Telling someone when their work and/or presence has impacted you in a meaningful way is one of the greatest gifts you can give to another person…and one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself. Doing so not only allows for shared gratitude and connection, but inspires wonder by recognizing the mystery in how our paths always seem to cross with the right people at the right time.
Tag: mindfulness
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When Passion Intersects with Problems
Some days it feels like I was born to be doing what I’m doing, and some days it feels like I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve come to understand this as a result of being at the intersection of what excites me and what challenges me. The intersection of “I can do this” with “I still have so much left to learn.”
I think this is exactly where we should want to be. I think we should count ourselves lucky every time we find ourselves at this intersection. Passion without problems will lead to complacency, and problems without passion will lead to misery. But to have the push and pull of both in what we’re pursuing is a recipe for growth and fulfillment.
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A Fresh Start
We celebrate the fresh start of a new year, failing to realize we’re given the opportunity of a fresh start with each new day.
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Suffering is Optional
“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
Is it the ultramarathon that creates suffering or the mind?
In the ultramarathon community, it’s a common preaching that athletes need to learn how to “love” or “embrace” the suffering. And while this isn’t completely off-base, the more ultramarathons I run the more I realize that what’s most important is choosing whether or not I’m going to label what I’m experiencing as “suffering” in the first place.
I can teach my mind to not suffer needlessly by being aware of the stories I’m creating around my experience. When I’m throwing up on the side of the trail I can choose to perceive that experience as neutral, something that just is, rather than labeling it as good or bad or writing a story about what it means for the rest of the day. When labels and stories are removed or carefully chosen, you’d be surprised at how quickly the “suffering” dissipates.
Ultramarathons themselves don’t create suffering. How I perceive what I experience during an ultramarathon is what creates suffering.
The question then changes from “What can I endure?” to “How will I choose to endure it?”
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Be Like The Mollusk
The mollusk’s life work is its shell.
Layer by layer it builds its shell from the surrounding environment over the course of its lifetime. It doesn’t do so because of reward or recognition and it knows nothing of outcomes – it simply keeps showing up to build. For the mollusk, the act of showing up and building something is enough.
When the mollusk dies, the shell is released and carried away by the sea. Sometimes the shell finds its way to shore where it gets picked up by human hands and cherished as something beautiful. But the mollusk didn’t build its shell with this outcome in mind. It was doing what it intuitively knew it had to do until it couldn’t anymore, and the shell became something beautiful to the world in its own time.
How could you be more like the mollusk? Where in your life could you be more present with the showing up – the building, the crafting, and the creating?
As you go about your week, notice how your concern with outcomes influences the quality and presence with which you work at the things that are important to you. When you let go of outcomes and allow the work itself to be the reason and the reward, you’ll no longer need validation to show up each day and give your best effort.
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The Potential for Positive Impact is Everywhere
I spent one summer during college working for a youth soccer company. My job as a coach was to show up at schools and parks and make soccer fun, exciting, and educational for young kids. But from the beginning, my bosses instilled in me that while the needs of the kids always took priority, what I had to offer was much wider reaching.
They taught me that from the second I arrived at a school or park to the second I left, I had the potential to positively impact anyone and everyone, not just the kids. Within the context of my role this included school administrators, teachers, security guards, park staff, receptionists, parents, and curious bystanders. Did my job technically require me to hold the door open for a teacher, or to thank a security guard, or to take interest in the lives of the parents? No. But I could never know what kind of a day someone was having, and little gestures of kindness could go a long way in making a positive impact.
We’re all taught from a young age to be respectful and polite. But it was empowering to learn that in engaging with the person in front of me, offering kindness, or showing interest in their life – I could potentially be playing a more meaningful role in their day than I would ever come to know. It’s a lesson that’s made my life more exciting, driven me to be more present, and is why you can almost always catch me striking up a conversation with the barista at Starbucks or with the check-out clerk at Trader Joe’s.
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Creativity is Something We Receive
Instead of: “What am I going to create?”
Try: “What is asking to be created?”
Like dreams, creativity is not fully on our terms. We can’t control the dreams we have at night, and we can’t control when and how inspiration will strike.
