I Am....

One of the greatest gifts that planning for the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage has delivered to my doorstep is the way that planning for the walk has shaped the way my internal dialog proceeds. One of the reasons I started walking at all was to shrink my world down to the one meter around me in my immediate vicinity. Somehow, I thought that slowing down and moving through space at a bipedal pace would allow me to connect a little better with the moment than I’d been able to previously accomplish in my life.

I didn’t start small. The first training walk I tried for the N2N-TCP was a seventeen mile jaunt on the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail that follows the old rail line that used to run from, you guessed it, Baltimore and Annapolis, MD. Needless to say, the tracks are (mostly gone), and they’ve been replaced by a nine foot wide asphalt mixed used path that’s about eighteen or nineteen miles long.

On that first walk, one of the things I noticed right off the bat was that I had an internal dialog going on in my head. I’d never really paid that much attention to it, if I’d noticed it at all. For the first several miles of that walk, I remember asking myself and answering a series of questions. Weird, huh? I thought so at the time. Some examples of questions were, “I wonder what this is going to feel like at the end of seventeen miles?” “Is this a crazy idea?” I’m pretty out of shape...I wonder if I can even make it that far?” What am I going to do if I can’t go the distance?’ Since this is an out and back, am I going to realize early enough that I’m not going to make it and be able to turn around in time to avoid calling a cab? Probably not, and oh, shit...I didn’t bring any money. That was dumb.”

Interestingly enough, I tried to answer some of those questions, but the answers I came up with for any particular question were often mutually exclusive and, as such, pretty nonsensical. Fortunately, after about the first three miles the committee in my head quieted down, and I started to pay more attention to what was going on with my feet. When you’re on a seventeen mile walk and your feet start hurting about three miles into it, you think you might be in trouble. You’re not wrong about that.

Anyway, after a lot of reading and a lot of soul searching and talking to a lot of people much wiser than me, I’ve decided that if I’m going to be stuck with this internal dialog, and I haven’t found a reliable way to get rid of it yet, I might as well use it affirmatively to bolster the pursuit my goals.

In this regard, I’ve started to use the phrase “I am….” as a starting point when thinking about where I am going and what I’d like to accomplish. What I’ve found is that if I can say, “I am….” in pursuit of a goal, the phrase shifts my mindset in subtle ways and makes accomplishing those goals a little bit easier. Instead of questioning my own experience, or even sanity, it allows me to get beyond those moments of doubt and start taking action in pursuit of a dream.

In pursuit of the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage, I’ve managed to mostly convince myself of the following things.

I am a pilgrim.
I am a long distance walker.
I am an ultralight backpacker.
I am a photographer.
I am a writer.
I am a cartographer.

I am an explorer.
I am an expedition leader.
I am able to talk to strangers and ask them for help.
I am observant.
I am tougher than I think.
I am a yoga master.
I am creative.
I have something to share.
I am a graphic designer.
I have a vision.
I am a marketer.
I am an advertising executive.
I am a survivor.

Now, I don’t know if all of these affirmations are true. There are probably some pretty credible arguments out there that I’m not really a yoga master. That said, after six months of continuous practice, I’m a lot closer to mastery now than I was back in January of this year.

I’m not sure I would have believed I could be any of these things if it had not been for the epic framework of the pilgrimage to force me into taking on some of these challenges.

What is your internal dialog telling you? What might you accomplish if you just assume that you are the thing you want to be? Do you have a dream that you’ve ignored for some time due to fear or responsibility or because you think someone might think it’s silly?

Go after that dream. You might be surprised when you find the talents your mind and body have been hiding from you. Speak what you want to be boldly and tell the universe that “I am….” The universe will come to your aid.

Yoga

I mentioned yesterday that I’d recently started the practice of yoga.  I really don’t know why it took me so long to get started on the practice of yoga.  That questioning outlook on my apparent procrastination is particularly relevant when I start to consider the number of positive things that I’ve learned over the last six months since starting the practice.  A 2012 study indicated that somewhere between eight and twelve percent of the population practices yoga on a consistent basis. If you’re part of that lucky or far sighted minority. If you haven’t yet pulled the trigger and given yoga a try, I recommend you consider the opportunity.  

Without further ado, here are some things I’ve learned over the last six months while practicing yoga.

1. Even on a “bad” day of yoga practice, I manage to learn something or accomplish something that I didn’t really know I could accomplish.  This happened today. I don’t know what was going on, but my back was sore and my whole body was tired today when I showed up for my AllVibez yoga class.  I could go into the details, but you don’t want to hear about my whole body stiffness, epic sweating, or any of my other complaints. Suffice it to say, I was not feeling it.  This happens from time to time, and the yoga teachers will tell you just to listen to your body and deal with what shows up for you. I wanted to quit and go home about half way through the one hour class.  Unfortunately for me, I was deep into the room away from the exit, and there was no real way to extricate myself from the class without causing a ruckus. Toward the end of the class, we finally got to the bridge and wheel pose sequences.  To date, I’ve only been able to get myself into the bridge pose. I was having such a miserable time of it, that I decided that I had nothing to lose and would try to lever my upper body up into the elusive wheel pose. Much to my surprise, I was able to lift myself onto the crown of my head and from there straighten my arms and resolve into wheel for the very first time.  I like to think it looked a little like this, although I’m sure it was not as graceful.

