Some would say the winter solstice is a moment of equality, in which there is equal light and equal dark. It is also a moment of reversal. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. I like metaphors, so to me, winter solstice is about embracing opposites, or seeming opposites like light and dark. Like the yin yang symbol, they are parts that go together, equal parts of a whole. Like phases of the moon, there is a shifting from light to dark and back again. At the moment we embrace opposites, or shifting between complementarities, there is reversal. Embracing opposite thoughts can decrease stress or “stuckness” and open you to making changes.
I work with people who are struggling with weight (physical and emotional), food choices, body image, sport performance, relationships, and self-definition. Who am I? What do I want? Wrestling with these kinds of questions may not result in answers. But depending on the topic and the complexity of the issue, answers can come in a flash, or sometimes with a long slow burning process. If there is a slow burning process, people usually feel ambivalence. “I want a partner, and I can’t stay in this relationship.” “I want to be fit, and I don’t want to give up junk food.”
Just like we embrace both night and day, we can think about embracing opposites, or polarities of a situation, with a “yes, and” approach, rather than an “either, or” approach. This can make it easier to get to a place of decision and change. By recognizing as valid different thoughts or possibilities of a situation (I want to AND don’t want to…), you can dig deeper to the heart of the matter, your energy about the situation. When you pay attention to your energy, you can use your body sense to help you make decisions, rather than get caught in the battle of opposing thoughts. Like the solstice, reversal and important change can happen in a moment. Make your thoughts equal and pay attention to your body’s energy.
To move toward having clarity about a decision or change to be made:
1. Allow and embrace opposing thoughts. It’s ok to want something and not want something. This reverses the stress, tension, or confusion that exists by trying to pick a side. Like the winter solstice, give equality to “night” and “day” thoughts. “Yes, and” rather than “Either, or.”
2. Once that thinking struggle is lessened, stress decreases. Take deep breaths and pay attention to your neck, your chest, your midsection, and breathing. Pay attention to the sense in your body.
3. Once you can feel and observe your body’s energy, bring the decision or change you are considering to your mind again. What happens in your body as you do this? Notice how your body feels when you think of option 1, and notice what happens when you think of option 2. Does one option create a “lighter” feeling? Does one option create a heavier, darker feeling? Pay attention to this energy, sit with it, meditate, and even journal about the experience.
Here are some examples:
Want a partner, and can’t stay in this relationship
You may struggle with whether to continue in an intimate relationship or not. “I want a partner, but this doesn’t seem right…” With the struggle, you might feel very ambivalent about whether to stay or go for a multitude of reasons. Thinking about and analyzing the situation may not expedite a decision, it usually doesn’t. But, if you get quiet and notice your sense experience in your chest, what are you feeling in your body when you think about staying in the relationship, and what are you sensing/feeling when you think about being out of the relationship? That is the “heart” of the matter. Do you feel lighter or heavier when imagining either option? Is there a subtle difference in your energy? By embracing the opposite thoughts of staying and leaving, and noticing how your body reacts to both ideas as you shift back and forth, you get more information that can help you get unstuck, “reversing” the battle. Over time, as you continue to pay attention to your energy and align with it, you will make the changes and decisions you want to make, that are best for you.
Want to lose weight, and want to eat cookies
You may struggle with food choices. The same process of shifting back and forth between seeming opposite thoughts applies. “I want to lose weight/be healthy, but I also want to eat that plate of Christmas cookies right now.” You know that losing weight/being healthy requires discipline over time with food choices. A part of you wants to stick to that discipline, and a part of you wants really badly to eat all those cookies. How do you make the decision about what to do amidst the tension of that moment?
If you can slow down and be quiet inside yourself, notice the thoughts about eating and not eating the cookies as both legitimate, both ok, you reduce the tension of the fight against one or the other, and then can get to your heart/body energy. What do you really want to do? Stop, feel into your chest, think about eating the cookies, how does that feel? Stop, feel into your chest, think about not eating the cookies, what sense is there? Does one option feel better than the other? If you can’t tell, then pause longer and keep checking inside. Choose the option that truly makes you feel lighter and aligned with your body sense at the time. Know that you are making the choice, and the more you pay attention to the energy in your body and in your heart, the more likely you will be aligning yourself with what you really want.
