A Rim 2 Rim Success

On the last Tuesday in September, I (along with my husband and West Point roommate) hiked the Grand Canyon from Rim-to-Rim. Twenty-four miles, 6,000 feet down to the Colorado River, 4,500 feet back up between sunrise and sunset. My husband and I chose this hike when a busy work schedule caused us to postpone to next summer a planned three-week trek across England. Having adjusted our hiking goal for this year, we developed a training plan specific to the single-day event and “prepared to execute.”  My West Point roommate, a superb athlete -- but new to long distance hiking -- took this on as a new challenge.  Watching her prepare and complete the hike was inspirational.  

Are you in a rut? Have you become so comfortable with what you do that you’ve become uninspired or unwilling to risk something new?  Her story just may inspire you.

Ask yourself: When is the last time you did something for the first time? 
 
Fear of trying causes paralysis. Trying causes only trembling and sweating. 
~Matt Cooley.  

Former world champion gymnast, coach and college professor, Dan Millman, goes so far as to encourage athletes, students and client to dispose even of the concept of “trying.” He argues that trying sets one up for the concurrent anxiety of being unable “to do.” (Perhaps why trying causes “trembling and sweating.”)  

The notion of trying versus doing played out in the Grand Canyon stream crossings. The streams, cold (though never deep or threatening), always presented with paths of stones for crossing. Fear would have kept us on one side. Trembling and sweating could have resulted in a dunking. Years of hiking experience (and my own limited experience with gymnastics and the balance beam) taught me to dispense with thoughts of trying to cross the stream – rather to just walk (a la Nike “Just Do It!”). The surest way to cross a stream across the stepping-stones is to move forward with an unbroken stride and go (it’s what we’d do in the absence of water). No paralysis. No sweating and trembling. Just go.  

Learn to fail or fail to learn. ~Tal Ben-Shahar 

How do babies learn? They fail early and fail often. Sound crazy? Ever known of a baby who mastered walking with the first step? Think about it.  

She believed she could, so she did. ~Unknown  

This aphorism I spied on the forearm of a favorite waitress in Santa Fe. It screams: Step up! Believe in yourself! Succeed! 

It reminds me of the story of the Little Engine that Could.

“I think I can. I think I can.” The little engine puffed up the hill helping the larger, broken-down train of toys reach the children on the other side. Although larger and apparently stronger trains declined, the tiny engine believed, and so she did. 

At least once in the 4,500 foot ascent out of the canyon, I heard my roommate, (trained and ready) say quietly, “She believed she could, so she did.” 

No could, would or should here. Twenty weeks earlier, she “signed up” for the challenge. Unlike her hiking companions, she had no long-distance hiking or marathon experience from which to draw. How did she do it? She checked in on her desire and commitment, developed her training plan, created accountability by sharing her goal with friends and neighbors curious to see her walking long distances with a heavy pack, trained/practiced (religiously and strenuously) and set out to succeed – with a nod to the National Park Service sign in the Canyon (see attached), “Down is optional. Up is mandatory!”

So this weekend, I encourage you to try somehow new, release any fear (perhaps of failure), learn something about you, move confidently across the stepping-stones, make a plan and traverse your canyon from Rim-to-Rim. And finally, know that as you crest the rim, you'll be adding to your pack a healthy (and weightless) dose of self-efficacy - indispensable for the next challenge. 

I know you can.

Ode to a Snake

It’s a common experience: being unable to locate an item that is hiding in plain sight.  In fact, there’s an old adage that aptly characterizes the occurrence: “If it had been a snake it would have bit me.”

My legendarily forgetful Granny Garrett, who lived her whole life in South Georgia, often applied the old saw of the snake.  And it was her voice that brought the words flying back to me recently, as I contemplated mindfulness on a training walk – only to find that mindfulness itself was hiding in plain sight and I wasn’t seeing it at all.