This is not me...I'm pretty sure I looked more awkward than this person.

The moral of the story is that even though I was having a “bad” yoga session, I was able to stick with what showed up.  What showed up for me was progress.

2.  The strength and flexibility benefits of yoga are well documented, and I’m not going to waste a whole lot of your time describing them.  I will say this. I turned forty five years old last week. I thought the type of strength and flexibility that I’ve been able to see develop with a disciplined and consistent yoga practice over the last six months were a thing of the past for me.  I’m not going to say it’s the fountain of youth, but the practice has certainly started to slowly reverse the consequences of some very poor health choices that I made in my thirties. Again, I wish I’d started this twenty years ago. It’s a hell of a lot easier to keep your health than to try to get it back at a later date.

3.  This is for the guys out there.  As a caucasian male, I’ve never really had to deal with the visceral feelings of what it’s like to be a minority until I started yoga.  Those same studies referenced earlier indicate that of the Americans who practice yoga, only eighteen to twenty five percent of them are men.  I can tell you that my anecdotal evidence indicates that this is probably still about right. If you’re a male going to a yoga class, you can expect that there will be between three and six women practicing for every man practicing in the class.  The other thing you can be fairly certain about is that most of the women are going to more skilled, more flexible, better balanced, and not nearly as funny looking as you’re going to be when you first start. In other words, you’re not only going to be an obvious minority, but you’re going to be in a room where almost everyone is better at yoga than you.  They are likely to be skeptical of your motives as well. This is a humbling experience, and is one of the greatest lessons that participating in the practice has taught me. You are going to have to get over yourself to survive and keep going in this environment. Don’t believe me. Just wait until you’re rolling up from your back through your knees into tabletop and you rip a loud fart.  You’re going to want to melt into your mat and disappear. It’s at this moment you’re going to have to decide whether to get over yourself and keep going so you can learn something or take your fragile ego and hide away in a place where you’re comfortable. I chose to stay, and the benefits have far outweighed the cost.

That’s enough about yoga for now.  If you haven’t given the practice a chance, I highly recommend giving it a shot.  I’ll always view the yoga practice I stumbled upon as part of my training for the N2N-TCP as one of the great physical, intellectual, and spiritual challenges that I’ve faced along this journey.  It’s quite a bit of fun once you start developing some of your own flexibility as well.

Homecoming 2018

It’s been over a year since I posted in this space.  I had to look it up myself, and I’m a little surprised it hasn’t been longer.  Be that as it may, consider this my homecoming post. First the developments over the last year.

1. The Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage is still planned for spring and summer of 2019.  When I last left you, Rory Conlan (my pilgrimage partner) was working on healing a foot injury, and I had just taken on a new two year assignment at work.  I’m happy to report that Rory’s toe has healed nicely, and he’s recently discovered the magic of an aloe ointment that’s continuing the process. I’m a little more than halfway through the two year assignment, and I’m still looking forward to the trek across the United States.

2. Back in February of this year, I was plagued with another stress fracture on both the fourth and fifth metatarsals of my left foot.  This appears to be an ongoing condition that is healing nicely but will have to monitored on the walk.

3. Rory and I have had a couple of logos for the Newport to Newport effort made, and I’m happy to share them here now.  The first shows the Newport, RI lighthouse and two characters heading west from that location. Here it is:

The second is a little more abstract, but I’ve come to think of it as our trademark:

I really like this one.  The stones that make up the feet and the TCP of the logo represent the pebble beach at the back of the Vanderbilt mansion in Newport, RI as well as the cobble beach on Yaquina Head leading out to the lighthouse in Newport, OR.  Both of these beaches make a rattling noise when brushed by the waves and the tide.  I’ve only personally heard this “magic rocks” sound in Newport, RI, but I’m looking forward to experiencing it on both ends of our cross country journey.  It seems a little trivial writing it, but this sound speaks to my soul, and I think it’s worth making the trip to experience it for yourself.

4.   Both Rory and I have started to practice yoga.  I’m only speaking for myself, but I wish I had started this practice about twenty years ago.  I picked this up in February when the stress fractures in my foot reappeared as a way to stay active and work on my upper body strength and my overall flexibility.  Even in this short time, it’s been a journey of discovery where I’ve made both physical and spiritual improvements. I’ve been challenged in ways that I would not have imagined, and made progress on certain poses that I would not have dreamed possible.  It took a few months, but here’s a picture of me finally conquering the Crow Pose. Crow is a relatively straightforward arm balance that requires a bit of shoulder and wrist strength, but mostly some flexibility and balance.

I was pretty excited to make make this progress.  While I’m not sure how it will help with the pilgrimage, I keep telling myself that it can’t hurt.

That’s probably enough discussion of past developments for this particular homecoming post.  Suffice it to say that I’m back, and I plan on being a little more regular in my posting here as we really start to ramp up the preparations for the N2N-TCP.