Struggling with two sides of an argument, for or against a behavior or a change, the idea is to shift back and forth between the opposing thoughts, and then shift from thoughts to the sense in your body related to those differing “night” and “day” thoughts. In that shifting, we can reverse the struggle into an experience of clarity based on what the body tells us if we only pay attention.
In the spirit of the winter solstice season, reversal in a moment, let’s pay attention to the sense in our bodies when facing decisions or making life changes. Let’s celebrate light and dark, let’s embrace and celebrate opposite thoughts, they show us the way to the energy of the body and heart. In that space of energy, we can touch the divine energy within us that is beyond all of our stresses and struggles. That is the ultimate reversal.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Ultra Emotion-athon
As I practice various mental skills, doing sport psychological experiments, I do my best to practice what I “preach” to clients in pushing toward potential. In the past year I completed 3 ultramarathons and was very excited by the depth into my own being that those races helped me to explore. That excitement led me to write about the experiences in previous blogs. This time I am writing about not doing an ultra event, making the difficult choice to sit out as a way to enhance my growth.
Three weeks ago, I was in final preparation mode for the next challenge, another 50 miler. I had done long prep runs in the months prior, training goals were checked, my nutrition was finely tuned, and I felt pretty strong for the pending challenge. It’s one thing to choose a limit pushing challenge, it’s quite another to have one imposed.
What I experienced in the last three weeks instead of the final prep for the race was what I will call an “Ultra Emotion-athon.” My Beloved dog was tragically hit by a car and killed in front of me. I LOVED her. So. Much.
Riding the Waves
I assist people with grief. I assist people with depression. I know the signs and symptoms. I know that exercise helps people with both grief and depression. The day the accident happened, I cried and cried like never before. I experienced loss before, but not like this. I felt such sharp emotion it was difficult to breathe. The aftermath of the event was pushing on my limits of emotional pain. Later that day, I made myself go for a run, I cried the whole time as I pictured my pup running with me, pulling me like a freight train in her harness as she had in the past. She was good at interval training.
Successive waves of sadness and tears ensued for several days. I did my best to eat, I did my best to manage my emotions in order to work. I did my breathing exercises, I touched my chest/lungs with my fingertips and made a spreading motion to move the energy of grief. I cried when I felt like crying, I cried hard, I talked about it with my support system. After a week, it was getting a little better with grief management and wave riding.
Over the next 2 weeks, I continued to train, but my energy was far different than it had been prior to the tragedy. My legs felt very heavy, running 6 miles felt like 50 in my body, head, and heart. I kept asking myself, how am I going to run 50 miles if I feel like this during 6? Based on those numbers, 50 miles would feel like 400! Although I was running less mileage, I was doing the emotional work required of an ultra of ultras. Just like an ultra run, I kept being present to the pain one step at a time, without backing away from it by numbing out or quitting. I rescued another puppy to help with the grief.
I struggled in the final week before the race, deciding to do it or not. On the one hand, I thought it might help me process my grief. On the other hand, it might be a way to numb the emotional pain by creating physical pain and I didn’t want to avoid the emotion. Or maybe I’d be overwhelmed by both in such a heightened state. I stayed present to the confusion. I played with the new pup.
The emotional exhaustion I experienced affected me physically. I felt lower energy than usual. Just thinking about eating carb gels, which I usually am ok with, made my stomach turn. In order to complete ultras, one must eat early and often throughout the event. I couldn’t muster the appetite. People usually have to make themselves eat even if not “hungry” during these races, it’s a peculiar experience to expend such high amounts of energy, burning calories like wildfire, but not be hungry. I was struggling just thinking about eating, before the race even started. I also hadn’t been sleeping well at all. So I put a check on the “don’t do it” list.
Spiritually, I struggle with the meaning of the accident and asking the “why” questions that usually have no clear answers. I am searching for some meaningful metaphor. On the mental side, I am experiencing flashbacks and feel the pain in my heart of the event like it is happening again. I know what these symptoms are. I know that they are lessening as time passes. The waves of anguish are slowing down. I continued to train, although with less vigor and constant thoughts of my dog. I continued to pet the new pup.
