Thursday, August 18, 2011

Peace, love and back roads

On my quest for better physical fitness (aka: torturing myself) this year, I also decided to try and set my brain and spirit up for a little spiritual boot camp challenge. Letting go - or at least trying to - of silly miscellaneous things in life that sometimes weigh us down for no reason other than because it can. Some days I feel like my tank is on E and I'm on the back roads with no Shell stations in sight. And other days I find my center and everything in the world is right. I know it sounds all Gandhi like, but trying to get to a place in your head that you can find peace and clarity (even if for only a few minutes a day) is a huge task. And once your able to find it, you realize how much you have been starving for it and crave it in your life.

Awhile back as I was out on a long run (see above aka: for details) I started to have a feeling of warmth come over me. Of course it's summer in the South so I was sweating like a pig and 5 shades of blood red, but it wasn't that kind of warmth. It was a different feeling all on it's own. After I realized that I was not having a heat stroke and the baby Jesus was not coming to take me away, I started to embrace the different feeling. I had come to a point in my run where my body and mind were working together, as opposed to every other run where the battle in my brain always short changes my body. Early that day, I tried to reflect on the pains that my body was battling with, the bruised toe nails that apparently I'm going to have to learn to love, and the voice in me that always screws with me when I get to the bottom of another hill. On that day, just that day, I had beat the voice. Each day after, has brought it's own share of conflicts and moments where I wish that warmth would come back over me. Sometimes it does and other times I'm to distracted to even notice.

I joined a local gym recently and have embraced the work out classes they offer. A few years back a friend and I started yoga. We would laugh and cut up and have a good ole time but never really took it seriously. I wanted to go into the class this time with a fresh outlook and really try to take it seriously. I'm so glad that I did. I need the peace and quiet a few times a week all the while while having an amazing workout at the same time. As I feel my body getting stronger, I feel my mind at ease. And believe me, with some of the bat shit crazies I deal with in a day I'm thankful for the relief. I know that comment wasn't very nice but I did start this off by saying that I was TRYING......and I am. But just like everything else I've ever done I'm taking the scenic route to get there.