Brenda Torrey says, “Let’s Walk”

Oak Island photographer Brenda Torrey’s daily beach walks are part of her mission for creating world peace.

For years, Brenda Torrey carried a quiet, persistent dream for something that she didn’t know how to act on: world peace. The Oak Island photographer never imagined the answer would be found in something as simple as walking the beach, picking up shells and sharing those moments with others.

Today, her daily walks and gentle online invitation, “Let’s walk,” have inspired millions of people to pause, breathe and create their own ripples of kindness. With the tide rolling in before her and a camera slung over her shoulder, Torrey shares these peaceful moments with people around the world, some who are battling illness, healing from trauma or just seeking a quiet moment in the midst of a chaotic day.

The path that led Torrey here began in a very different place.

She did not always feel comfortable sharing her message. Painfully shy, she spent much of her life convinced that the safest way to navigate life was to be unseen and unheard. In her early thirties, something unusual began to happen.

“I would wake up hearing the words ‘world peace,’” she recalls. “I felt like I was supposed to do something about it.”

The message was so overwhelming that Brenda buried it. Over time, reminders kept coming out of nowhere.

As a volunteer at Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania, Torrey used her photography to help tell the story of the passengers and crew who lost their lives on September 11. Despite the weight of the tragedy, she felt an unexpected peace behind the lens.

“I felt like I was walking amongst angels,” she says.

But Torrey was meant to do more.

She turned inward, deciding to focus on herself, and began following Authentic Living teacher and author Mandy Morris. After reading 8 Secrets to Powerful Manifesting, Torrey entered a contest connected to the book and won a VIP stay at the organization’s retreat center in Dolores, Colorado. During a
retreat discussion about purpose, she shared the weight she had been carrying — the quiet but persistent call to create peace.

Morris offered a suggestion that would change everything.

“What if the answer is something as simple as walking the beach picking up shells?” Torrey recalls Morris asking. “Maybe she was right, but how on earth would that create peace?”

Torrey returned to Oak Island and immediately began posting photos and reels on social media, mostly of stunning sunrises.

Then something unexpected happened.
“I started getting messages and comments even when I posted on a rainy day,” she says. “I realized that the weather really didn’t matter.”

One message in particular touched Torrey’s heart. A woman with brain cancer who could not get to the beach wrote to say how much joy and inspiration Torrey’s posts brought her.

“That was the moment I knew,” Torrey says. “I knew I was supposed to walk every day.”

And every one of her posts shares her simple invitation: “Let’s walk.”

In just one year, Torrey’s posts are viewed more than 1 million times every month, reaching people from North Carolina to California to Massachusetts and even the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil and India. Her growing community includes more than 20,000 followers.

When travelling around the country to take photos for clients, a roster that includes Mandy Morris and Authentic Living, Torrey shares photos and videos of the local landscape on social media. She has been to California, Arizona, Florida and Colorado for Authentic Living.

“Peace has travelled further than I ever imagined,” she says.

“I simply walk,” she adds. “I often see the extraordinary in the ordinary, like in shells and clouds.”

Sometimes these moments are truly extraordinary. She has encountered mother turtles and even a baby octopus.

“Those sightings were once in a lifetime,” she says.

These days, Torrey has become something of a local celebrity. People recognize her on the beach and out shopping.

“They stop, make sure it’s me and then run to hug me,” she says, laughing.

As a certified life coach and energy healer, Torrey’s mission has recently grown into something much bigger — a message about the connection between peace and happiness. She has created decks of cards called Kindness Decks. Each card features one of her photographs paired with a prompt for a random act of kindness toward others or toward oneself.

“Inner peace starts with yourself,” she says. “Even if just one person shares one moment of joy or one small act of kindness with someone else, there are ripples. If we all had inner peace, we could have world peace.”

And so, Torrey walks every day with the courage to be seen and heard, shining her light and dreaming big for peace for the world. ”

SPREADING PEACE
To see Brenda Torrey’s Let’s Walk posts, visit: BrendaTorreyPhotography
Instagram: brendatorrey007
Brenda Torrey’s Kindness Decks are available at Coastal Blue Gift Shoppe in Southport, Mermaid Cove in Oak Island and on her website: brendatorreyphotography.com