Movement in Sitting Out
Running 50 miles could be thought of as aggressive. I finally agreed that what I needed most in this time of grief is gentleness. I didn’t force myself to do the race- because I already committed, because I should, because I should prove I can, because I promised, because I’m “copping out” if I don’t, because… I allowed gentleness to take me and I sat out to nurse my emotional wounds. This is a hard decision for any athlete to make. “Sitting out” is, I think, sometimes a bigger challenge than playing through injury. This may be especially true when you make the decision for yourself, rather than a coach/parent/trainer, because then you are the one to “blame” for not performing. Sitting out for physical injury is one thing, but for an emotional or spiritual injury quite another. Will people think I’m weak? Am I?
As athletes, we are given the message to keep going through anything, as if doing that is a measure of how much heart we have, or how much we love the sport. My skating coach used to coax me into practicing past the point of exhaustion and to the point of injury with such shout outs as, “Where is your heart,” “Show me your heart.” My love for skating was not a heartfelt true love of the activity, but I pushed anyway, motivated to keep going, no matter how much my “heart” was in it. My “keep going” was a way to prove something to my coach and to get his approval. Being a “good skater” meant wearing the disguise of painlessness, ignoring bodily signals to stop. I’m aware of this early training, and recognize that at least a part of my fascination with limit pushing was groomed by this. I’m aware of many athletes who experience a similar drive to push through pain, sometimes in helpful ways, sometimes not. Sometimes development is enhanced by deciding to stop and “sit out.”
How do you push your perceived limits? How much does pushing physical limits translate into the ability to push emotional limits? Spiritual limits? It seems that there is a delicate yet strong relationship between suffering physically and mentally (and spiritually). Maybe because my physical strength is something I work at with discipline, enjoying the comfort of discomfort of a long distance run, I am able to handle more emotional or spiritual workload. I keep showing up for “practice.” This time, pushing my limits meant focusing my energy on grief, not on a race. A part of me wanted to make myself run the race, but I chose not to as way to honor the emotional hard work that I was already doing. This time, showing my big heart meant sitting out to lick my wounds with the new pup and grieve.
Strength Training
I recognize that pushing limits is a play between fragility and strength. Sometimes our minds and hearts move where our bodies have trouble following. Sometimes our bodies create openings in our minds and hearts that would not be possible without the physical sensation of exertion. With this latest experience of mine, an Ultra Emotion-athon, I know that sitting (out) with big emotions requires a lot of strength and results in growth. The depth of sadness led me to a wider opening of my heart, and in essence a deeper sense of love. The love I felt for my Beloved dog was the springboard for going deeper into my heart, first through the bond to her and then through loss and pain. The terrible ache in my heart made me stronger yet, greater than but similar to the soreness felt after a really hard run or workout. Life as a coach, has imposed a very difficult “practice session” on me, that had I known what was in store, I may not have shown up that day.
The soreness will fade, but the strength will endure and I will keep being present to my heart and the love there as a way to strengthen it, no matter how much aching is required. I do this in strength training other muscles, I can do it with my heart. Importantly, when muscles are very sore, they need rest. As my heart was very sore, I rested. I sat out of the race, despite my worry that it might mean I am weak. Sometimes the very difficult work of the heart is only done in gentle rest.
For all those who experience love and loss, I hope that you remain present to the depths of your hearts, honoring the balance of sitting out and pushing forward that is necessary to get stronger.
Three weeks ago, I was in final preparation mode for the next challenge, another 50 miler. I had done long prep runs in the months prior, training goals were checked, my nutrition was finely tuned, and I felt pretty strong for the pending challenge. It’s one thing to choose a limit pushing challenge, it’s quite another to have one imposed.
What I experienced in the last three weeks instead of the final prep for the race was what I will call an “Ultra Emotion-athon.” My Beloved dog was tragically hit by a car and killed in front of me. I LOVED her. So. Much.
Riding the Waves
I assist people with grief. I assist people with depression. I know the signs and symptoms. I know that exercise helps people with both grief and depression. The day the accident happened, I cried and cried like never before. I experienced loss before, but not like this. I felt such sharp emotion it was difficult to breathe. The aftermath of the event was pushing on my limits of emotional pain. Later that day, I made myself go for a run, I cried the whole time as I pictured my pup running with me, pulling me like a freight train in her harness as she had in the past. She was good at interval training.
