Weaving Mindfulness in Daily Life - Running

Over the past two years, particularly over COVID lockdown periods, I didn’t not realise how

inactive I’ve become. Being a designer by trade I can easily spent 8 hours or more a day at

the desk, working away, liaising with clients, colleagues and the only time I move is possibly

making a cup of tea or when nature calls. Working from home just makes this even more of

a trap.

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

Just like everyone else, the sense of imprisonment of lockdown was immense. The one

exercise a day rule became the only way to break free from my unhealthy routine. It took a

couple of months to get my fitness up to scratch through a lot of walking. And one day, I

decided to start running again. It wasn’t as easy as I thought.

When I was walking, I appreciated the quietness from the road due to lack of traffic.

Constantly delighted by different bird songs, the humming of insects, the sight of nature

growing and changing right in front of me. My body was relaxed my heart was warm. When

I was running however, the attention turned intensely towards the body. The sense of my

inner and outer experience was completely off balance. I became to notice my tired feet,

my leg muscles, my left hip pulling... on top of that, my “inner cheerleader” was not doing a

good job at all! I was constantly worrying about if I could finish my route, self-doubt on my

own fitness, self-critical on my posture, my low mood was reflected in the heaviness of my

chest which in turn, I just assume that my lung capacity was giving up on me… etc. etc. You

get the picture!

It was only during an online retreat, one of the teachers Chris Cullen was reminding us of a

useful practice called GRAIN (based on Tara Brach’s RAIN exercise but with Ground,

Recognise, Acceptance, Investigate and Non-Identification). It was the N part which was

very interesting me. It was a teaching of how one can de-centre from our thoughts or body

sensations that you focus on a moment by moment open awareness, which allows whatever

arises to be present, without getting entangled by it. In his talk, he used the term “Not Me.

Not Mine.”

So I wonder, what if I practice this “Not Me Not Mine” during my running training, would

that help to improve my body’s performance?

With any type of training, it is important to follow the process so this was what happened,

after numerous frustrating runs later…

Once again, I arrived at my local park. This time, arrived in a different “mode”. As I walked

from my house to the park, I practiced my stage 1 - Grounding by bringing awareness to my feet and the body breathing as I walked. Once I felt settled, I expanded my awareness to stage 2 - Recognising, becoming aware of body sensations (tiredness, any muscles pulling right now), my state of mind, any particular emotions. And when I arrived at the park, at the starting point of my run, I pause and began these 2 steps of the process again. It was an interesting observation to see how grounded I could be whilst running. The differences within the body and my mind state as the body movements increased.

It was inevitable that at some point lactic acid in muscles would build up, body began to

sweat, old injuries might surfaced. This was where stage 3 Acceptance came in quite handy.

Accepting what was present at the moment made me realised I could either slow down my

pace or walk, or if my body allowed me to, I could gently and carefully work with by

adjusting my posture. So I experimented with both options. This moved me swiftly on to

stage 4 – Investigating, being curious with my body reactions to my run, investigating where

the sensation was coming from. Was it an old injury or something new? Was my heavy chest

to do with running too fast or simply to do with my state of mind? So I guess, in a way, both

stage 3 and 4 became like a feedback loop for me.

Finally, the last lap of the run. By now, I was hot, sweaty and tired. My flat feet began to feel

heavy. So this is where I shifted to my focus to stage 5 - “Not me, not mine”. It’s not me that is running, and those feet weren’t mine, I thought to myself. Funnily enough, to me I wasn’t

creating a sense of avoidance or aversion to feel my physical action. I was simply noticing a

shift. My attention had shifted to a different perspective. From the inner experience to the

outer. Noticing how my surrounding was “moving past” me as I moved forward. The

open awareness of the sound of the park, the sun shining on my skin, the rhythm of my

breathing and the relationship to the cadence of my feet. I was no longer focusing on the

physical hardship in my body, I was in the present experience of my running and what it was presenting to me.

That day, I ran the longest I had ran for a long time and at a reasonable speed too. That day,

I walked home proud and smiling.

Written by Rina Cheung for her Mindful Beti Journals ©All rights reserved