We are what we think and speak…
This week was cruising along nicely. Training has been going super good and everything was positive. Until Tuesday. About 19k into my two and a half hours my knee started hurting pretty bad. It has been a little touch and go for the last couple weeks but nothing enough to stop me running. The following morning though, busted. Ran 1.6k then walked home. Crying. Not good. This morning I managed 2.5k before it got bad, ran about another kilometre then walked. An improvement on yesterday. I have physio today so here’s hoping there is more improvement again.
This isn’t ideal, however Coach Luca talked me down. I am way ahead of where I need to be, training has been super solid and with over three months till the X-Country run, there is PLENTY of time. This doesn’t help my ‘world is crumbling because I am broken’ mindset to injury though. When things don’t go to plan and my body doesn’t agree I tend to fall in a heap. That happened yesterday. This morning though, something, well three things happened.
Firstly, my mate Grant sent me a reel (he sends me about a zillion a day bless him). It was of a guy who was sitting at a table with one hand on the table and the other on the table beside him but it was separated by a timber barrier. The scientist then put a life like hand/arm down next to his other where naturally his hand would be and covered his real arm/hand with a towel so he couldn’t see it. They ran a number of tests to condition his mind to the fact that the fake hand was his real hand. Light stroking with a ruler of the fingers (where his real hand responded to the corresponding fingers stroked on the fake hand!) and then escalated things over a period of time, ending with the scientist hitting the fake hand with a hammer and the subject responding in pain as if it was his real hand! Incredible. Even though he knew it was a fake hand, his mind believed it was real as it is what he saw and was conditioned to over a short period of time.
I then read not one but two daily devotions about our thoughts and words becoming what we think and say we are. The stand out section said ‘You are snared up by the words of your mouth. That includes your self talk…wipe our words of hopelessness, doubt and negativity from your vocabulary. They may seem harmless, but they affect your body and soul…speak words that reflect the wholeness you desire.’ Wow! Incredible again.
Lastly, my mindset deliberately shifted on my run this morning. I was able to go a little further than yesterday, I was able to get outside and breathe fresh air and run! I am fortunate to be able to go to a medical professional today, ice my leg, have lotions to put on it and focus on something as trivial as running. Something a lot of the world doesn’t even think about as a recreation or one has to do out of necessity. I am blessed.
When things go wrong, it is so easy to focus on the negative and for me to forget everything I have built my life upon. Positivity, happy and goal focused speech, a mindset unbreakable to my external environment. All good, life affirming things. Yet, injury seems to be the one thing that crushes my world. It rocks me, for a little and then I seem to be able to re-focus and get on with the task of doing what I can, getting back to my level of normal and switching my brain and thought patterns around where they should be.
Life is full of struggle and negative things. However, I truly believe the mind, what we tell ourselves a thousand times a day, and what we speak into the world have the power to shift our lives to what we desire deep down. Simple things like changing a maybe, possibly, one day, if, to a when I, I can, today I am doing xyz toward my goal, I will….may seem trivial but I promise you, will completely turn your life around.
We have incredible power in our minds and tongue. Today, focus on making one little shift toward what you want to be thinking or saying. Your goals and dreams may depend on it. Consistency + Commitment.