Successive waves of sadness and tears ensued for several days. I did my best to eat, I did my best to manage my emotions in order to work. I did my breathing exercises, I touched my chest/lungs with my fingertips and made a spreading motion to move the energy of grief. I cried when I felt like crying, I cried hard, I talked about it with my support system. After a week, it was getting a little better with grief management and wave riding.
Over the next 2 weeks, I continued to train, but my energy was far different than it had been prior to the tragedy. My legs felt very heavy, running 6 miles felt like 50 in my body, head, and heart. I kept asking myself, how am I going to run 50 miles if I feel like this during 6? Based on those numbers, 50 miles would feel like 400! Although I was running less mileage, I was doing the emotional work required of an ultra of ultras. Just like an ultra run, I kept being present to the pain one step at a time, without backing away from it by numbing out or quitting. I rescued another puppy to help with the grief.
I struggled in the final week before the race, deciding to do it or not. On the one hand, I thought it might help me process my grief. On the other hand, it might be a way to numb the emotional pain by creating physical pain and I didn’t want to avoid the emotion. Or maybe I’d be overwhelmed by both in such a heightened state. I stayed present to the confusion. I played with the new pup.
The emotional exhaustion I experienced affected me physically. I felt lower energy than usual. Just thinking about eating carb gels, which I usually am ok with, made my stomach turn. In order to complete ultras, one must eat early and often throughout the event. I couldn’t muster the appetite. People usually have to make themselves eat even if not “hungry” during these races, it’s a peculiar experience to expend such high amounts of energy, burning calories like wildfire, but not be hungry. I was struggling just thinking about eating, before the race even started. I also hadn’t been sleeping well at all. So I put a check on the “don’t do it” list.
Spiritually, I struggle with the meaning of the accident and asking the “why” questions that usually have no clear answers. I am searching for some meaningful metaphor. On the mental side, I am experiencing flashbacks and feel the pain in my heart of the event like it is happening again. I know what these symptoms are. I know that they are lessening as time passes. The waves of anguish are slowing down. I continued to train, although with less vigor and constant thoughts of my dog. I continued to pet the new pup.
Movement in Sitting Out
Running 50 miles could be thought of as aggressive. I finally agreed that what I needed most in this time of grief is gentleness. I didn’t force myself to do the race- because I already committed, because I should, because I should prove I can, because I promised, because I’m “copping out” if I don’t, because… I allowed gentleness to take me and I sat out to nurse my emotional wounds. This is a hard decision for any athlete to make. “Sitting out” is, I think, sometimes a bigger challenge than playing through injury. This may be especially true when you make the decision for yourself, rather than a coach/parent/trainer, because then you are the one to “blame” for not performing. Sitting out for physical injury is one thing, but for an emotional or spiritual injury quite another. Will people think I’m weak? Am I?
As athletes, we are given the message to keep going through anything, as if doing that is a measure of how much heart we have, or how much we love the sport. My skating coach used to coax me into practicing past the point of exhaustion and to the point of injury with such shout outs as, “Where is your heart,” “Show me your heart.” My love for skating was not a heartfelt true love of the activity, but I pushed anyway, motivated to keep going, no matter how much my “heart” was in it. My “keep going” was a way to prove something to my coach and to get his approval. Being a “good skater” meant wearing the disguise of painlessness, ignoring bodily signals to stop. I’m aware of this early training, and recognize that at least a part of my fascination with limit pushing was groomed by this. I’m aware of many athletes who experience a similar drive to push through pain, sometimes in helpful ways, sometimes not. Sometimes development is enhanced by deciding to stop and “sit out.”
How do you push your perceived limits? How much does pushing physical limits translate into the ability to push emotional limits? Spiritual limits? It seems that there is a delicate yet strong relationship between suffering physically and mentally (and spiritually). Maybe because my physical strength is something I work at with discipline, enjoying the comfort of discomfort of a long distance run, I am able to handle more emotional or spiritual workload. I keep showing up for “practice.” This time, pushing my limits meant focusing my energy on grief, not on a race. A part of me wanted to make myself run the race, but I chose not to as way to honor the emotional hard work that I was already doing. This time, showing my big heart meant sitting out to lick my wounds with the new pup and grieve.
