To Offer Myself...
I realised today that I have been writing a blog for eleven years…
It all started after I had been on my last sabbatical in Spain… I had written the draft of my book ‘Running to learn’ - all in long hand; notebooks and notebooks full… Then I handed them over to be typed up!
My writing to be deciphered….
My first website was built for me on my return from Spain, by my friend Boz…
We had met in Ireland in 2000 when I was giving myself a ‘special gift’ for my birthday of a week of treatments with Gerard Hartman… Gerard is a physical therapist, who over the past twenty two years, has developed a reputation for treating many of the world's elite sport stars.
I was sitting at the departure gate at Gatwick airport flying to Limerick... Looking around me, I saw a person sitting there who I felt a connection with; I say sitting there; he was sort of lounging, and sleeping… Or pretending to be sleeping; because when we actually met and made friends; he said he had noticed me too, and thought the same thing,…
At Limerick airport we discovered we were on the same mission – to have the same intense, and quite challenging, week of deep tissue release with Gerard…!.
We have been friends ever since…
At the time Boz – Anthony Borsumato - was an Olympian, a top level 400m hurdler; he was also creating his web design business - '13 Strides' - and he designed my first site…
I decided a weekly blog would be a way to make certain I continued to write regularly after my time in Spain - and I was right…!
Over the years I have more or less written weekly; on my different sites and under different names!
For a few years I wrote every day like I am now; until my work exceeded the time for writing... I am enjoying being back to the daily blank page –
One Hundred and thirteen days have passed by since I re committed to the daily practice….
I have learnt over the years, that I respond to daily disciplines and practices; I respond to turning up… to making a commitment to myself to share and offer whatever it is I have to share and offer...
To offer Myself…!
Whether that be in the written or spoken word; through the running step, or through conversation and dialogue in a therapeutic setting… I have discovered that by seeking to clear our ‘stuff’, our neuroses, our tensions from within; we find ourselves in a far greater position to share ourselves authentially with one another…
When we are conscious, and living from our own center, it moves us away from being self-centered, and worried what others will think; we are more willing to give of ourselves from this place…
I find this practice helpful even in running training sessions... If I run from a position of ‘offering my acts to the divine’, then every step is a celebration - there is no question of measuring up, or falling short - each step can be a meditation from the center of our being... Running from our hara creates harmony and stillness within.
Today we ran the mile to warm up to our ‘Pigeon Island’ road, and then we ran 10 x 400 metres with a jog of 400metres in between. We covered five miles this way... I am not running intervals as such at the moment, the 400’s were around seven minute mile pace, and the jogs in between each one, were very slow and joggy!
I am enjoying concentrating on my form as I stretch out a bit, and feel the flow;
I am liking ‘offering my acts to the divine’, rather than creating tension with an attachment to an outcome of any sort.
I am liking the practice of turning up at the blank running page each day.
I am enjoying the feeling of running regularly again, after months sidelined by my achilles injury.
I am glad I am building my form slowly slowly...
I am curious as to which direction my running steps are taking me…