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In preparing for a one-day rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon this fall, I’ve taken to walking (multiple iterations, with a tad of running) the 650 feet up and down the path to The Cross of the Martyrs in Santa Fe.  Recently, I started this workout within an hour of reading a chapter from Sharon Salzberg’s book on meditation, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation.  Having taken to reading Salzberg’s book as a way to reconnect with my own meditation practice, I was full of the notion of making my workout mindful by being fully present in the experience. 

Traipsing up and down my training route, I was (mindfully, I thought) noticing sensations: the comfort of my new trail shoes, the burn in my gluts, my increased respiratory rate.  I was (again, I thought) fully present to the sensations and scenery of the trail.  What a meditation maven I was!

And that’s when it happened.  A rattlesnake busy making its way down a stonewall bordering the path startled me from my thoughts and brought me to full presence.   Before I saw the snake, I heard the rattle.  Looking to my right (roughly at shoulder level), I was close enough to note the triangular head and elliptical pupil of my impromptu mindfulness instructor.

Said snake had done its job.  I was present -- fully, mindfully aware.  Nothing could have been more enlightening in the practice of mindfulness than this mindless encounter.  It was a snake.  It didn’t bite me.   You get the picture, I’m sure.

For those of you – like me – who at times struggle with meditation and the practice of mindfulness (and it is such a human experience – the struggle), the “If it were a snake . . . “ moment may be quite familiar.  It’s less what we don’t see, than what simply doesn’t register.  The present experience is unable to get a figurative word in edgewise through the busy chatter in our minds.

What mindfulness really does for us is allow us to experience our thoughts without succumbing to the chatter.  Whether we’re sitting crossed legged in a meditation room, training our physical bodies with the intent of moving meditation or trying to remember the name of the guy at the grocery store, distracting (obscuring) thoughts come up for all of us. 

Salzberg says that what we hope to learn from meditation is, “the difference between thinking and being lost in our thoughts.”  That is, the difference of being present on the path and surrendering to all the distracting thoughts along the way. 

Occasionally I get a coaching client who thinks meditation is about suspending one’s thoughts (as if one could).  The trick is not to cease thoughts – rather to acknowledge one’s distracting thoughts, and then let them go.  In this way, mindfulness trains our attention.  It’s a reason meditation is being used more and more as a tool of performance enhancement for athletes.  One of basketball’s greatest coaches, Phil Jackson, is known for using meditation training with his players with the result of improving focus and teamwork (11 NBA titles can’t be wrong).

So when along my path, the snake was there, suddenly within striking distance and politely warning me of my impending trespass, I did not stop thinking – rather I let go of all thoughts not of the snake.  That focused thinking (snakes have a way of creating focus) allowed me quickly, though surprisingly calmly, to move away from the wall.  For the rest of the walk, when there arose distracting thoughts that threatened to blind me to my surroundings, the venerable snake reminded me to acknowledge them, and let them go.

There’s a lot one can learn from a snake . . . no bite required.

The Down and Up of It

They say hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim is an inversion of the normal path of hikers -- going first down then up.  For me this upended idea brims with the notion of building resilience.  It is recognizing the challenge, meeting the struggle head on, and slogging one's way to the other side that opens the gift of self-efficacy.  I did this!  Indeed, if I don't explore the depths of the canyon floor, I will be deprived of the buoyant heights of realizing the Southern Rim (my goal).  The down and up fortify my body and my spirit -- for the next challenge and the one after that.  Those challenges, for me, make up a life well lived and well loved.  It is with this self awareness that I meditate on the coming long day in September.  

Update: Training week eight: started the week on the versa climber at 4,000 vertical feet (yesterday).  This backs up to some amazing hikes in the last several weeks -- the best of which were experienced on the trails just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  The week's training calendar calls for about four hours of cross training and 80+ minutes of running (add to that two days of Bikram . . .) all with intervals (except the yoga, of course).