Strength Training
I recognize that pushing limits is a play between fragility and strength. Sometimes our minds and hearts move where our bodies have trouble following. Sometimes our bodies create openings in our minds and hearts that would not be possible without the physical sensation of exertion. With this latest experience of mine, an Ultra Emotion-athon, I know that sitting (out) with big emotions requires a lot of strength and results in growth. The depth of sadness led me to a wider opening of my heart, and in essence a deeper sense of love. The love I felt for my Beloved dog was the springboard for going deeper into my heart, first through the bond to her and then through loss and pain. The terrible ache in my heart made me stronger yet, greater than but similar to the soreness felt after a really hard run or workout. Life as a coach, has imposed a very difficult “practice session” on me, that had I known what was in store, I may not have shown up that day.
The soreness will fade, but the strength will endure and I will keep being present to my heart and the love there as a way to strengthen it, no matter how much aching is required. I do this in strength training other muscles, I can do it with my heart. Importantly, when muscles are very sore, they need rest. As my heart was very sore, I rested. I sat out of the race, despite my worry that it might mean I am weak. Sometimes the very difficult work of the heart is only done in gentle rest.
For all those who experience love and loss, I hope that you remain present to the depths of your hearts, honoring the balance of sitting out and pushing forward that is necessary to get stronger.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Monitoring the "Heart" Rate
With all of the technical gadgets available for monitoring information pertaining to running and exercise, one can get very “scientific” about training and performance. But despite the ability to concisely measure what is happening with your body, equipment can malfunction, and sometimes people perform better when not paying attention to the equipment. For these reasons, it can be helpful to your performance to rely on how you feel in your body, in your heart- “heart rate.” This applies to relationships as well. How does your heart rate the relationship?
I practiced using a new heart rate monitor/GPS device during many training runs over the past months. Race day came and I was sure to have a full battery charge to carry my info monitoring all the way to the finish line through my first ultra of the year, a 50K. Five minutes before the start, I started pushing the usual buttons to get set, and nothing happened. The screen just said flatly, “Battery Life 100%,” the same thing it said when I unplugged it from the charger 2 hours earlier. Nothing was happening. Nothing. All of my preparations in micro managing my run were for naught. Or so I thought.
Rather than be upset about the malfunction, I decided to use the dead screen message as a mantra (mind protection) during the race to focus. “100%,” I’d say to myself when I noticed weariness or other performance detractors. I still wondered about heart rate, heading, elevation, and pace. While I didn’t have the output info on my wrist about my heart rate, I could still detect how I felt. I kept checking in with my body, my energy, and noticing how my muscles felt, and how my mind was thinking. I could feel into my performance, without the monitor, and after observing how I felt in conjunction with the monitor during training, I could guesstimate what was going on even without the monitor. This is the kind of “checking in” that could be helpful to assessing relationships, too.
In relationships, it would be nice if we had a wrist-mounted monitor that told us if we were in the “right” relationship or that monitored performance in terms of energy, workload, and direction. Checking in with your body, energy, and noticing how you think about the relationship can be key to figuring out if you are with a compatible partner. You can take relationship inventories, personality tests, and attempt to measure some aspect of success of your partnership, but maybe just like running performance, you dig the deepest evidence of whether or not you are doing well by monitoring how you really feel “inside,” in the energy of your “heart.”
Let’s look at some ways we can monitor a relationship, like a run:
Battery Life- Energy
Relationships take work, they shouldn’t drain you all the way to nothing, but they definitely take energy from your battery. Are you drained to almost nothing? What charges you up? Are these things you share with your partner? What charges your heart? Your “heart rate monitor” should show fluctuations in charge or energy, but the relationship should help you re-charge rather than “freeze” you.
Heart Rate- Workload
Different tasks during running create various workloads or intensity. Big hills, declines, or running a flat surface may require different energy. If you find you are always working at a maximum intensity with little rest and little energy for other things, always uphill, you might be working too hard in the relationship. If you work and rest, like doing intervals, and feel strong, then maybe your workload is just right, especially if you see your relationship getting stronger as a result of the work. If you are working at a very low intensity, going slow, and are not seeing changes in your relationship that you’d like to see, then maybe you need to work a little harder to get a “fit” relationship. Your “heart rate monitor” can tell you if your workload is optimal, check inside.
