This morning on another walk with my two dogs in a field not foreign to us by any means, I decided to leave my phone in the car. This is something I typically don’t do, seeing as every walk in the morning is typically a chance for me to catch up on podcasts and masterclasses I find inspiring and motivating as I head into another day.

I don’t know why I got the feeling to do this today, but I’m glad I did.

On our walk, instead of following the manicured path we take daily that guides us through a mile loop in an open farm field typically leased to soybean, corn, and wheat harvesters each year, we decided to go our own route. One without a path, and instead, an abundance of thoughts like “where to” and “what if” that raced through my Vizslas’ minds (or so I’d like to think).

Somewhere between a quarter mile and the first turnabout, I started getting a rush to jot down (via voice memos) some new ideas around content creation and storytelling.

I then started thinking about the next few months and new traditions I’d like to implement for our little, growing family. I felt a renewed sense of excitement around the holidays and noticed a swift breeze splash across my cheeks. 

Maybe this isn’t revolutionary to many but to me, all this made me stop and pivot. For many weeks, my mornings were a constant stream of consumption – podcasts, social media, television shows. On top of work demands, meetings, and instant messages. 

Things that ultimately left me feeling so drained by the end of the day, I barely had any energy to pop in a bag of steamfresh greenbeans. My brain has felt so foggy and weighed down by everything I was consuming. I’d like to relate it to eating an entire Thanksgiving dinner daily, enough to stuff you to the brim and have you begging for bedtime by 4pm. 

The brain rot. The decomposition of brain-thrive. The death of energy and creativity.

Getting a bit bleak and dramatic, but stay with me.

This morning’s walk was perfect for rejuvenating a stale mind, drowning in over-consumption and gasping for air. Blame it on the beautiful Fall colors, cool temps, or the smell of a nearby fire, but it was incredibly revitalizing and uplifting.

If you’re like me and tend to consume a bit more than you produce, maybe give this little exercise a try. Turn down the noise that tends to drive us towards wanting more, and just be. Take in what’s around you and live in the present-tense before it becomes an unrecognizable part of your past.