How to Keep Going

Starting or coming back eventually gives way to just keeping up

Like many of us, my life can seem very chaotic and disconnected. Running helps create continuity.

Working from the Inside Out

Having focused on the process of starting with running or coming back to it in the past few weeks, let’s focus forward. One of the lesser-discussed parts of keeping up with running or any habit that can seem challenging is simply encouraging yourself. No runner has never felt pain, and almost no runner loves it. Those “runner’s highs” people talk about on the internet? They exist, but they’re not a drip feed of anesthesia or anything: they don’t block out all the pain and they come and go as conditions in the body change. Sometimes even people who experience them most often can’t conjure them for long stretches of time. 

To get through tough runs or even though periods of running, I’ve developed a few sayings (aka mantras or affirmations) that I repeat to myself when I need to find my strength. This is actually part 2 of this concept, and if you missed part 1 you can always see it on my Substack page. 

Sayings & Stoicism; Marcus Aurelius & My Mother: the Tie-In

To find the connection between running, stoicism, and mantras, follow me down a short sidetrack to meet: my mother. To put it briefly, mother is not woo-woo; she is hard as nails and might actually be a force of nature. Part of this force is her ability to simply eliminate doubt, to push it out of her mind in order to get through what she has to get through. To do this, she repeats mantras to herself. She makes them up to apply to whatever situation she’s in and just repeats them over and over again to herself. 

She passed this practice on to me as well. When I was little and having nightmares every night, she had me sit on her lap before bed and repeat:

I will NOT have bad dreams.
I will NOT have bad dreams.
I will NOT have bad dreams.
I will NOT have bad dreams.
What will I not have? Bad dreams.

*Note the lack of exclamation marks; mantras don’t work if you just shout at yourself; it’s more of a resolute tone than an angry one. The process worked! No more bad dreams. 

As an elite athlete, she used this same method to help me focus before races. The mantras we came up with concentrated on how strong I was and how solid my training had been and helped to push out any doubts regarding whether or not I would perform at my highest level. 

At a daily level, mantras can help focus your mind on why you run and why you’re worth the time and effort, which is especially helpful when you’re caught up in the daily grind or struggling for motivation. 

These mantras’ link to stoic practice through the most famous of stoic works, Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Written in 167 CE, this work is a collection of short descriptions that the Emperor wrote to help him remember how to live a balanced life, why he should strive to do what’s right, and to whom he owed his ability to understand right from wrong. Similarly, these affirmations remind us why we run and why we strive to do so. It might seem far-fetched that making and revisiting a simple list could help us live a virtuous life or continue a long-standing practice like running, but I encourage you to try it. Let me know how it works for you in the comments or via email. 

Repeat Repeat Repeat

I’m sharing some of the mantras I’ve developed over the years, and I’ll share this coming week on YouTube and IG as well. To use them, repeat them to yourself whenever you need to, and don’t be too shy to say them outloud. Usually, no one will notice you and if they do, they’ll just assume you’re talking on the phone. This sort of mindset work is crucial to maintaining a long term running practice.

Running makes me happy.

Yeah, it's so simple and obvious. And yet, no one would say happiness is simple or obvious. Most people spend their entire lives trying to find something that makes them happy. So if running makes you happy, even some of the times you go, that's valuable and so worth the time and effort you put in. 

Movement feels good.

There's so much joy in movement. For me, running is part of my artistic practice, just as dance is. When I feel my body move, when I choreograph a run, I am in conversation with every other runner and dancer and every other version of me that’s come before. It's a constantly evolving, growing practice. So, I run to feel my body, to feel alive, to expand my practice.

Good habits make for good habits.

That's right! The more you practice your good habits, the more they become the virtuous cycles you want. Just like bad habits can drag you down, good habits can float you up. And that's what running does for me: it's a good habit that supports me in parts of my life that are not running. That's not to say I'm always perfect or that every run is lighter-than-air, but there is a momentum to good habits that you can harness, if you make them sustainable in your life.

I’ll feel better when it’s over.

LOL! But true. I can go out for a run feeling as wrung as a wet rag, but when I come back, weirdly, I'm refreshed. I literally have more physical and emotional energy. I can engage with my partner, my children, my coworkers, and with myself more patiently and more creatively. I can chill out for the night or take on my day, depending on when I hit the streets that day. I'm not a scientist, so I don't know why running offers this depth of refreshment, but it's incredibly powerful. 

These are a few of my sayings/mantras/affirmations; I hope you take them into your own practice and try them out. Create your own, and, if you’d like to, please share them back with me. I would love to hear why you run. 

See you all next week on social and this newsletter and for today, remember: go run.