Sankalpa: A New Year's Resolution Run

I have been using sankalpa's for awhile and have found them to be immensely powerful and beneficial. Sankalpa's are frequently used before yoga practises, yoga nidras and meditations but I have been using a sankalpa before every run since the very beginning. I have been trying to differentiate between goals and sankalpas. The only way I can explain it is that sankalpas work energetically, which makes it hard to pin down into a succinct scientific explanation. I would much rather someone experience a sankalpa than explain it to them!

Looking online for an “official” definition of sankalpas has proven difficult. One site says says sankalpas are “a controlled, self willed thought, conception or intention,” but this definition seems hollow and rather aggressive, conflicting with my personal experience of sankalpas. Most simply put sankalpa means “resolve”. Which makes them perfect for New Year's Resolutions.

Having been on the move travelling a lot, it has been especially hard to keep up my daily runs for the Marcothon (this will be a future post). My body is craving to stay in one place and be still. Rather than meditating at the end of my run I have begun meditating at the beginning to help ground and centre me. At this stage I will often assume a mudra and mentally say my sankalpa. Sometimes it is the same one, or perhaps I need to focus on something in particular. But I always have one.

Sankalpas are very personal so I have never come across any steadfast “rules” when using them. But from my own practise I can share a few suggestions. Firstly, make sure that you are ready for your sankalpa to happen. Timing is indeed everything and this rings especially true for sankalpas. I few times my sankalpas have “resolved” when I was not ready and feel now it was a wasted opportunity. The old saying “be careful what you wish for” applies particularly here. I also do not choose to use them for mundane daily annoyances. I keep meditating to suss them out in my head. Sankalpas to me are sacred. I keep them short, positive and in the present tense. Say it as if whatever you wish to resolve is already resolving. This is the power of a sankalpa, by putting it out to the universe it has already begun. Happy Sankalpas!

The Merry Christmas Run: Spreading goodwill and cheer on the run.

I purposefully avoid looking any “real runners” in the eye, so scared I am of being exposed as a fraud. Running in the Canadian countryside, this is rarely a problem as mostly it is wildlife I encounter. But now I am in urban Australia and surprisingly scornful stares have been relatively few. Actually runners generally are scarce. This is as a surprise. Where are they all? Surely not using the weather as an excuse. It takes me awhile to find some runners. Originally I was pounding the streets of suburbia, but once I had some wheels and could venture further afield I found some. On the beach, the esplanade that runs alongside the Swan River and in the ample Kings Park bushland. It makes sense with such scenery at your doorsteps you feel obliged to make the most of it. However the running scene is slightly disappointing, compared to the jubilation of down town Halifax in Nova Scotia. Cycling appears to be more popular than running here in Perth, Australia.

By far my favourite meditation is Metta Bhvana and I have been eager to incorporate this into my run, for sometime. If there is a particular friend who I wish I could be there for, and am unable, I try to generate as much love and positive energy as I can muster and visually direct this towards their heart. A form of prayer, but it is more about giving than asking. The most important part is to direct some of this love into loving yourself first. Everything I can give the world is better if I begin from a place of strength and love.

I came across another runner who had a similar idea and called it the “Mother Teresa” run. I have “tweaked” it to suit what I am comfortable with. It is very simple. Every time I approach someone along my running path, I try to make eye contact with them. Acknowledge them in some way; a nod of my head, a wave a “hello”. I then say (in my head!) “May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free to grow old and wise.” I use a lot of visualisation but I really love the theory behind this run but the reality is somewhat different. I cannot overcome shyness in looking the few runners I encounter in the eye. Luckily they seem to be too engrossed in talking into their mobile phones to notice. I start feeling like my children, who when food shopping yell “Merry Christmas” to strangers shopping only to get ignored. This, however, does not impede on their enthusiasm and I am inspired by their determination. Funnily, it is the dogs that seem to respond to my good intentions more than the runners. I like to think they are more sensitive but a multitude of reasons can be read into their response.

Even if there are no plans to run during the festivities, the Merry Christmas Run is not limited to the holiday season. When I finish this type of run I always feel really wonderful. Which has always been the irony behind giving anything that it is the giver that receives the most. I include, you in this too because in your busy life you have taken the time to read my ramblings and often share with me your thoughts on running and everything else between the starting and finishing line. I feel truly blessed and appreciate all your support, kindness, advice and feedback. My hope is that love, peace, faith and joy is in in all your hearts this Christmas. And to be found in all our runs in the New Year.

Air Feet: Run as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.

