Knees

I haven't run for weeks.

My IT band is messed up, my knee is messed up and I have come to wonder why I didn't pursue power walking instead of running...

Oh ya, cuz running makes me happy, walking makes me bored.

But now there is no running and not very much walking.

This is the true meaning of boredom.

Change

I am reading Geneen Roth's excellent book, Women, Food and God. I like what she has to say and what she writes about change:

The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value and possibility. To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it... Change, if it is to be long lasting, must occur on the unseen levels first. With understanding, inquiry, openness.

I find every sidelining injury makes me inquisitive. As I type I am icing my flared up IT band/wonky knee. This wasn't a sudden injury, the inflammation was created over time. Every time I didn't stretch enough, every time I pushed past the pain in my knee to try that kneeling yoga pose, every time I ignored the aches and kept on going.

Now I'm going nowhere. Stuck on the couch with ice. I recognize old unhelpful thinking - the no pain, no gain mentality or the "I must work very hard and push my body very hard to lose weight" thoughts.

I want to change that mindset.
I want to stop fighting with my body.

I am seeking something that feels quite mysterious. How can my body get stronger without damage and injury? This is indeed unseen. But now I am looking.

Being in a rush

I am in a rush.

A rush to be fit, to be thin, to be a yogini, to run fast, to lift heavy weights, to do the dancer's pose and on and on the list goes...

Being in a rush isn't helpful. In fact it's worse than not being helpful, it's detrimental. I'm reading The Power of Now and intellectually agree with Tolle's wisdom but haven't quite internalized it.

I wonder if remaining in the present is as important as sweating and stretching and 10 servings of fruit and vegetables every day. I think it is.

You can't rush the present. So if I don't spend my day thinking about the future, imaging another kind of life in another kind of body than I am left with today, right now...

It is a constant mind tugging to stay here, right here, right now and not zip off into the future.

A 24/7 mental workout.