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Posted - 01/17/2006 : 15:33:59
Hello Everyone;
In past months we have discussed Emotional Awareness and Experiencing or Feeling our Emotions. This month we will discuss the Personality Dynamics involved in Why And How We Fight (Resist) to Feel our Emotions. Words of Wisdom by Myss, Zukov and Chopra and a Emotional Exercise for Healing. New-Training and Racing Journal Logs...I need your help to keep this part going.
Our ego personality initiates our relationship with our emotions. This relationship can be supporting--helping us experience our feelings and it can be the Resistance to feeling. What really is our ego.? I define it as our Unique personality _Expression. Not good, bad, right or wrong. It is simply our identity of who we are. It is not the enemy and it is Not who we truly are, however, it is responsible for creating the separateness that we feel in relationships. Especially the relationship with our feelings.
"Abandoning the illusion that the ego is who you are and giving up the belief that your ego controls of your life is actually the biggest step you can make to fulfill your goals." Chopra
Whenever you are experiencing Tension/Stress/Anxiety in your life your Ego Personality is intimately involved. It is initiating all or at the very least most of the stress and tension in your life with it's unique thoughts, feelings and actions. Our challenges begin when we become identified or more appropriately overly identified with our ego personality and we allow it to create separation, isolation and resistance to our feelings.
"Your personality includes your emotions. Emotions are currents of energy that run through you, informing you when you are learning wisdom through fear and doubt, and when you are learning it through love and trust. When you learn in fear and doubt, you become angry, jealous, resentful, vengeful, judgmental, critical, and in other ways attempt to control. When you learn through love and trust, you are appreciative, content, engaged in the present moment, relaxed and fulfilled." Zukov.
What we want to explore is how exactly our personality is involved with tension induced pain disorders? To begin, make a list of your unique personality expressions. I'll list the common suspects but spend some time to add to your own list.
Overly-Competitive- Ego loves to divide us up into winners and losers. The pursuit of striving to win is one of the ego's ways of avoiding feelings. Consider the thought, "I need to win" Wow, have you ever considered the inner tension you produce within your self when you Need to win. Now ask yourself, Why do I need to win? Does it make me feel superior, more impressive to someone, more powerful? What am I afraid of losing? What life situations bring out this competitive aspect? A line at the grocery store? Driving in traffic? The need to be right in a discussion? What are your inner thoughts during these situations? Where is your energy? Is it present with you?
Self Conscious-Are you very concerned of how your think you are being perceived by others? Does this affect what you do for a living? Does it reflect where you live, what you buy, how you act? If you are overly concerned with what others think, are you “present and aware” or are you in the past or future? Who is guiding your life choices?-you or your self-conscious perceptions of what others think? Are you aware of the tension you create within yourself when you allow this ego generated Fear to make your choices? Does this type of interaction with yourself and others make you empowered or dis-empowered?
Perfectionism-Is really a personality aspect of your ego that allows you to resist what is and instead use your energy to constantly judge yourself, others and circumstances as being not perfect. Perfectionism is an ideal strategy of the ego to let you avoid your emotions. This is a vehicle that allows you to constantly control or arrange external situations in your life rather than taking the opportunity to go internal. When you are striving for perfection-What are you avoiding? If you take away perfection what emotion is there to be experienced? What life situations/experiences need to be perfect in your life? Explore this and discover why you believe this is necessary? Is perfectionism in the present moment or in the future for you? Does perfectionism allow you to Avoid the present moment?
Now select an aspect of your personality that is being motivated by Fear that you would like to challenge in order to change. This fear may be disguised as anger, sadness, judging, complaining or striving. The next time you become aware of yourself exhibiting your characteristics of (perfectionism, self-conscious, competitiveness, ect.) become aware of what you are feeling in your body and ask yourself a question in order to become present with your thoughts-What am I feeling now? Or What is motivating me to act this way? Now stay with this feeling no matter how uncomfortable it is--Use your conscious breath. Decide If you want to follow your old conditioned response or if you want to make a new Choice that is more open and allowing of the present moment and experiencing your feelings.
"Reflect on matters of pride and ego. Where you are losing power because of “false pride”, recognize that is poison to your spirit and thus to your healing." Myss.
As you Read through the newsletter, I encourage you to actually practice these exercises. Remember, healing is not a passive practice, healing is taking action with present moment consciousness. And as Myss would say; change is healing and healing occurs much quicker in the present moment.
Training and Racing with tension induced pain.
I have recieved received quiries to discuss how I and others train while experiencing this disorder. Following is a week out of my current marathon training, (Renato Canova's Fundamental Phase) with notes from my running journal and some of the mental and phyical physical use before, during and after training runs. Canova describes this phase as the "crucial" period in preparation. Maintaining maximum workload and begins to work on power endurance.
Notes from my journal 6 weeks ago as I began this 8 week phase. 1.Train in periodization program-stay focused. 2. Body & Mind 3. See it, feel it, know it. every moment 4. leave the ego - no expectations -non striving, no impressing, no have too's. 5. PR at Shoreline, PR at LA.
Week of 01/01/06 week 6 of 8 in FundalmeFundamentalMP = Marathon Pace Sun: a.m.--2:10 total time; 30 minute progressive warm up, 4 x 2 mi. on roads @ 103-105% mp, 3 x 1000 @ 110% mp on track. 30 min. warm dn.-p.m. 20 min. jog...
Mon. a.m. 30 min. easy, p.m. 30 minutes easy and 40 min. power yoga work. lots of foam rolling on legs. core strength workout.
Tues. a.m. 1:30 progressive run from 140 HR increasing to 163 for final 20-25 minutes. focus is on running relaxed p.m.-power yoga. foam rolling
Wed. a.m. 1:50 after warm up, 1 x 4 mi. @ 103% MP on roads, 5 x 1000 @105% MP-track, p.m. 20 min. easy.
Thurs. a.m. 35 min. easy, p.m. 30 min. easy, 40 min. of power yoga, foam rolling-
Fri: a.m. 1:20 progressive up hill run 7 mi. up @ 163 HR, p.m. power yoga, core strength wkout
Sat. same as tuesday, 1:30 progressive, p.m. power yoga, foam rolling,
Two and hopefully three days a week I do some type of guided imagery/peak performance visulizavisualizatione. I also ice ankle and calves 3-4 days a week. Mon. & Thurs. are free thinking regeneration days. The other 5 training days are reserved for focused training leaving out as much life situation drama as possible during the training runs. This drama/tension finds a way to get stuck in our bodies when we dwell on it anytime, but especially when training. In this type of training if I receive some type of pain sensation (foot, sciatica, hip, back, or butt) and I am focused on running and not in some life situation---I ignore it. I may have a brief discussion with it--"i don't need you now" and then back to the run. Now if I am in some life situation drama/tension during a run and I receive the sensation--I acknowledge the dynamic going on between my thoughts and pain, I thank the pain for reminding me to "get present" and "get out of worry-frustration-ect.", and then move on...It is remarkable how effective this acknowleacknowledgment"truth" going on can resolve the situation.
I have received some amazing performance PR emails from many of you and I would like to share these in future newsletters. Please email me your story and include your tension challenges during the race or training and how you overcame. Please send me your story.
Best Regards In Running and Recovery;
Monte Hueftle
monte@runningpain.com |
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