Woke up this morning feeling particularly unenthusiastic. I’m really tired actually and lacking motivation. It also still feels like time is just running away with me and I never really get anything done. I’m also trying to not drink coffee first thing in the morning (I’m usually a 3 large coffees as soon as I wake up person, and I was unprepared for how much of a difference it would make not having that boost, but I think I’ll probably write about that in another blog).
But I think I’m starting to realise what the problem is (apart from the lack of caffeine!). I’ve basically gone back to trying too hard and wanting to get somewhere instead of just going with the flow. The ACIM lesson for today (day 50) is “I am sustained by love” (effectively). And the idea behind it is that all of the worldly things we put all our hopes and dreams into are really not sustaining us at all in the end. They’re false and fake and not real, and only love, which underlies everything, can ever really provide the comfort and safety we desire.
I found this a really hard lesson to absorb this morning, and I think the reason is I’ve been back to the usual old practice of putting my faith in the wrong things, again. Not anything you would particularly say was bad or wrong, just running, mostly, and I guess friendship you know, and maybe physical comfort. I’ve got really obsessed with running channels on YouTube again, and I’ve been running more and enjoying it and starting to see some progress in my fitness again. And every single time I see progress, in anything, I get carried away with it and I think it’s my route to happiness.
The problem with that, is that progress and success is fickle and fleeting. Every day can’t be super-successful and exciting. With running, for example, you can’t run fast every day, you can’t race every day. There are ups and downs in life and basing your happiness on feeling those highs is a sure route to misery.
Instead, according to ACIM, I should be seeing these “successes” for what they really are. Not real. Yes, it feels good when things are going well, but things don’t always go well. That’s life. And the secret to happiness is to feel good whether things are going well or not. So as soon as something goes well for me, I feel happiness, I feel a sense of relief, but then it’s almost like when you’re a smoker and you take that first drag on a cigarette and you feel that sense of relief. It’s almost immediately followed by the craving, the sense of unease due to the absence of the drug. You feel like the only way to remove the craving is to take another drag and another and another, but really, the only way to permanently remove the craving is to simply stop taking drags in the first place. So analogously to that, the only way to stop feeling anxious about worldly success is to stop basing our happiness on those worldly successes.
Taking running as an example, I ran well yesterday morning and I felt really good. But today I have to do it all over again. Today, there is yet again the anxiety that I might not run well. That today might just feel hard, achey. My heart rate might be high, the people I’m running with might be faster than me. It could all go wrong. But none of that would mean anything if I could just understand the lesson that it is love that is the basis for my happiness and not worldly success. In other words, yes it feels awesome when you run well, but you can feel awesome no matter what, if you recognise that underlying every run, every experience, is love.
So instead of desperately trying to figure out how I can make every run amazing, how I can build a training run that guarantees success, I should just recognise that it will be what it will be. I can find something that feels good in every single moment, and then my success really will be guaranteed. Not worldly success, not PBs or feeling physically awesome on every moment of every run, but true inner success and peace, which is more comforting than anything else we’ll ever know.
And again just to put that in more mundane terms, how that might actually be experienced in our daily lives, is just feeling glad to be alive when we’re out running, recognising that we’re feeling a bit more tired than usual and taking the option of slowing down, being mindful as we run, focusing on our breathing or our cadence for a while, focusing on great conversation at the club, or being kind to someone else, or taking responsibility for a session, or even in a race just being nice to the other athletes or the marshals. In essence it’s taking the option, taking the decision, to always find a way to feel good no matter what, instead of basing your happiness on whether or not you get a PB or beat so and so, or run a particular split.
And I think the reason this can be so hard to grasp is we spend too much time looking around at what everyone else is doing and judging our own performance by that instead of by how we feel. It’s such a simple lesson, but seemingly often so difficult to actually apply in a world that seems to be built on outward success.
And it’s often something that we find easier in some parts of our lives than others. Many people for example may have absolutely no interest in running competitively or faster and so you might think they’re really zen about life in general, but on the other hand, when it comes to their houses or having amazing holidays, they might feel like things have to be a certain way in order of them to be happy, and they might always be trying to get more and make things better in that arena.
I think I go through phases of focusing on one thing and then another. Running is nearly always an important theme for me, but from time to time I may lose interest in it if I’m struggling physically and decide to take a break. Then, inevitably, something else will take its place, such as writing or doing up my house, or being more sociable, or having more adventure. I’ll obsess about that, and make my happiness contingent on success in that area instead.
Really, it’s all the same thing. I’m trying to find meaning in things that will never really give my life meaning. I feel like that sounds really negative, and this morning when I was first trying to absorb this lesson, that’s how I felt. Does this mean there’s no point in doing anything then? Because nothing worldly means ANYTHING? But no, I don’t think that is what it means. As I’ve said above, I think what it means is, yes, absolutely, find joy in this world because there is so much joy to be found in it, but also recognise that your joy ultimately comes from within. You find joy in a puppy because that joy is within you. You find joy in a long run because you have that peace and ease inside you. You find love and connection with others because those things are what your soul longs for. The beauty you see around you is only perceptible because of the love inside you. If you believe that you can only be happy when you have X, Y and Z then that is what will happen. But if you can understand that happiness is yours regardless of what you have, then all of the sadness and fear and regret and guilt becomes nothing, an illusion.
So, I think I get it. Right now in this moment I think I get it. But I’ve thought that before and I think this is just one of those lessons that you have to just keep working at it and reminding yourself and learning repeatedly.