May 9th - Every Day in May

Already May 9th? Where is the month going! It’s amazing what happens when I get deliberate with my intentions. Suddenly I start seeing things all around me that I didn’t see before, like good meditation spots, or new trails to run, or topics I want to study. All because I am looking up and around.

Health is Physical:

Today was adventure day! Spring has sprung and my friend Amy and I explored some of the common trails outside SLO all morning, about 13.5 miles worth with 2,600ft of climbing. My body is tired after 11 days straight of running, something I don’t think I’ve ever done. I might need to find a different physical task tomorrow, or maybe I can try running for one more day, I’ll see how I feel in the morning. It was super hot out today and I treated myself to a giant cup of Horchata with snow ice at my favorite taco joint after the run. I started thinking about that horchata at mile 4 today. Haha.

Amy and I were talking about adventuring today and something I realized is that I’m not super into solo adventuring. I much prefer to adventure with others, to share experiences and build connection. I love hearing others stories along with the things that come up for them while adventuring. I like being a part of the introspection that comes with being in nature with people. One of my favorite adventures ever was running around Mount Blanc last year with my friend Mo. Shared emotional experiences are my jam!

Health is Mental/Emotional:

I started listening to The Beautiful Cure, my Daniel Davis today during my evening walk and I walked so slow while listening as my brain had to work double time to take in the information. I usually listen to books at like 1.3-1.5 speed but I had to slow this baby way down to understand. Davis starts out with a history of the science behind the immune system and how we even figured out that we had an immune system. Nobel Prizes were given, feuds were born, scientists fought with each other over credit, it was crazy y’all. I like that the author has really taken the effort to separate the immune system from immunology. Most the research since the late 1700s was on finding vaccines for infections like small pox and it wasn’t until much later that the work on understanding the immune system developed. In fact the last 30 years have been a boom in this area of science, especially since we started to understand gene sequencing and my alma mater University of California San Diego has been knee deep in this immune system research.

It’s much more complex than just having cells that recognize foreign bodies. Some foreign bodies are fine, some are not. Our cells really have to be able to differentiate and the immune system is that ability to do so. To recognize a foreign body and know whether to fight it or not is extremely complex inside the human body, as I’m coming to find out. I haven’t learned anything that I can take action on yet, I’m still in the weeds on the topic, but I’ll let you know when I do. Thank goodness I am getting plenty of sleep to make sense of the science.

Health is Spiritual:

Still feeling the deep need to meditate daily right now. I haven’t been this regular of a meditator since 2014 when I was trying to win Kona and I was using it to train my brain to refocus thought. These days, seeking meditation is coming from a completely different place, to get back grounded so my emotional self can calm down. I have been a little irritable the last few days, something that always happens to me close to any holiday. I can feel my triggers start to bubble to the surface and I get upset easily. I find myself starting down a path of frustration and sadness, and my system screams to sit in quiet for a little bit. I try to listen, and acquiesce to the request.

I’ve also been keeping a daily journal on the dichotomy of control, per my handbook for new stoics book. Once a day I think of a situation that happened and I sit down and write on the left what I could control in the situation, and on the right, what I can’t control. I’m doing this every day for a week. It’s a great exercise, but important to not pick anything too hard when you are starting. Yesterday I accidentally deleted my day 7 blog post and you can see an example of me walking through the exercise below.

I love this quote in the book:

If you bet your peace of mind on things not completely in your control, you’re willingly forfeiting part of your happiness to random chance.

Insights

I’m starting to have a better connection with my inner self through this experience. It’s easier to know what I need to stay on solid ground, to keep thriving. I am better at predicting and responding and I think it’s one of those things that you get growth where you put your attention. The seeds that sprout are the ones that you water. It can be really easy to ignore things you don’t “think you can grow” because you are scared (to keep the metaphor going), but this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, your plants will not grow if you hide from them.

Until tomorrow… in good health.