the Pod, your daily walking show where I take my podcast for a walk because I don’t have a dog. You take 10 minutes out of the day, to walk in nature, and to pay attention to what’s directly in front of you.

My name is Rachel Wheeley, podcaster and human in the world, trying to figure out how to be. There’s a squirrel just ahead of me on the footpath, the sun is shining on its white bib and it’s the most beautiful day in the world.

Welcome to episode three series 24 of Walk the Pod

What I can see directly in front of me

Somebody’s walking along just ahead of me with a bobble hat on and a backpack. A backpack which I think of as a sort of French style backpack, in that it’s a small bag with two long straps, which they are wearing over both shoulders.

When I was at school was very uncool to wear a backpack over both shoulders. So we used to walk around with half a tonne of books in our backpacks slung over one shoulder. And then we wonder why we’re lopsided for the rest of our lives.

I’ve decided, having come out of hospital the other day that I’m going to live to 100 or die in the attempt and very excited about that. Now I’m going to have to do some more regular exercise I think because walking is obviously wonderful. But it’s not cardio is it? You know, got to do a bit of I don’t know jogging or something. Maybe as we go on.

As a little brown pup on the cycle path and it’s got a massive stick in it’s mouth. It looks very happy about that, as it should be. It’s the greatest day in the world as a dog when you’ve found a massive stick, isn’t it? That’s the greatest thing ever.

I can just hear the bell in the Wimbledon Chase Primary School ringing there to bring all the kids in from the playground. And off they go. scampering in.

How the devil are you

How the devil are you, I hope you’re having a nice day. What day is it… Wednesday, beautiful day today on the bike track, sunshine, streaming down, warming my face a little bit. And I’ve got Stoics on the Cycle Path for you again, of course.

Very, very excited to be bringing you some Stoic philosophy again, having had many series where we didn’t because we sort of we exhausted Meditations. And what I needed to do was to start reading the book of letters that Seneca wrote 2000 years ago.

And I have started to read that now. So I feel like Stoics on the Cycle Path is a bit of a broader offering, then, What Would Marcus do? Which was the thing with the feature before. Now, I’ve had had some correspondence in from my ex BBC colleague Peter Sansun.

Sansun wrote that his favourite piece of stoic philosophy is by Jodi Mitchell. Sorry, if that sounded like I said Jodi, it’s because I sort of smudged the letter D from an N. I meant to say, Joni Mitchell.

Who, who sung in a song called Chinese cafe, ‘Nothing stays the same for long.’ Is that right? Is that the lyric? Hang on, can we just check that. Is it ‘Nothing stays the same for long’ or is it… No, ‘Nothing lasts for long.’ Nothing lasts for long. And she sings that multiple times in the song. Peter says, ‘It’s profound because it has at least two meanings at the same time. The surface says, ‘All things must pass.’

It also says that there is an infinitude of nothingness. Take that Jean-Paul Sartre. Now, I’ve learned very definitively about the infinitude of nothingness walking along this cycle path on the first section of the Deep Time Walk, which revealed that there was an infinitude of nothingness before anything that we’ve ever heard of happened on the Earth. There was a whole load of time when the Earth was just there was no real, no real life to start.

I’m just walking under the railway bridge. That’s why the sound is slightly different. Somebody has left a bottle of Lipton iced tea under the railway bridge today for reasons best known to themselves.

So thank you Peter for that. That’s Peter’s favourite piece of Stoic philosophy. The actual Stoics on the Cycle Path today is from not quite as unlikely a source as Joni Mitchell. But the combined brilliance of 1970s American psychoanalyst Carl Rogers, and Gabor Maté, who wrote a brilliant book called Scattered Minds, ostensibly about attention deficit disorder, but really about parenting. And I would also argue self parenting.

Stoics on the Cycle Path

This Episode 3 edition is from Scattered Minds, and I’m just going to read the whole section because I think it’s so brilliant. So Gabor Maté writes:

“In his book on Becoming a Person, Carl Rogers describes a warm, caring attitude, for which he adopted the phrase, unconditional positive regard, because he said, it has no conditions of worth attached to it. This is a caring, wrote Rogers, which is not possessive, which demands no personal gratification, it is an atmosphere which simply demonstrates ‘I care’, not ‘I care if you if you behave thus and so.’

