Why Running Keeps me Sane (Somewhat)

I have been a runner for about 15 years now, I started running shortly after a separation from my first husband. I just felt like I needed to run, I had no plans to run, one day I was walking my dog and I started running, just like that. Day after day when I walked my dog I ran a little bit. It was like my body wanted to run and had taken control of my mind. In so many ways I was grieving the loss of my dream and being lead unknowingly to my future.

At first I ran at night so no one would see me, I was afraid people would laugh. I  used to run on this small path close to my home it was maybe a kilometer long. For the longest time I thought that for someone my age, my weight and who had smoked for 23 years, this was pretty far. Then one day I was running and I wondered if I could do the path twice and I did.  I was ecstatic. A few weeks later I decided to go off the path, that night I must of run of 4 or 5k, it was amazing. I realized that night that I had set the bar way to low, that my mind was keeping me small.  How often our minds become or biggest prison.

 One day I decided to run the Terry Fox run it was 10k, I had never run 10k before but I thought I would just try. I ran the whole distance,  came in last and had my picture on the front page of the Pickering newspaper. I think the photographer was late arriving and I was all that was left.

 I now own a run club, people come to me to learn to run and most want to get psychically fit or lose some weight. which is awesome, but a great reason to run is for mental health and for that spiritual connection we all crave. Every long time runner knows how running keeps us sane, helps with moodiness and generally gives us that alone time that is so needed. There have been times when I was running and I seemed to enter a new dimension where I felt so connected to my surroundings, I felt that oneness that yogi's speak of. Not all runs are like this but the ones that are show you a little glimpse of bliss.

Over the years I have been accused of running away from things, but truthfully any runner knows running doesn't' solve a problem but it may give you some quiet time in which clarity might surface.

Recently , when my husband was diagnosed with cancer, I couldn't run for a couple of weeks, I felt this pain in my chest and I just couldn't run. One day I forced my self out for a run, I had to hold onto  my chest with one hand, but I ran and finally the tears came, running had helped me release the emotional block and start dealing with my feelings around his illness. I had run right into the beginning of my healing, not away from the problem.

Here is a quote form Osho on running, I love Osho. Love him or hate him, I consider him one of the  greatest thinkers of our time. Reading his books has helped me find so much freedom from the bondage of what I call village thinking, or thinking like everyone else.

Osho -  If you can run then there is no need for any other meditation – it is enough! ... Any action in which you can be total becomes meditation, and running is so beautiful that you can be totally lost in it. And you are in contact with all the elements – the sun, the air, the earth, the sky; you are in contact with existence.

When you are running your breathing naturally goes very deep and it starts massaging the hara centre... which is in fact the centre from where meditative energy is released. It is just below the navel, two inches below the navel. When breathing goes deep it massages that centre, makes it alive. And when you are running, you are throwing all carbon dioxide out of your lungs. Carbon dioxide makes people dull, dead, frozen, blocked.

 Running against the wind is a perfect situation. It is a dance of the elements. And while running you cannot think: if you are thinking, then you are not running rightly. When you are running totally, thinking stops. You become too earth-bound, the head no more functions. The body is in such an activity that there is no energy left for the head to go on and on; the thinking stops.

And in those moments of non-thinking, your existence is pure, you simply are, you don’t know who. You don’t know if you are Indian, German, English, Christian, Mohammedan – you don’t know who you are. All is forgotten, you are unburdened of the head... you are again an animal! In that moment – when you are again an animal – there is a possibility to contact god.

These days I like to run on trails, it's a harder run to some degree but I love it, although I run with people, generally I will run ahead or drop back each run just to experience the oneness. I feel the community of the trees, the earth, the water, the sky and I feel love. Each runs gives me strength and compassion. I am still not sure why, but it happens. So the trails have become a church of sorts for me, I place I head to, to regroup, to listen and to strengthen myself for the week to come.

This fall signed up for a 50k trail race and what I look forward to the most is the mental challenge and the time outdoors connected to the God of my understanding.

With love,

Sheree xo