Getting my shoes off!

Most people who know me think its funny that I don’t wear shoes. Not quite true, I wear shoes only when absolutely necessary. It’s OK too, I don’t mind that they find it funny.

I stopped wearing shoes because I was reading about its benefits to your health. Here’s a random article I just googled about it:

https://chopra.com/articles/grounding-the-human-body-the-healing-benefits-of-earthing

So I went ahead and did it! It took me ages to get the courage up to do so because of my worrying what people might think, (and this is why I love it so much now). And I was very self conscious at first. Especially when walking my daughter to school. I stuck at it though I even started taking the dogs on hour long walks with no shoes on. Not only was I more mindful of my surroundings but I was aware of every step and then every feeling in my feet and every noise, every bird and tree. I also found myself avoiding footpaths to walk in soft grass that felt cold and awesome. My feet began to feel part of me again, strong and tough. But the biggest benefit and most pleasing was and it took me ages to realize it was, that I no longer cared a bit about what people might be thinking about the weird guy at the shops with no shoes on. For the first time I honestly didn’t care. And it was so liberating when I finally got it. But even better was that I had gone from not wearing shoes to not worrying about what people thought of me at all. I’m now at the point where I’m that comfortable in myself and what I’m doing that others opinions or the possibility of talking behind my back or even mocking me doesn’t affect me. If that is what they want to do, so be it. I broke my sunglasses so I grabbed some of my daughters fluro orange sunnies and headed out the door. They’re now my favorite pair. I remember having some myself as a kid. Just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean I can’t do or wear what I want.

So by not doing this one thing that I had been told that I absolutely had to do for my whole life, I’ve opened my mind to the fact that most of what society tells us or expects of us is a load of bollocks. Why should I always wear shoes? Why should I dress in the same way as everyone else? Why should I walk there? Why can’t I skip down the street? Why do we all have to conform to these bullshit unwritten rules?

And if you think about it for a moment. As humans I assume we started to wear shoes to protect our feet and keep them warm. Then as our homes and other buildings started to get more advanced the need for clean shoes arose. Also I’m sure at some point some one somewhere made a remark about how their shoes were better and thus shoe fashion was born. So then we had to find a way of not only keeping our feet warm and protected but our shoes clean and protected.

And the concrete footpath was born. Now we have footpaths everywhere. And I understand that wheelchairs and prams require a flat surface to be pushed along, I get it. But as I was sitting one day on the grass in a big beautiful park and watch the countless people walking along the multiple concrete paths enjoying the trees etc I couldn’t help notice that not one person was walking on the grass, maybe not wanting to get their shoes dirty. Or maybe its because the mind is now so programmed to ‘following the path’ that it doesn’t occur to anyone that its OK to walk off the path. We just seem to follow where we’re told to walk, don’t cut the corner, follow the path. Would it be crazy to suggest that somehow this path following creeps into our daily thinking. Are we unknowingly training ourselves to not think outside the box, to not push the boundaries of the rules, to not wander from the path that society tell us is right? Just because there’s a path, you don’t always have to walk on it.

Go your own way, take off your shoes.