Moving from the interior to the exterior, the book continues with ‘Feet and legs’, body parts that, as our connection to the earth and our way of navigating through the world, are perhaps our most direct link to the external landscapes in which we live. How do our feet and legs, as well as the shoes and canes that accompany them, connect us to, negotiate us through, and redefine how we know the built environment? How do our bodies redefine the topography of our worlds? This chapter considers the importance of these seemingly simple body parts and the influence that they have on the ways in which we move, dress and travel.

The revelation that she can be in touch with her feelings through her body really surprised Anna, because in some ways she has always tried to pretend that she does not really have a body. Now, when she is feeling anxious, floaty or groundless, she will allow herself to stop and catch her breath. Placing both feet on the ground, she can feel her feet being connected to the world, and it is just amazingly helpful to feel the solidity of this physical attachment. She will breathe deeply into her belly, calmly, counting her breaths, filling her belly up. And as she breathes she will try to feel how and where her anxiousness is manifesting in her body: the tightness in her chest, the trembling, her face turning red. She goes through each part of her body, identifying where the anxious feelings are located and pinpointing them. Then, when she knows each physiological expression of her emotion, she will imagine a stillness in her belly, so that the very centre of her being becomes a still, big, solid, safe place. As Anna slows her heart rate down and makes herself big and solid, she envisages her body as a vast landscape, a really big Antarctic wilderness or an Alpine mountain range, a place so big that nothing could undermine it, and in this way, she is able to establish a non-threatening connection to the world through her feet.