What we can control is how closely we’re paying attention. When we’re listening and looking for opportunities to be creative, we’re priming ourselves to be open and receptive when unexpected inspiration presents itself.
In a creative block, simply living and paying attention can be the most powerful tools at our disposal.
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Are You Being Derailed or Redirected?
It’s 2018 and I’m in the middle of the build-up to my first marathon. I’m putting in more miles than ever before and hoping to run a Boston Marathon qualifying time. But being new to marathon running, I don’t know how to ease into big miles properly and end up getting injured. A few weeks before the race I’m forced to pull my entry, feeling devastated that the injury completely derailed me from my goal. I spend the 3 weeks of healing time thinking (or stewing) about what would come next.
I eventually manage to get back to short runs pain free, but at that point I no longer have the fitness or time left in the season to chase a Boston qualifier. Feeling unmotivated and discouraged, I start scouring the Internet for something different that could get me excited to train again. I stumble across a 7 mile trail race in my area and think it sounds interesting and that it will give me a mental break from the monotony of road running. I sign up, not knowing what to expect, but excited to train for a race purely for fun and for an adventure.
The trail race is a blast and not only do I get hooked on trail running, but at the race I see other runners completing distances I hadn’t known were possible – ultra distances – 50K, 50 miles, and 100 miles. I think about what an amazing accomplishment it would be to finish an ultramarathon. One year later, I’m back at the same race to run the 50 mile distance – crossing the finish line in 15 hours and change. I’ve been running ultramarathons around the country ever since.
What I initially thought was derailing me back in 2018 when I came up injured a few weeks before my road marathon was actually redirecting me. Because of the injury, I discovered that fateful 7 mile trail race where I was introduced to ultrarunning and as a result led to a life full of travel and adventure.
What we think is derailing us is often redirecting us. When we remember how often a perceived “derailer” became a “redirector” in hindsight, we can face obstacles and challenges with faith in all that we do not know and maybe even with excitement about what we can discover if we have the courage to keep moving forward.
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Cowboy Yeti 100K – Make the Effort the Objective
It’s the middle of the night and I’m trying to get my eyes to focus as the light of my headlamp bounces off of the fog in front of me. I’m two miles from the finish line of a 62 mile trail race in Texas, and I’m feeling strong as I start to close in on the end of the day. I hadn’t been feeling that way for most of the day – I spent miles 25-40 dry heaving and throwing up, but caught a second wind in the last 21 miles of the race and managed to rally back to a decent pace. For the majority of that time I had been alone, so as I squint through the glare of my headlamp, I’m surprised when another light starts to come into view ahead of me.
“Is that another runner?” I think to myself. Long distance trail running sometimes has a funny way of making you feel like you’re the only one out there – there usually aren’t many runners on course and over such big miles it’s easy to get separated from each other. Due to how much I had to slow down in the middle of the race and not seeing anyone for most of the day, I had assumed that anyone who was ahead of me at that point was far ahead of me and was out of reach competitively.
Despite that, I had been pushing myself hard physically and mentally in the last third of the race. Not because I thought I could catch anyone, but because I knew holding myself accountable to giving my absolute best under the tough circumstances I’d faced throughout the day would leave me feeling really proud at the finish.
As I approach the light ahead of me I realize that it’s coming from two other runners. I slow my pace to say hello and give a few words of encouragement before passing them and picking it back up to head to the finish. I feel a fresh bolt of excitement realizing I had unexpectedly caught two competitors who had been ahead of me for the entirety of the day. I think about how that opportunity presented itself because I didn’t allow myself to make excuses or let my foot off the gas pedal, even though it would have been easy to do so.
In other sports, athletes can motivate themselves to push through adversity and discomfort by seeing how close they are to catching their competitors or how close their competitors are to catching them. This dynamic rarely exists in trail running because your competitors are often out of sight. When the going gets tough, it comes down to how accountable you are to giving your honest best and how willing you are to not let up no matter the circumstance or outcome.
Trail running teaches me this over and over again – to make the effort the objective and to keep hammering even when the possibilities have not yet come into view. They’re beautiful lessons I’m happy to be reminded of that have both changed the way I race and changed the way I live.
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