‘Oh, she’s not wearing any shoes!’ I can hear them whispering behind my back. We’re walking along a cliff side track and I’ve just overtaken them. I listen, amused as she says ‘Have you heard about those ‘toe shoes’?’ They keep talking about my barefooted-ness and exercise related footwear, but very soon I’m too far ahead to hear.
…
As a general rule, I hated wearing shoes when I was growing up. The exceptions to this were my pink ballerina ‘Jiffys’ when I was about 5; my high heeled glitter ‘Jelly Babies’ (Yes!) that my mum bought me when I was 12; and my much, much loved ‘Massuer’ flip-flops for the last year or two of primary school. (You scoff, but they were excellent. My friends would fight to have a go at wearing them!) Apart from these three, pair after pair of shoes sat unworn as I swore to mum every year that I would definitely wear joggers if she bought me them… But never did.
I ran cross country barefoot. I trained for cross country barefoot – on gravel roads. (It was the 90s in a small country town, shoes at school were still optional. Ahhhhh, the glory days!) Having to wear closed-in brown leather shoes once I moved and started high school sucked. I can still vividly remember the deep horror that flowered in my stomach when I looked at my new, city high school uniform and this terrible truth sunk in – this wasn’t optional. I had to wear these things every day. Gross.
As an adult, I generally accepted this shoe wearing thing, although I never truly got into it like many women do. I still took them off regularly, but wherever ‘normal’ people wore shoes, I usually did too. I would save naked feet time mostly for the beach or the park or the backyard. Luckily, I was very regularly in these places! Bushwalks pretty much always meant shoes though… until recently.
A little while ago, two things happened. One thing that happened is that I watched a little video* on the anti-inflammatory, awesomely synergistic effects of regularly walking barefoot on the earth. Something about that little video stuck with me more deeply than the others ever had. The second thing that happened is that, as a result of being stored in a mega hot car for a mega long time, one of my joggers shrunk significantly, leaving the pair unwearable! (I was a bit miffed, they were fairly new $100 shoes!) I’ve regularly contemplated buying a new pair, but I just haven’t yet. That was almost 6 months ago.
So, instead of lacing up my shoes every time I go for a hike, these days I just go barefoot. It’s an experiment, and I’m liking it.
___
Here are some of the things I get out of barefoot hiking that I don’t get when I have shoes on:
It’s quieter.
Shoes make noise; bare feet are effortlessly quieter. I like sounds when I’m out exploring, but it’s the natural sounds I’m there for, not the slap of synthetic. I like to think that being quieter also means less of the wildlife scurries away from me. Shoes mark me as definitely a foreign object. Without shoes I am more recognisably human animal.
It forces me to watch where I’m going.
Years ago, a friend happened to see me walking to the beach. He queried me later as to why I was looking down. His theory, fascinatingly enough was that maybe I was self-conscious about my body, so I kept my gaze down. This was amusingly far from the truth. Truth was, I was just watching where I put my feet.
When I’m barefoot, especially on rocky/changing terrain, I’ve got to watch where I’m putting my feet. It’s really, really hard to stride blindly through the bush when I’m watching every step. It makes me more aware, more respectful. With shoes on it feels like there’s a much greater possibility of accidentally stepping on a little creature than when I’m barefooted. Barefoot I am more sensitive to the small creatures. Barefoot I’m more sensitive to everything.
It’s good for my body.
Walking without the artificial constriction of shoes, especially on unpredictable terrain is great for my ankle strength, general foot health, and overall literal balance.
Being ‘grounded’, or connected with the electromagnetic qualities of the earth has also been shown to result in:
- Improved sleep
- Less pain (less inflamation)
- Better relaxation
- Accelerated healing of injuries
- Improved heart health through increased heart rate variability, less clumping of red blood cells, and reduced blood viscosity
- It’s also great for jetlag, asthma, and general nauseaStart with this video if you’d like to learn more about the benefits about grounding.
Finally, given that I do a lot of acroyoga and partneryoga, and literally have people’s bodies on my feet regularly, walking barefoot increases my awareness of and ability to have ‘soft and gentle’ feet. Given that more than one person has said I’m the most comfortable person they’ve ever flown on, my dedication to softer and gentler feet is obviously working! Hooray!
It gets me in the feels – literally and more metaphysically.
All of those perfectly placed rocks give me a free accupressure masasge! Ha! It’s common knowledge across multiple modalities that we have pressure points in our feet relating to the entirety of the rest of our bodies. I choose to believe that my body and the earth have such a synergistic, naturally intelligent relationship that I will perfectly step on the perfect pokey-up-y bit to get those juicy accupressure points in my feet in just the right way to lead my whole system towards more balance.
Secondly, whether you’re O.K. with thinking of earth as some version of ‘Mother’ or not, it’s impossible to deny that we need the earth to exist. Barefooted, I am more connected to this fact. Barefooted, I am the most aware of the fact that the earth’s got me, I’m supported.
So, those are my main reasons why I’m loving barefoot hiking, and why I’m going to avoid buying new sneakers for a while yet! (Being in warm places definitely helps on that front!)
If you’re addicted to wearing shoes all the time, maybe this will inspire you to take them off a bit more! Even if it’s just to go stand on the soft squishy grass! It’ll literally change your being!
* This isn’t the video I watched back then, but this one covers all the main things! 🙂
Pic from: