Bridge to Brisbane 5 KM Run/Walk

Well folks, I DID IT! I set an intention, a very concrete goal early in May and today I saw myself fulfilling that goal. What a feeling!

Back in May after I returned from Vancouver I wanted to dig back into my personal training. My PT asked me what I would like to work towards, and other than I wanted to be healthier and a bit more trim I didn't have a goal. That's when she suggested run/walking the Bridge to Brisbane 5 or 10 KM Fun Run.

Now usually I'm not one for these 40,000 plus people extravaganza events, but something was calling to me this round. She suggested I join the Sowelu Clinic team, and be part of something bigger. So I did.

Then the training began. As I've written previously, the training has mainly been the battles in my mind to get out the door, but I concede that muscles also need to be worked on.

In this past week I trained 6 of 7 days, and even ran/walked twice over an hour in preparation for today. What I ended up finding out today is that I far surpassed the 5 km running mark in my training. Today was a breeze compared to what I had prepared my mind (and body) for. In retrospect I calculated that on Wednesday I actually ran about 7 km, not the prescribed 5.

And what did it feel like after the race? Absolutely AMAZING! When we first crossed the starting line I heard my inner voice jump up and down saying "You're doing it! You're doing it!" To be perfectly honest I took it super easy. I started running for about 5 minutes, then walked, ran again for 5, walked for maybe 2 or 3 minutes and continued this way for about the first 20 minutes when I passed the 3 km mark. I even stopped to take a pee on route because I truly wanted this to be an enjoyable experience.

Then when we pased the final 1 km marker I couldn't believe that I had only been travelling for 30 minutes! When I passed through the finish line the tears of triumph came quickly to my eyes. I did it! I couldn't stop saying to myself over and over. I did it! I did it!

It's not that I didn't believe I could finish the course, but it's been over 30 years since I last ran 5 km that it just seemed such an unrealistic and far on the horizon goal. And with the time quickly passing, having an injured achilles tendon and not being able to run for 3 weeks and then getting the flu and being set back another 2 weeks I had an incredibly hard time getting motivated again.

I think that's why the feeling of triumph is so great. Because the obstacles leading towards today were big, in my eyes, and in my mind.

Changing our minds, setting intentions and goals, stepping beyond our comfort zones, beyond what we know of ourselves and what we think we're capable of, that is the work of a spiritual warrior. Regardless of the activity, if one is able to go beyond a previous level, then growth is occuring. Growth of the spirit, growth of the person. We grow, a day at a time into becoming the person we were brought here to be. So often we get in our own way of becoming that beauty. But today the spirit triumphed!

The Inception

Just returned home from watching the latest Leonard Di Caprio movie directed by Christopher Nolan which gripped me all the way through. It was on my favorite of favorite topics: dreams and the dreaming state.

I've always, ever since I was a child had an active dream life. On a weekly basis my aunt slept with me at our house, and she would invariably tell everyone in the mornings what I had been saying or doing in my sleep. One particular night when I was about 10, just before our Baseball finals she came into the room to find me standing in a batter's position ready to take the imaginary pitch that I saw being thrown.

I have woken more than a few lovers up with my fitful thrashings and screams. So coming to understand more about my psyche and the dream state has always been a fascination of mine. Isee too it must have been for the writer of this movie.

"The Inception" explores how ideas get planted into someone's psyche, and the deeper into the subconscious one travels, the more protected the psyche is. THe movie dove into four levels of dream and helped me make sense of why there is often so much violence and chasing of the protaganists in dreams. This is just the psyche's way of protecting the dreamer. I always used to think I was subconsiously being assaulted and attacked because I had in the past very self destructive tendencies. Lo and behold, it is simply protection.

Also I learned tonight how the dreamer snaps out of the dream state, either by dying or being jerked in a fall. Both those occurences have happened way too many times to tell.