Heading- Direction
If your heading is not clear, then you may be lost. You and your partner should know where you are heading together. You should both be explicit about where you want to go as a team or what you want from the “run” together. If you are heading in very different directions, then it is going to be difficult to stick together. You can go different directions in places along the course or have solo runs at times, but rejoining with your partner is always happening. Your “heart rate monitor” should give you a clear heading. Find out if it matches your partners.
Reading books about the science of making relationships work, mapping out a course of goals, going to counseling, and sitting down for “meetings” with partners about “where are we going” can be helpful ways to assess and develop a relationship. We can attempt to monitor very specifically what is going on in the relationship by checking perceived exertion, getting a “heading,” and maintaining direction. Sometimes, despite all of the assessment instruments, it’s helpful to check “inside.” If you go to that “inside” place of energy in your chest, your own natural heart rate monitor, breathing and being quiet, what do you know about your relationship? Heart rate… How does your heart rate the relationship?
I practiced using a new heart rate monitor/GPS device during many training runs over the past months. Race day came and I was sure to have a full battery charge to carry my info monitoring all the way to the finish line through my first ultra of the year, a 50K. Five minutes before the start, I started pushing the usual buttons to get set, and nothing happened. The screen just said flatly, “Battery Life 100%,” the same thing it said when I unplugged it from the charger 2 hours earlier. Nothing was happening. Nothing. All of my preparations in micro managing my run were for naught. Or so I thought.
Rather than be upset about the malfunction, I decided to use the dead screen message as a mantra (mind protection) during the race to focus. “100%,” I’d say to myself when I noticed weariness or other performance detractors. I still wondered about heart rate, heading, elevation, and pace. While I didn’t have the output info on my wrist about my heart rate, I could still detect how I felt. I kept checking in with my body, my energy, and noticing how my muscles felt, and how my mind was thinking. I could feel into my performance, without the monitor, and after observing how I felt in conjunction with the monitor during training, I could guesstimate what was going on even without the monitor. This is the kind of “checking in” that could be helpful to assessing relationships, too.
In relationships, it would be nice if we had a wrist-mounted monitor that told us if we were in the “right” relationship or that monitored performance in terms of energy, workload, and direction. Checking in with your body, energy, and noticing how you think about the relationship can be key to figuring out if you are with a compatible partner. You can take relationship inventories, personality tests, and attempt to measure some aspect of success of your partnership, but maybe just like running performance, you dig the deepest evidence of whether or not you are doing well by monitoring how you really feel “inside,” in the energy of your “heart.”
Let’s look at some ways we can monitor a relationship, like a run:
Battery Life- Energy
Relationships take work, they shouldn’t drain you all the way to nothing, but they definitely take energy from your battery. Are you drained to almost nothing? What charges you up? Are these things you share with your partner? What charges your heart? Your “heart rate monitor” should show fluctuations in charge or energy, but the relationship should help you re-charge rather than “freeze” you.
Heart Rate- Workload
Different tasks during running create various workloads or intensity. Big hills, declines, or running a flat surface may require different energy. If you find you are always working at a maximum intensity with little rest and little energy for other things, always uphill, you might be working too hard in the relationship. If you work and rest, like doing intervals, and feel strong, then maybe your workload is just right, especially if you see your relationship getting stronger as a result of the work. If you are working at a very low intensity, going slow, and are not seeing changes in your relationship that you’d like to see, then maybe you need to work a little harder to get a “fit” relationship. Your “heart rate monitor” can tell you if your workload is optimal, check inside.
Heading- Direction
If your heading is not clear, then you may be lost. You and your partner should know where you are heading together. You should both be explicit about where you want to go as a team or what you want from the “run” together. If you are heading in very different directions, then it is going to be difficult to stick together. You can go different directions in places along the course or have solo runs at times, but rejoining with your partner is always happening. Your “heart rate monitor” should give you a clear heading. Find out if it matches your partners.
