One of the things I love about running is the wisdom and insight I get on my runs. I used to listen to music while running the now I use it as a form of meditation. I run barefoot which helps me tune into my body, connect to myself and to nature.
I recently ran a familiar route backwards. What struck was how some long stretches of road that I thought were flat were actually slightly downhill because running it the other way I could definitely tell they were uphill for me now! It’s funny how I didn’t notice it was slightly downhill when running down the hill but boy did I notice when I was running up the opposite way and feeling the constant incline.
This struck me because I think it can be a metaphor for life. We can be very aware of our hills, the struggles and the challenges but I think we can all too easily be unaware of the beauty and the blessings in the everydayness of life.
When we look at the world we don’t see it as it is. It’s not like looking through an SLR camera where you are looking through the lens and seeing exactly what the lens sees. The way our mind works it is more like looking at a camera with a digital viewfinder. A digital viewfinder is a tiny screen in the eyepiece and you’re looking at digital representation of what the camera lens is looking at, not through the lens itself.
We take in information through our senses and our brain constructs a model of the world in our own minds. We are not experiencing what’s out there we are experiencing our representation of it, which is constructed by our thinking. Our thoughts are the building blocks of this representation, the pixels that make up the image on the screen.
There is a phrase ‘what thinker thinks, the prover proves’, it is known as Orr’s Law. We have a think a part of us and approve a part of us. The prover looks for all the evidence to back up the thinking. Because we look at the world through our thinking it sees all the evidence that tells us it is true and ignores or twists anything to the contrary.
So our thinking really convinces us what we are experiencing is ‘reality’, but it actually we have made up as reality.
I’m not saying your fertility struggles are created by your thinking and that it is not real, but your experience of your journey is created by your thinking, the stories about the future you tell yourself in the moment that you believe are true.
Follow this simple exercise to begin to notice the blessings and gifts in your every day (the downhill bits on your journey) and you may begin to notice the difference it makes to your wellbeing and happiness.
Every day, at the end of each day, write down 3 things you were grateful for in that day. It could be something as simple as a smile or seeing something in nature. Write them down in a notebook you can use for each day. Do this for 14 days. You mind starts noticing things more and recognising it could be one of your 3 things for that night. Then your mind starts looking for them. You automatically begin to notice more and more things you are grateful for in your day, in the now.
Enjoy the experiment!
With love
