Why Noticing Things is a Good Thing

Julia Cameron, in her book, The Artist’s Way, writes of the value of paying attention. Writers need to notice things. The more they notice the better writers they become. For me, the more I pay attention the more inspiration comes my way. I wonder… is paying attention the same as being mindful? 

Mindfulness and the writer

My writing pal, Robin Pascoe, alerted me to the 10% Happier book and App created by American journalist, Dan Harris, earlier this year and since then I’ve been listening to the lessons almost every day. And, you know, the more I have learned about and practised mindful meditation, the more I am starting to see, and hear, and smell and taste and feel. Outside the window. Inside the house. On my walks in the woods and fields. Inside my head.

I’ve always found it hard to stay alert to mindfulness during the general day-to-day busyness and particularly while I am working, but I am discovering that the more mindful meditations, I do, however short,  the more fulfilling and rewarding the world becomes. I love that the  10% Happier meditations are only about 10 minutes and that they have meditations you can do while you are doing something else – and that includes walking and working. 

And that made me learn something…

Mindful walking awakens the muse

Only this morning, on an early walk, I found myself standing in a field and looking across the valley, my eye caught by the lurid yellow polygons of the rapeseed fields scattered over the valley. I looked down to my feet and saw two dandelion flowers, huddled together as if deep in conversation. Hmm, yellow, I thought. Let’s make today a ‘yellow day’. Over the next half hour I noticed the celandine on the verge, the fat plastic grit container at the end of the lane, the pastel yellow pebble dash of a house with pots of acid yellow wallflowers on its driveway. A car number plate, primulas, the lettering on a dog walker’s sweatshirt that said Los Angeles. A greyhound’s collar. And now, as I sit at my desk, the bright neon yellow of the envelope of the birthday card I am about to send to Sam jumps out at me.

Journey in yellow

And as I thought more about the colour yellow, I became curious, I Googled the etymology of the word ‘yellow’ and discovered its roots are mainly in the Germanic word for yellow ‘gelb’, which is related to the English word ‘gold’ and to the Proto-Indo-European root meaning ‘to shine’. It’s no surprise then that sunshine is yellow. 

My thoughts continued to take me on a journey: to the fact that, as someone from Lincolnshire, I’m often called a Lincolnshire Yellowbelly though I would not say I was a coward. I went on to learn that we are supposedly yellow-bellied from being born in The Fens, a remarkably flat and wet, Dutch-like landscape that led to us being ‘yellow-bellied like eels’. In the Middle Ages yellow tended to have derogatory connotations and to be associated with lies, cheats and traitors. Today, it’s the colour of happiness. Post-lockdown it’s one of this season’s colours in the fashion world.

So, why am I telling you this and why does it matter? 

It matters because the best writers pay attention and notice things. Writers get inspired by something small and seemingly random and their curiosity is piqued. They cogitate, they Google, they spend time thinking and then, slowly, as a once-hidden ‘end’ emerges from a tangle ball of wool, an idea for a piece of writing breaks through. It may be a poem, an article, a journal entry, a blog or a short story, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that what began as paying attention becomes art.

How we became hooked

I was so excited about my yellow walk that I told my long-time buddy Jacinta Noonan of Platform B Coaching about it. 

“Oh, that’s fab, Jo,” she replied. “I need want to do this too! Set me a task for tomorrow. It might mean I can actually clock up 10,000 steps.”

“Tomorrow is white, then. But not flowers.”

I wondered. With a mindful walk, looking for specific things, each day, would I too manage to walk 10,000 steps? It’s a long way and can take me over an hour and half. Would mindful walks force me away from my desk too? 

10 days later and we are both delighted to report that we are having enormous fun with our walk challenge. One week I have set the challenges. The next Jacinta has. We have moved on from colours, to shapes and all manner of other things. It keeps us out of heads. It keeps us fit. It keeps us engaged with the outside world. It keeps us inspired and, it keeps us connected in a new way.

As a writer and writing teacher, I’m convinced in the value of paying attention. As a human being, I recognise the importance of having mindfulness in my life. Jacinta is a life coach who specialises in ADHD. She knows full well how boring a walk can be for someone with an attention deficit. This is why ADHDers find it so helpful to listen to podcasts or chat on the phone while they are walking. Had we hit on something that was a perfect fit for us both? 

Enter #walksleuth

In short, what started as a view of a field of rapeseed, had become a welcome and valued part of our lives.

Hmm, we can be walk sleuths. #walksleuth? Was that an idea?

I shared my idea with Jacinta. She loved it. 

So now we invite you too to join the challenge.

Here’s how you can take part in #walksleuth too

Every weekday, Jacinta or I will post the day’s #walksleuth challenge together with our own reel of findings to start the flow of inspiration and get you reaching for your sneakers.

We’ll post on Instagram. I’m @joparfittwriter and Jacinta is @platformb.coaching. We’ll share on Facebook too. 

And we’ll always use the hashtag #walksleuth. 

Will you join us?

We’re #bettertogether.