Reading books about the science of making relationships work, mapping out a course of goals, going to counseling, and sitting down for “meetings” with partners about “where are we going” can be helpful ways to assess and develop a relationship. We can attempt to monitor very specifically what is going on in the relationship by checking perceived exertion, getting a “heading,” and maintaining direction. Sometimes, despite all of the assessment instruments, it’s helpful to check “inside.” If you go to that “inside” place of energy in your chest, your own natural heart rate monitor, breathing and being quiet, what do you know about your relationship? Heart rate… How does your heart rate the relationship?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Layers of Change
Outdoor winter running in Northeast Ohio requires layering of clothes. Sometimes even with up to 4 layers, it’s cold getting started. But somewhere into the run, the warmth of the body takes over and sweat emerges. The work of running may even cause one to shed an outer layer to “cool off” in the cold. By the end of the run, things are nice and toasty. Once indoors, peeling off those layers feels oh, so good. Making changes can be thought of as a form of layering as well.
At this time of year, many people are considering making changes of different sorts, a new beginning, hitting a “reset button.” Reflection on the past year, and energy to make changes in the new year is common. But, most people have difficulty after a short period of time, and end up not sticking to the changes they thought they wanted to make.
Let’s think of making changes as a form of layering. On the outside layer, someone can say, “I want to do…” But conflicting with that, there might be a next layer that really says, “I should/have to do…” And a third layer may be, “I can’t do…” Finally, the innermost layer is “I choose to do…”
Creating change requires noticing these mental layers:
I want to do: is easy. Everybody can rattle off what they want to do. I want to run a marathon, I want to lose 20 lbs., I want to eat nutritious foods, I want to cut down on drinking. Most people can easily say what they WANT to do. But that doesn’t usually mean they get to the changes.
I should/have to do: is a little less easy. Lots of people will say they want something, but the want is complicated by a “should.” You should run a marathon, you should lose 20 lbs., you should eat nutritious foods, you should cut down on your drinking. “Shoulds” and “have to’s” usually are layers that need some attention, if you want to make progress toward change. “Should” messages from others that become our own internalized “shoulds” (imagine finger pointing) usually do not help to create change in the long term.
I can’t do: is usually the home of self doubt and can make change difficult. I can’t run a marathon, I can’t lose 20 lbs., I can’t eat nutritious foods, I can’t cut down on drinking. Most people will have “can’t” thoughts from time to time when they venture into change territory. Self doubt can come for many reasons, but being aware of it and addressing it in various ways helps one to move to the final layer.
The last layer, “I choose to…” is where the power of change can take place. Beyond a non-committal want, beyond should, beyond can’t. “I choose to” means a clear intention is taking place, action is happening.
To ensure your success with creating change, it can be helpful to be sure you have the foundational layer of “I choose to” fitting well with what you carve out in your goals for the next running, weight loss, eating/drinking seasons.
First, clarity of your mission. The foundation of your layers is your mission. What are you on this Earth to accomplish? What is your grand mission in life, what are you here to do? If you don’t know, then this is the first layer to be clear about, because all else can fit neatly on top of this, or feel uncomfortable because the proper base layer next to the skin is missing. “I choose to” sorts of statements can more easily occur when you are acting in line with your mission as the foundational layer.
Second, the smaller pieces like hats and gloves, that help you start or continue on your mission, are another layer for success. These can be thought of as goals. What do you choose to do in line with your mission in the short and long term? Goals have to be personally meaningful, something you really want, not something you think you “should” want or “have to do.” Specific, difficult, attainable, and important are characteristics of good goal layering.
Third, consistency between the mission and your goals can make your energy grow. Also, encouragement helps effort and energy more than other negative tactics like guilt, sarcasm, physical punishment (coach tactics). If you have an inner critic, notice it, and replace inner critic thoughts with an encouraging friend’s voice instead.
Fourth and last, related to consistency between mission and goals, outsides must match the insides. What you say to others matches what you say to yourself. If you hear yourself telling others what you want to do, should do, or have to do, see if you can check inside and find out what you really are choosing to do. I want to go for a long run today, but… I should go for a long run today, but… I can’t go for a long run today… Practice saying to self and others, “I choose to… go for a long run.” It changes your energy toward the behavior. Consistency outside and inside reduces stress by reducing conflict.