So the first thing is to create some space in the child’s heart of hearts for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parent wants and loves. She does not have to do anything or be any different to earn that love. In fact, she cannot do anything. Because the love cannot be won and cannot be lost. It is not conditional, it is completely independent of a child’s behaviour. It is just there. Regardless of which side the child is acting from, good or bad.

The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative and plain rude and the parents still lets her feel loved. Ways have to be found to let the child know that certain behaviours are unacceptable, without making the child herself feel not accepted. She has to be able to bring her unrest, her least likeable side to the parent without fear that it would threaten the relationship. When that is made possible, absolute security is established, we can reliably expect emotional growth to follow.”

Now, I fell off my sofa when I read that for the first time because I thought to myself, yes, that is clearly, clearly the the answer to how to parent, something which nobody really knows. So they will just sort of muddle through and work it out as you go along. But when I read that, I thought, yes, that is, that’s how I’m going to parent. And indeed how I’m going to self parent, because we’re all self parenting as well as parenting – trying to help ourselves through the world, even while we’re raising small children if we are not raising small children is a perfectly valid choice of lifestyle.

So I hope you enjoyed that. If you have any thoughts raised by that particular episode of Stoics on the Cycle Path, or if you have a favourite piece of Stoic philosophy of your own, please get in touch. Email rach@rachelwheeley.com Go to walkthepod.com. Press the button marked ‘Message’ and leave me 59 seconds of your beautiful voice, or go to @walkthepod on Instagram and you can WhatsApp me maybe? I really don’t know where that works, probably.

But let’s, let’s see. If someone could try that out for me. I’d really appreciate it or tweet @rachelwheeley.

So there are myriad ways that you can get in touch with your Stoics on the Cycle Path suggestions.

And I’m really enjoying having Stoic philosophy back on the pod because I missed it. I missed reading from Meditations and I will I will be including many extracts from Meditations in this feature. As we go on.

What can I see directly in front of me? Well, I can hear some crows, I expect you probably can too, at the top of this tree which just looking at the tree in terms of trying to work out what kind of tree it is, don’t think this is an oak tree has very small buds on the ends of all the twigs. So that’s not an oak tree and I’m looking at the ground see if I can identify from the brown leaves.

What kind of tree it is,

But I don’t know. I feel such a failure.

I’m not good at identifying trees, particularly in winter time. It’s quite difficult. Well, that feels positively Spring like today. It’s absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous weather. Nice warm, just a slight breeze, it’s beautiful.

I can see a little dog walking along slightly ahead of me – a little brown dog with its tail curled over his back. And it’s on one of those leashes that is like extendable, coming out of her a red handle, I can hear the ThamesLink, just about to go over the railway bridge.

There it goes. And looking up into the sky. It’s quite a lot of blue. Not so cloudy today.

Numbers game

Not cloudy at all. Now, speaking of paying attention to what’s directly in front of me, I was playing a game this morning, which was based on a game that I play with the kids sometimes when the kids are particularly not enjoying being outside, which they sometimes don’t.

We play a sort of numbers game where they have to spot numbers in the environment and the one who gets the highest number wins, which usually results in child three racing off to find a lamppost with one of those ‘don’t let your dog foul the pavement’ signs on it, which has a fine of £1000 in the UK.

And that usually wins the game because you can’t you can’t beat 1000. That’s very difficult. And the rules for that game are, you’re not allowed to use telephone numbers and the environment because obviously, those are absolutely gigantic numbers and would spoil the game. But the game I was playing with myself this morning, when I was coming back from the school run the first school run I’ve done since I came out of the hospital.

Consequently, a school run absolutely tuckered me out was, can I find the numbers 1 to 10 in the environment. And can I take a photograph of those numbers in such a way that the numbers themselves are beautiful to look at in sequence. So I was trying to do that this morning. And that’s quite fun, I recommend that to you. And it’s funny how playing that game does help you to pay attention to what’s directly in front of you because you start to notice what’s around you in the environment.

So that’s my that’s my top tip for paying attention to what’s directly in front of you for the day and if you want to send me your number sequences you can do so. The best way to do that is to join the Walk the Pod walking club and stick them in, probably the #walking-and-wellness channel, I would say would probably be best.

But there are various other ways you can get them to me if you don’t want to do that you can send them to me in all the ways I just said really you can email them to rach@rachelwheeley.com if you want to, and I will be delighted to see your your numbers in the environment – maths fans.