Every family has it. Quirkiness we endure and overlook until it is entrenched in our lives as normal behaviour. My one and only running partner, my sister “The Gazelle,” despite being half my size can be heard stomping from the other end of the house. The first time I heard her come down the stairs I assumed the kids were sledding down the staircase. The second time I sincerely thought an earthquake had hit the Canadian Maritimes. The third time I just shook my head in a scientific manner at how someone so tiny can make such a racket. I, in comparison, have the footsteps of an anorexic ballerina. Stealth moves practised after years of tiptoeing (and at times rambo rolling) away from sleeping babies. I would like to think that it is all this mindfulness training coming into being but chances are it is more the former.

“When we walk like (we are running), we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the earth... Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth. Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.” Thich Nhat Hahn

I do not believe that Thich has anything against running. I interpret his quote as meaning, when we manifest our thoughts into the physical world we should do so with with good intent and mindfulness. Love with every step. I cannot find the direct quote but I remember reading one of Thich books and he suggested to imagine a lotus blooming from every footprint you leave behind.

Lately I have been doing a lot of investigating into this “barefoot running” and I cannot help but see connections between this line of thinking and mindfulness. I have deduced that it does not matter if you run with fancy shoes, crap shoes or no shoes, it is how you run that is important. It just so happens to be easier (not to mention cheaper and more enjoyable) in your barefoot because you are more connected to the earth in terms of balance and grip. My Mum recently reminded me that I never wanted to wear shoes as a child, I said I only wanted my “air feet”, my version of bare feet. All three of my children were walking by 10 months old. I just could not bring myself to put them in stiff, heavy board like overpriced shoes that are “recommended” for babies.

It is with this in mind I take my first barefoot running endeavour to the beach. Originally my plan was, in Canada, to start running once a week uphill on the treadmill (it is impossible to run uphill incorrectly) until my muscles and ligaments could make the transition away from shoes injury free. Now, in Australia, running barefoot is easier but I still want to take it slowly. My feet have been propped up for over thirty years, I do not want them to go in shock. The truth is, since I have started running, I have encountered some problems which, it has been suggested, only surgery can fix. I refuse to believe this having taken many alternative routes in other situations and avoided surgery successfully.

It's a bit like running into a fork in the road and having to choose what direction. You can run with your shock absorbing, ventilated, self-breathing, lite, orthopaedic trainers with expensive insoles. And then replace them every year. Or with a bit of effort, mindfulness and training run barefoot. My first experimental run on the beach is at first liberating. The run is more “springy” and focusing on technique is distracting. My endurance is better. I imagine am running in the manner of an Ethiopian Marathon Sand Goddess. I am inspired. And the next morning in absolute excruciating agony.

It took two solid days for me to walk without it feeling like I was stepping on a taser. Once upon a time I could run in my air feet but since then I have underestimated the damage I have created by stuffing my feet into shoes and now my body is making me pay. But I am determined to get my air feet back, one run a week. One day I will be kissing the earth with my feet.

Home is where the next run is.

It is the first day of Marcothon, a daily commitment to run 5 kilometres (or for 25 minutes) everyday in December, including Christmas Day. From my nice cosy, predictable, routine in Canada this seemed like a good way to take my run to the next level but now I am being seduced by the most attractive excuses. I have not been healthy enough to run for two weeks, acute sinusitis continues to plague me when I run. I have had, at best, 12 hours worth of accumulative naps in a 5 day period after travelling 36 hours with a preschooler, a toddler and a baby. Jet lag has turned the marrow in my bones to cement but what suffocates any of my good intentions is the 38 degree heat. Any attempts to let myself off the hook are squashed by a fellow Marcothoner, “You were the one who got us into all of this nonsense in the first place!” she told me. Friends who hold you accountable are both a blessing and a curse. I put on my running shoes.

Suburban Australia is as different from the Canadian countryside as you can get in the Western world. The basics are there but slightly skewed. A two dollar coin is the size of a penny, cheese is not orange, and yes water drains clockwise. There are roads and cars, but they drive on the opposite side of the road. It is the tiny changes that screw with your head the most because you think you know what is going on but then you nearly get side swiped by a car.

My body and mind switched allegiances to the Northern Hemisphere years ago but the heart is remembering and the run is reacquainting. The slender curve of a gum leaf, the comical genius that is the Pink Galah, the smell of heat cooking itself. Sweat does not even have the chance to lounge on my skin as the air is so thirsty it evaporates immediately. I am marvelling in distractions and have run 18 minutes straight. I probably could keep going but just because I can doesn't mean I should. I walk the rest of the way as I want to run again tomorrow. Although I have been running for a couple of months I have not run daily yet and I am mindful of injury. And heat stroke.

I use to have very little empathy for people who could not cope with the heat. I don't know if it is an age thing or the fact that this time last week I was making snow angels but the heat has crippled me. The next day I am concerned enough to change my running direction to go past the hospital just in case. Back from an early morning run day 5 and I decide to not run again till tomorrow afternoon just to give my body some time to adjust to a multitude of nonsenses yet sticking to the rules.