If you are serious about that marathon, weight, or habit, notice the layers of change in your mental process of training. Just as the work of running in the cold can make you shed layers, the work of moving toward your goals can make you shed layers of thoughts that interfere with changes. If you really are serious about what changes you say are important, then show it by making daily choices. Hear yourself saying, “I am choosing to do this long run this weekend,” and see yourself saying that to others when you tell them about it. I choose to do… is powerful. You have the power to make changes with each and every choice, thoughtful layers based on a solid foundation.
At this time of year, many people are considering making changes of different sorts, a new beginning, hitting a “reset button.” Reflection on the past year, and energy to make changes in the new year is common. But, most people have difficulty after a short period of time, and end up not sticking to the changes they thought they wanted to make.
Let’s think of making changes as a form of layering. On the outside layer, someone can say, “I want to do…” But conflicting with that, there might be a next layer that really says, “I should/have to do…” And a third layer may be, “I can’t do…” Finally, the innermost layer is “I choose to do…”
Creating change requires noticing these mental layers:
I want to do: is easy. Everybody can rattle off what they want to do. I want to run a marathon, I want to lose 20 lbs., I want to eat nutritious foods, I want to cut down on drinking. Most people can easily say what they WANT to do. But that doesn’t usually mean they get to the changes.
I should/have to do: is a little less easy. Lots of people will say they want something, but the want is complicated by a “should.” You should run a marathon, you should lose 20 lbs., you should eat nutritious foods, you should cut down on your drinking. “Shoulds” and “have to’s” usually are layers that need some attention, if you want to make progress toward change. “Should” messages from others that become our own internalized “shoulds” (imagine finger pointing) usually do not help to create change in the long term.
I can’t do: is usually the home of self doubt and can make change difficult. I can’t run a marathon, I can’t lose 20 lbs., I can’t eat nutritious foods, I can’t cut down on drinking. Most people will have “can’t” thoughts from time to time when they venture into change territory. Self doubt can come for many reasons, but being aware of it and addressing it in various ways helps one to move to the final layer.
The last layer, “I choose to…” is where the power of change can take place. Beyond a non-committal want, beyond should, beyond can’t. “I choose to” means a clear intention is taking place, action is happening.
To ensure your success with creating change, it can be helpful to be sure you have the foundational layer of “I choose to” fitting well with what you carve out in your goals for the next running, weight loss, eating/drinking seasons.
First, clarity of your mission. The foundation of your layers is your mission. What are you on this Earth to accomplish? What is your grand mission in life, what are you here to do? If you don’t know, then this is the first layer to be clear about, because all else can fit neatly on top of this, or feel uncomfortable because the proper base layer next to the skin is missing. “I choose to” sorts of statements can more easily occur when you are acting in line with your mission as the foundational layer.
Second, the smaller pieces like hats and gloves, that help you start or continue on your mission, are another layer for success. These can be thought of as goals. What do you choose to do in line with your mission in the short and long term? Goals have to be personally meaningful, something you really want, not something you think you “should” want or “have to do.” Specific, difficult, attainable, and important are characteristics of good goal layering.
Third, consistency between the mission and your goals can make your energy grow. Also, encouragement helps effort and energy more than other negative tactics like guilt, sarcasm, physical punishment (coach tactics). If you have an inner critic, notice it, and replace inner critic thoughts with an encouraging friend’s voice instead.
Fourth and last, related to consistency between mission and goals, outsides must match the insides. What you say to others matches what you say to yourself. If you hear yourself telling others what you want to do, should do, or have to do, see if you can check inside and find out what you really are choosing to do. I want to go for a long run today, but… I should go for a long run today, but… I can’t go for a long run today… Practice saying to self and others, “I choose to… go for a long run.” It changes your energy toward the behavior. Consistency outside and inside reduces stress by reducing conflict.
If you are serious about that marathon, weight, or habit, notice the layers of change in your mental process of training. Just as the work of running in the cold can make you shed layers, the work of moving toward your goals can make you shed layers of thoughts that interfere with changes. If you really are serious about what changes you say are important, then show it by making daily choices. Hear yourself saying, “I am choosing to do this long run this weekend,” and see yourself saying that to others when you tell them about it. I choose to do… is powerful. You have the power to make changes with each and every choice, thoughtful layers based on a solid foundation.
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