I mean that’s not even maths that’s just numbers but you know anyway, so that’s something to do if you’re having a walk today and you’re not quite sure how to entertain yourself while you’re on your walk.

I forgot to say that you can’t use car number plates for the 1 to 10 game. The 1 to 10 numbers game requires you to use your imagination a bit more than that, so that’s the rule for that one.

Sorry about that if you’ve started already and I’ve ruined your fun, but number plates are no good.

Outro

Thank you for walking with me today. This has been Episode 3 Series 24, Walk the Pod. Thank you to everybody who’s got in touch with me to say Rach, you sound like you can breathe again on the pod.

It’s really sweet of you to get in touch with me to say that, I really appreciate it. It’s very kind of people to to notice. I thought the most the most impressive thing was that people were getting in touch with me before to say Rach you need to sort your breathing out, because that did actually make me pay attention to it in a way that I had not been.

But I really appreciate everyone who’s got in touch to say, Rach, you sound like you can breathe again. And that’s good. So thank you. I’m delighted to be able to breathe again. I’m delighted to be able to podcast because there was a point in the hospital where the things they were saying they were going to have to do to help me, we’re going to make podcasting nigh on impossible. So really very grateful to still have the power of my voice and the power of breath.

Huge fan of breathing, highly recommend it if you have a gratitude practice. I encourage everybody to include their ability to breathe in that because whilst it is rather a given and rather obvious when you start to lose it, it’s rather worrying. Kind of, kind of important.

Lots of love. Take care of your beautiful mind this afternoon and I’ll be back with Episode 4, Series 24. Walk the Pod tomorrow lunchtime.

Listen to this episode

https://anchor.fm/rachelwheeleyisfunny/episodes/WtP-S24E3–Nothing-lasts-for-long-e1e5ghd

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Walk the Pod Series 24 Episode 2 – Transcript

WtP S24E2 | Do not fuss

Introduction

Hello and welcome to Walk the Pod, your daily walking show where I take my podcast for a walk because I don’t have a dog. You take 10 minutes out of the day, to walk in nature and pay attention to what’s directly in front of you. My name is Rachel Wheeley, a podcaster and human in the world trying to figure out how to be. I’m on the cycle path in SW19, Wimbledon, as a cyclist zooms past on the bike track to my left.

Kids are whooping and hollering in the Wimbledon Chase Primary School to my right. And the trees are resplendent above me with their little buds. No leaves, but those little buds promises what’s to come. absolutely delighted to be here walking with you again this lunchtime as a very tall person comes towards me with a tiny baby attached to their chest by means of a sling and somebody behind them pushing a pram.

I’ve got Stoics on the Cycle Path for you today, Poddies. Not Seneca today, but Marcus Aurelius, another wise person who knew how to survive 2022 2000 years ago and will be paying attention to what’s directly in front of us of course, as we always do.

Welcome to Walk the Pod.

Paying attention to what’s directly in front of me

My lovely friend Ariana sent me a message just now saying it’s mild out and it is mild out. So actually, it’s really quite pleasant out here today and can’t see the sun. It’s kind of grey and mis. Or at least it looks grey from inside but it’s actually actually warm. And I can see a tiny speck of blue sky. A little pinhole in the clouds shows me that the blue sky is still up there. And there’s some kids kicking a football around on the field. The Thameslink train is going over the railway bridge in the distance very much business as usual on the cycle path this afternoon.

There are 1000 million scooters parked up just inside the chain link fence in the primary school and walking past a prescription on the floor sure we’ll see what it’s for. I don’t know whether Can you read other people’s prescriptions? I think if they’ve dropped them on the floor you can cite slight dizziness other thing I don’t know.

Stoics on the Cycle Path

We were talking yesterday about friendship. Seneca was advising his friend to be very slow, to make a friend to spend a good while passing judgement on somebody before accepting them as a friend. But then to embrace them wholeheartedly.

And today’s Stoics on the Cycle Path is from Marcus Aurelius. Now another very, very wise person who I’ve often gone to for advice. Marcus Aurelius wrote a book called Meditations, which essentially was him just jotting down things to himself. sayings that he’d heard from other places. Wise mottos he had picked up from around the place and at the beginning of Meditations, he lists all his mentors and people who’ve given him wise advice over the years.

