Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
August 4 - August 22, 2020
physical strength and stamina of your body is an expression of the mental strength and stamina of your mind.
When you use the past as a tool, you become humble, and when you live there, you become depressed. When you use the future as a tool, you become motivated, but when you live there, you become anxious. Get the point?
As you run, and thoughts arise, follow this three-step mindful running process: 1.Acknowledge the THOUGHT. 2.Don’t judge the THOUGHT. 3.Let go of the THOUGHT.
ultra runners don’t just know how to face the pain; they expect it, and they use the adversity to better themselves.
Acknowledge the SENSATION. 2.Don’t judge the SENSATION. 3.Let go of the SENSATION.
Ultra running creates an intense struggle to find a deeper meaning of self. It’s similar to the many ancient stories of a person leaving home, going through an enormous struggle, and returning with a deeper understanding of life, and most importantly, a deeper understanding of who they are. The characters in these stories eventually realize what they have been searching for has been inside them all along.
motivation is brief, inspiration is forever.
Carl Jung, a famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, explains it brilliantly by stating, “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.”
Isolation can be a wonderful thing. With the time spent alone through the struggle, discomfort, and pain, you learn more about yourself than anyone could ever tell you, and you can learn more about life through a 100-mile race than any book could ever teach you.
As you run the path to self-discovery and monitor it mindfully, you’ll notice there are three stages: run to prove to others, run to prove to yourself, and finally, run to find yourself
“if you are not in the state of either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm, look closely and you will find you are creating suffering for yourself and others.”
For example, during a 100-mile ultramarathon, you start the race with enthusiasm. Eventually, you fall into enjoyment, and at your lowest, you accept your circumstances until you find your way out. Anything less than acceptance and you’re in the danger zone.
The point is this: enthusiasm is powerful when running an ultramarathon. Think for a minute, have you ever considered where the word enthusiasm comes from? Enthusiasm comes from the Greek word enthousiasmos, meaning “Inspiration or possession by God.”
don’t focus on the end goal of crossing the finish line, focus on the act of running. Try your best to stay in the present moment. Here’s why: when you want to cross the finish line more than you want to be running, you become stressed. This extra resistance magnifies over the mileage. So make running in the present moment your main focus, not the finish line, and watch the life enter back into your stride.
