Shaping Your Own Reality

"Change your thoughts or actions and you can change your reality"
p 31 The Non Runner's Marathon Trainer

It didn't take long to figure out my theme for the week. By 6:45 am I had already had a bowl of oatmeal and several HUGE servings of self-doubt. I was thinking "Why did I start that dumb blog?" It was kinda like the morning of my first 5K, it would be so easy to slip back into my little cave and disappear. If I hadn't announced it to the entire world that I was going to complete this marathon I wouldn't feel like such a quitter if I changed my mind and chose not to do it! =)

Several thoughts kept running through my mind, none of which were positive or self empowering. I had an internal recording of every negative thing that I have heard or thought. I kept getting stuck on something that I heard last weekend during the 5K... and it wasn't even directed towards me at all but I was having a hard time shaking it. I happened to be jogging near a man talking to his wife and he made a passing remark that I have no idea in what context he meant it, saying "Well, a real runner would complete this under 30 minutes". I have no idea what they were even talking about, I only bring this up to show you how easy it is to take something that someone else says and impose it upon ourselves. The thought kept running through me, "Who are you trying to fool?" and " You know you are not a REAL runner and never will be". It continued with thoughts such as "Do you really think that YOU can EVER run 26 miles?"

Not only was I gorging myself with self doubt but this happened to be the training day that I was by myself running. Manda, my running partner had gone with some friends on a pretty intense mountain bike trail so I was going to have to get through this on my own. At this point I knew that I was at a pivotal point and had to choose to be successful or choose to drop my dream... but it was MY choice. I remembered the mental training from last week and told myself that I was going to welcome the struggle, create positive thoughts to energize myself and keep my legs moving. My breathing was a real struggle and couldn't seem to get it stabilized but I was determined not to stop. I started remembering the quote in my favorite training book;

"Change your thoughts or actions and you can change your reality"

p 31 The Non Runner's Marathon Trainer

This is a lesson that I had learned earlier in life and knew that it was within my capability to change my own reality. It's funny that I drew strength from something that didn't even have anything at all to do with running. I was thinking about when Rick and I had made the choice to homeschool our children and the confrontation that we ran into. There was one particular lady who decided it was her job to guide us and protect us from the decision that we were making. When she realized that we were quite serious about our choice to homeschool she made the comment, "What do you think you are doing? You are just removing them from reality and they aren't going to be able to deal with it when they are older." At first, I was just shocked that she felt the need to speak so boldly and didn't know how to respond. It didn't take long for me to come to my senses and I learned a lesson that sunk in deeply and can be applied to many different aspects of my life. It was simply that I was not removing the ability of my children to deal with reality, I was changing their reality. I learned then that many times we choose to live a reality because it is comfortable- it is what we know or those around us know- but it is not the only reality available to us. Our thoughts and our actions really do determine our reality.

Having already tested this principal in my life and finding it to be a true one, I now need to apply it to my running. I may just get the world record for being the "slowest" runner but it is my feet, legs and lungs that are making it happen. I am doing it, therefore, in reality I am a "real runner". I am in the process of testing the mental application of changing my thoughts and experiencing a physical reaction. I can tell you that so far, so good. For the rest of my 4 mile run I worked at feeding myself positive thoughts such as "I am getting stronger with every step" and "I can run a marathon if I train... and that is what I am doing" and "Keep going, your breathing will stabilize". It worked. After 15 WHOLE minutes of struggling to get control my lungs finally relaxed and I was able to jog every single step of the 4 miles without stopping one single step!! When my legs started to hurt, I just smiled and did exactly what my training manual told me. I welcomed the pain and told it that I was happy to feel it. It just meant that I was getting stronger and one step closer to being ready to run my marathon. It was the best run of my entire life so far. Not that I improved on time at all, but I struggled, overcame and conquered. AND, I did it all on my own. By 8:00 am, I had changed my reality.