Introduction

     When the alarm went off at 5 a.m., I was waiting for it. Fear had roused me already. I rolled to my side and reached out to silence the buzzer on my bedside table. Slowly, I pulled up into a reluctant hunch at the edge of the bed. The countdown had begun. Two hours to surgery. Two hours to worry and fret. Instinctively, my shoulders pulled forward in a protective reflex. I wrapped my arms across my chest and lingered amid my fears.
     How would my body feel to me the next time I woke up? How would it look? How would it be changed by the breast cancer diagnosis that had spilled a chilling terror into my days? A swirl of “what-ifs” and “whys” gripped my mind. I knew what I had to do next. Still, it took a deep breath and a dose of determination to get me out for a walk. It wasn’t simply habit that moved me. It was willful effort—an intentional pursuit of mental peace.
     The cool air of a May morning awakened my senses as I turned onto a neighborhood street. My husband fell into step at my side in silence. The rhythm of his footsteps steadied me as we settled into the unknowns of a new day. Soon, the words of a familiar chant began to roll through my head. I am walk-ing. I am breath-ing. I am walk-ing. I am breath-ing, I repeated mentally. The words matched the rhythm of my steps and breath, creating a calming, four-beat cadence.
     When fears intruded on the phrase, I started over again. I am walk-ing. I am breath-ing. The pattern was soothing. It silenced uncertainties that tumbled through my thoughts and quieted the fears that pursued me as I prepared for surgery. Earlier in my life, I’d used these words to block the self-doubt that tripped me up me in athletic competition. On this day, I needed the words as a shield against panic. For two weeks, I had been grappling with the questions a crisis unleashes. Why did this happen to me? What should I do next? What did I do wrong? Over and over, the questions battered me. The struggle is familiar to everyone who has been leveled by a life-changing event or diagnosis. Nothing will ever be quite the same again. In such times, we grope for something familiar to offer reassurance, stability, and a respite from the storm.
     For me, reassurance stretched along the sidewalks of my neighborhood. At a time when so many issues in my life seemed out of my control, walking reaffirmed the choices I still had. I walked as a personal statement of faith, a physical demonstration of my intention to keep taking steps. Keep living here and now.
     When you are facing an enormous personal challenge, taking control of something as basic as a walk may seem insignificant. But research suggests that even small acts of control can help you recover from the hopelessness that often accompanies trauma. Sustained helplessness upsets the body’s endocrine system by suppressing immune functions and elevating release of stress hormones. The ability to take a step of positive action triggers healing, both in the spirit and in the chemicals that support wellness.
     The walk I took before surgery for breast cancer was my way of maintaining some small sense of control. I couldn’t control the outcome of a cancer diagnosis, but I could control the impulse to stay in bed and tremble. Cancer changed the course of my walks as I moved through transitions from victim to patient to survivor—and then, eventually, to victor. Focusing techniques I had used in athletic performance and in meditation practice became tools of healing on walks that restore balance and momentum.
     Healing Walks for Hard Times invites you to experience the healing benefits of walking with an eight-week, program that provides guidelines at three fitness levels. Start where you are and move on. The weekly Walking Well® program advances chapter by chapter with mental and physical steps that help you get back on track with your life, at your own pace. The steps you take are not simply physical. Move the body and you move the spirit. Move the body, and healing emerges in the alchemy of breath and movement that restores health and wholeness.