Running is a lifestyle. But besides running, there are challenging obstacles in everyday life that are not always easy to handle. How to deal with minor depressions, low self-esteem and fear for the future? First, running helped and helps me a lot but I still need tools for coping with my negative thoughts. Therefore, I read The Power of Now by Eckart Tolle and I’ve got some new perspectives that I would like to share.

I have no patience (as I wrote in my earlier blog post A Journey of Patience). Too often, I am living in the future, worrying about things. Unnecessary and repetitive thoughts = mental noise, as Tolle says, is tormenting me. However, what you may understand intellectually is often much harder to deal with emotionally. I can’t help feeling what I feel but on the other hand – maybe I can learn to handle it, at least sometimes. Enlightenment, as Tolle calls what it means to be present, is not a divine, supernatural feeling. No, it’s just being in the Now and I’ve experienced how this has affected my running.

Presence – the Now

The expression Carpe Diem has got a little overused, I think. “To live in the present” is quite abstract, isn’t it? I didn’t understand it until I heard the expression said differently and in different words. To live in the present was to me too incomprehensible but one day someone said to me: “be present”.

To me, the meaning of being present was easier to grasp than to live in the present and I still remember the first time, I felt this presence:

Paris Marathon, 2012: I was running and enjoying being a part of this great marathon but in races, no matter the distance, there is always a kind of pressure. Sooner or later, moments will come when you just wish it to be over. However, this day, when I started to feel tired, I decided just to be present and look around and not focus on my pain. So, I suddenly saw all the beautiful buildings, I felt the spectator’s joy and the ambiance, and I had fun reading on the runner’s t-shirts.

I still think of that race as one of my best marathons.

The Power of Now demands concentration but is at the same time a page turner. Although Tolle is very clear in the way he explains what it means to be in the Now, it is something that I have to read again and again. And practice. Like with physical training, you have to practice and work on your mental changes. It’s hard to understand the meaning of being, of consciousness as Tolle puts it (he says not to focus on words but being a lover of language, literature and semantics, for me, words can help me understand some things better).

Running without pain

Tolle says that being present is about observing and not judging what you see, hear or feel. I’ve never thought about it that way but last Sunday on my run, I suddenly understood what he meant (at least I think I do). Instead of being afraid of my hamstring pain or about being tired, I just observed what happened in my body. When my hamstring began to feel a little sore, I didn’t focus on the pain; I just observed with no judgement.

It’s easy when you’ve been injured, to focus too much on the fear of pain. So, instead of focus, observation is a way of accepting what is and that might in the end help your body relax and not get tense as it often gets when you focus too much.

My hamstring felt much better during that run. Every time it started to hurt, I observed and acknowledged that I felt something and the pain almost disappeared (it’s true!). Even my breathing became lighter and I ran a little faster.

I am not good at keeping my thoughts away. It’s hard not to judge or blame yourself, it really demands a lot of practice. However, I am grateful for the moments when I succeed in being present, in being an observer, and when I stop blaming myself (or other people) for the problems in my life.

What does it mean to be in the Now?

According to Tolle, the only thing that is real is the Now. What happened in the past did not happen in the past – it happened in the Now. What will happen in the future, we don’t know so when we are afraid of something, our mind is in the future.

He says not to identify with your mind, with your thoughts. Instead of thinking “I am this or that” then just be.

………..

I will continue practicing and share my experiences but for now – I just am.