Running and Eckhart Tolle

How do you like that for a title?! You may wonder: 'What has Eckhart Tolle got to do with running? Have you ever séén him?!' 

And I admit, he is not the most athletic looking type.

But I've got Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenmentlying on my nightstand, and the things he says apply very much to running.

Running is all about living in the now!

I took a page that particularly spoke to me, and applied it to running:

'When you are on a journey (running), it is certainly helpful to know where you are going (to the corner of the street and back) or at least the general direction to which your are moving, but don't forget: the only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you taking at this moment. That's all there ever is.

Your life's journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose. The outer purpose is to arrive at your goal or destination (finish my run for the day), to accomplish what you set out to do (feel all smug and satisfied that I have run!)

But if your destination, or the steps you are going to take in the future, take up so much of your attention that they become more important to you than the step you are taking now than you completely miss the journey's inner purpose, which has nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but everything to do with how.'

Practise staying in the moment during your runs

I find running a great exercise to stay in the moment. Sometimes during my run all I think about is when I can stop. At those moments I'm not in the now: I'm in the future!

Or when I have finished my run and I feel all triumphant and happy, but then I think: 'I'll have to do it again tomorrow, so what's the point?!' Again: I'm not enjoying the moment.

So I'm constantly training myself to stay 'with it', to stay in the moment. To nót think about how much further I have to go, but to enjoy the process.

To enjoy my run for the sake of the run.