And he just kept writing these things down until you had books and books and books of them. This one is from book six. And it is the 27th entry in book six. He says,

“How cruel it is not to allow people to strive for what seems to them, their interest and advantage. And yet in a way, you are forbidding them to do this. When you fast that they are wrong. They are surely drawn to their own interest in advantage. But it is not actually so well then teach them show them do not fuss.”

And this is a big theme of Marcus’s Meditations, the idea that he should just be a good person. Don’t wang on to other people about how good you are. Or try to try to sort of humble brag your way through life, explaining to people how wise you are just just demonstrate it by being a good person.

And here, I think he’s saying, let other people pursue whatever seems right to them, even if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to you. And that is pretty good advice, I think because we can expend an enormous amount of energy wondering why other people do and say all the things other people do and say. It’s, ultimately, wasted energy that we’re never gonna get back. best just to think well, different people like different things. Get on with our own lives.

If you have a favourite piece of Stoic philosophy, do share it with me because I’m very happy to share other people’s favourite bits of Stoic philosophy. And let’s see whether we can glean any wisdom together out of it.

You can email: rach@rachelwheeley.com. You can go to walkthepod.com and press the button marked ‘message.’ And you can leave me 59 seconds of your beautiful voice. You can go to my Instagram @walkthepod you can press the button marked contact. And I was really hoping that will take you to my whatsapp, but apparently it isn’t quite that straightforward.

But see if you can see if you can navigate that. Nigel of Galicia very kindly had a go at that for me yesterday, it doesn’t entirely work. I’m gonna keep working on it, but he’s gonna keep working on it

Daily walking is good for you

it’s nice having a walk. I don’t know whether you’re in the habit of having a daily walk away from your desk at lunchtime. But I highly recommend it. If you’re listening to this podcast while you’re indoors, that is allowed. I’m not going to ban you from listening. But I would much prefer you to use the podcast as an excuse to get out the door at lunchtime have a walk.

Only listen to the podcast while you’re walking and just see what happens. I think you might be surprised by the mental health and physical health benefits of daily walking around your local area particularly if you have some nature around you. And particularly if you have a dog.

I don’t have a dog but I might just take my podcast for walks as if it’s a dog. That’s a normal thing to do. I can see loads of pups in the distance over there. My favourite type of dog little brown dogs are not good at identifying dogs, little brown dogs saying hello to each other.

New kittens on the block

Also, very excitingly, have some kittens, new kittens on my block where I live. So I was watching them this morning. One of them which is white with grey splodges likes to sit under the hedge and watch people walking around. And so it goes and sits in its usual spot every morning and has a good has a good look at everybody whilst keeping nice and safe under the hedge so that was entertaining.

And then of course we also have many squirrels that live where I live so I always have fun watching them as well. I managed to get a picture of one this morning, but it will my lens clips going if you know lens, it’s like Instagram stories, but it’s for Patreon. So, the pod walking club got pictures of the squirrel.

Every squirrel is called Peanut by the way, I don’t know whether you know that. But I’m got the pictures of peanuts this morning. So it’s quite proud to have captured it. One of them is have a picture of a squirrel the other one is a half a squirrel as it leapt out of the out of the shot as I was trying to take a second picture of it just walking under the railway bridge now as you can probably hear sound changes ever so slightly.

It’s kind of windy today. So if you’re getting a lot of wind noise I apologise why I’m trying to trying to baffle it with my very high tech solution of the cuff of a gardening glove which I’ve cut off the bottom of the said garden glove and have looped over the bottom of my phone in order to create a bit of a baffle from wind noise. This is what this is what 10 years of BBC sound engineering teaches you how to baffle with noise from your podcast. That was not time wasted, was it?

Outro

Anyway, listen, I think it’s time I went now I’ve got to go and do a few errands. But um, because I’m not working this week, I’m resting this week. Getting better from the surgery I had a couple of weeks ago. And so I’ve got a few errands to do not actually working afternoon. But thank you for walking with me as ever.

And I am going to be back tomorrow with another daily episode of Walk the Pod. So remember, if you want to take me up on my challenge, to listen to the next episode, on a lunchtime walk, and then you can always report back to me how it went. And one of the ways that I mentioned earlier you can also tweet me @rachelwheeley if you like that sort of thing. So take care of your beautiful mind this afternoon. And I look forward to speaking to you again tomorrow.

https://anchor.fm/rachelwheeleyisfunny/episodes/WtP-S24E2–Do-not-fuss-e1e3rh0