Although the flick was way too violent, and at times the sound quality wasn't very good so the dialogue was muddy I thought this was a two thumbs up evening out.

I truly believe that our dreams give us personal information directly from our spirit or soul. Information that perhaps we're too afraid in the waking life to face or have repressed for many, many years. It goes without saying, although I'm saying it, the dream life is rich in symbols, archetypes and meaning. If you ever want to know the deeper states of being of someone ask them about their latest dream.

The other night I dreampt about little bear cubs all over a white mountainside frolicking and playing. Maybe twenty or so little black bears, and I knew that where there are cubs, there has to be a very ferocious mother bear. But she was no where to be seen. I worried incredibly in the dream about the mother bear showing up unexpectedly and wanting to harm me. She never did appear! Black bears in my Buddhist symbology means protection, so I am supposing that all those little cubs were new parts of security appearing just for me.

When was the last time you had a profound or life altering dream?

Winterbreak Songwriters Retreat

It's been a week since our return from the Retreat, but it's never too late to expound about the virtues of gathering like hearts & souls for a common purpose. Such an occassion was the Winterbreak Songwriters Retreat, where 24 brave folks attended from all over Southeast Queensland. I had three different roles while being up in the Gold Coast Hinterland: a.) as Meditation instructor and Workshop leader, b.) as organizational helper to Steve Seaton (www.looseacoustic.com.au) and c.) singing student.

First on the professional front a word about the morning Meditation sits and the "Tuning into Your Muse" workshop. Each day began at 7 a.m. where a group of at least 10 participants joined in the Guided Meditations that I conducted. I taught firstly about the Optimal 7 Point Meditation Posture and then moved into Breathing Meditation. Both mornings I discussed the value of meditation, how we need to focus the mind, connect the mind and the body and learn to able to calm the mind to help us in our everday lives.

The second morning I added a second traditional meditation on Compassion called Tong Lin, or Giving and Taking. This latter meditation a number of practitioners truly enjoyed.

As for the "Tuning into Your Muse" workshop, this was meant to be a "Taster", more like a teaser workshop, for 45 minutes on the final day of the retreat. I led the participants through an Inner Child Meditation to give them the experience of where their muse might dwell, then we did a few other exercises to introduce them to perhaps previously untapped parts of themselves. Much discussion, tears and a few laughs were had as we hurriedly had to cover the sacred ground of where the Muse resides, how to connect and stay connected to it. But much was gained.

In the role as participant of the Weekend, being part of Susanna Carman's (see www.susannacarmen.com) Singing Workshop for the entire day of Saturday was one of the highlights of my creative expression life!

Systemtically she walked us through the anatomy of singing, both using the voice and the rest of our body; she had us do exercises to connect us up with our higher visions of what we'd like to express through our singing (we danced our way through this part!), and lastly she had each of us bravely sing a few lines of a favorite song in front of our peers and then gently but critically assessed our singing. It was this last exercise that I found the most challenging and yet the most liberating.

After I repeated the first few lines of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" a number of times, had my posture and nasal passages adjusted, it was when Susanna crept behind me and held me in a bearhug (from behind) and had me sing a version like this, that I broke down. With tears streaming down my face I continued singing, all the group participants knowing they had witnessed a "break through" for this closet singer, and as I said, I felt liberated in a way I've never felt before!

So going beyond our comfort zones is so very, very important, in acting our ways into new thinking. I have absolutley no aspirtations to become a singer in public, however it was a challenge I personally wanted to overcome. Again and again I repeat it is in the doing of new actions that our brain maps will be jolted into new neuro pathways and neurons firing which will create new ways of thinking in us.

We will never be able to think our way into new Thinking. Only ACT our way into new THINKING. From the new actions we gain confidence and new thoughts arise as to how we see ourselves. From how we see ourselves new thoughts arise as to how we will vision the future. And from there, dreams really do come true!

When was the last time you leaped out of your comfort zone IN PUBLIC? I'd love to know.