What's the point of focusing on the small things?
Because that's how we get to the big ones: art, escape, and problem solving.
“Every run is a work of art, ”
― Dagny Scott Barrios, Runner's World Complete Book of Women's Running
Running and Creativity
Last week’s newsletter focused on form, so this week I want to share why good form and the concentration it requires is worth the effort. Beyond fewer injuries, which is a great outcome but not super thrilling, what’s the point of focusing on all the things mentioned last week, like relaxing your jaw and swinging your arms properly? What can that focus achieve?
Focused running is the expression of and process by which I am creative.
To put it bluntly, for me, focused running is the expression of and process by which I am creative. While many people run to blow off steam or burn calories or as part of a larger fitness routine, I run as an artist. After all, running is dance: it's a physical movement that expresses…anything, including joy, including anger, including problem solving, including the enjoyment of one’s body.
Whether you consider yourself creative or not, you certainly have an imagination, and you almost definitely have problems that weigh on your mind. So this week, I'll share with you some of the ways I use running to be more creative and imaginative.
I do not "run to think".
Many people say they do, and that’s wonderful if that’s what rings your bell. Me, I run to escape. If you also love a little escape, embrace that impulse with me.
When I run, the point is to not think. To completely disconnect. If I achieve this, a little while after I run, I start getting ideas and seeing answers to the problems I'm trying to solve.
Sounds...improbable, but it's true. I run to escape, and by escaping, I am more creative.
I put my problems away in my mind before I run.
I think about the problem I'm trying to solve or the artwork I’m working on currently before I stretch to go running, and then I put it away in my mind.
That means that while I run, I focus only on my run. That includes my form, the hill or straightaway I’m on, on the traffic, my breath, anything that is actually there in front of me, with me, at the time, and not the thing or things that aren't.
It can be tough to do this, to push problems from your consciousness. So that brings me to tip number three: practically, how do I do this? There have to be as many ways to do this as there have been artists and athletes, but this is my way:
To put them away, I conjure a mental wall of drawers.
I picture my mind as a huge - huge!! wall of drawers, like an old-style card catalog. And I open a drawer, put the thought into it, and roll the drawer shut. Then, I make the wall of drawers disappear into the epic whiteness in my mind.
Yes, it's weird. But it works for me. The problems are all still there; the problems and half baked ideas and angst and everything else. But they are in their drawers, and then I go run.
Having put my problems away in my mind before I run, the next logical step is how to retrieve the problems, preferably with solutions or next steps attached, which is tip number 4:
I do nothing to retrieve my problems.
After I run, I don't intentionally think about the problem I was trying to solve or the solution I was circling on: I let it emerge from my mind at its own pace. And usually...it does! Along with a bunch of other ideas that I wasn’t even aware I was thinking about.*
Because of the run, I'm able to handle all these ideas easily and put them in order. Through this process, I usually solve multiple problems of differing degrees of difficulty with a single run. So there might be a big, huge problem at work that's really bothering me, and that's the one I put away intentionally before I started running. But then there are always other, smaller things I'm thinking about, too: how to resolve (or start!) a song I’m working on; what's the next step in the book I'm writing based on this newsletter; or even just how to put together the logistical puzzle of family life.
I don't intentionally solve or retrieve any of these issues after I run; their solutions emerge from their metaphorical drawers, and I simply put them in order once they have. The emptiness, the escape, of running lets me do this, and your runs could probably do the same.
All of this might be familiar to you, or it might not be. Let me know in the comments or via email - I would love to hear your takes. See you next week on IG and YouTube and for today remember: go run.
*I call the place those other problems are circling my “side brain”. If you’re interested in hearing more about this concept, let me know in the comments!