Motivation: 

• The training: the more I train, the more I want to train.  
• New shoes: switching to La Sportiva Busheidos after the Salomon Speedcross tongue kept drifting and irritating my foot.  
• The team: best pal Chip (Deb) is joining us for the hike!!

In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life. ~Albert Bandura

The Next Endurance Challenge -- Setting Accountability

For the next 15 weeks, this blog will follow my training and preparation to traverse the Grand Canyon from Rim to Rim (R2R) in one day.  This is not a venture to be taken lightly, or to be undertaken without training and experience in both outdoor adventure and endurance sports.  As a veteran of both -- and a happy slave to a training plan -- I'll chronicle my mental and physical preparation in hopes of exciting, inspiring and informing this community of people dedicated to "doing stuff."

So, why this first post?  Why to create accountability, of course.  In my years of expanding my self awareness, I've come to understand that "putting it out there" is, for me, an important start point to realizing a goal.

The plan I've adopted to train physically for the R2R is a sixteen-week marathon training plan that incorporates a strong cross-training component to help avoid injury and to allow me to concentrate on developing the downhill ruggedness and uphill strength I'll need.

I plan to continue my Bikram yoga practice, at a rate of two times a week as well (at least in part because I think the heat conditioning may be of value).

Today's R2R training is 45 minutes on my favorite cardio machine, the versa-climber.  I'll be aiming for a 4,000 vertical foot workout today (zone 3).

Already I look forward to the soothing ointment of a stretch goal and the harmonizing rhythm of the body in motion:

Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself. – W. C. Doane

Acknowledging Change, Welcoming Balance

For every one of us who has ever thought, “I had (work/life, physical, nutritional, emotional) balance but I lost it,” here’s the truth:

Balance is a changing act ~ AND ~ Change is a balancing act.

Consider nature: The autumnal equinox was this past Sunday (at 4:44 p.m. to be precise).  And it was, for the briefest of moments, that the tilt of the earth’s axis was inclined neither toward nor away from the sun.  Our world was, for an instant, balanced – in the midst of change.

Balance, it seems is dynamic and transient.  We have it, lose it, regain it, lose it, regain it.  Sometimes, with the subtly of a turning world, it barely registers.  Other times, the heave and yaw nearly pitch us off of our feet.  And accepting that change is part of balance and that balance occurs in midst change (not exclusive of it) can make the difference between enjoying the changing seasons or experiencing the twirling, waving, (nauseatingly) shifting floor of a carnival “fun”house every time the universe throws us a curve ball.

I think of it today (three days post-equinox) like a yoga pose.  When I relax into the pose by accepting the subtle changes the imbalance triggers in my muscles (strengthening, stretching, stressing) I stay centered.  When I fight the pose, struggling against the changes the imbalance provokes with every pull, push and pulse, I teeter about, focusing on the fall. 

The difference (in the former) is that I accept that change is integral to balance.  It is part of the package.  I am happy for the cooler days and longer nights of autumn, coming in the wake of the long, hot days of summer.

The difference (again in the former) is that I accept that balance occurs in the process of change.  The earth will be in its tilt-less equinox for but an instant.  It is part of the package.  In March, it will pass this way again.  And I will hardly notice. 

In the moment, in the madness of the imbalance that is frustrating, infuriating and tugging at you, acknowledge the change, and welcome the balance.  You have lost nothing.

Lotus Musings

Have you ever seen a lotus growing in a pool?  It is one of the most beautiful of water plants.  Although it may appear to float, in reality the lovely lotus flower is rooted in the mud below the surface of the water.  Not the picture you may perceive – yet the truth is: no mud, no lotus.

I recently heard this phrase, “no mud, no lotus,” not at a horticulture seminar, rather last week at a conference on Mindfulness and Psychotherapy sponsored by Harvard Medical School in Boston.  The speaker, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, used the phrase as a metaphor for accepting the suffering (unpleasantness) that most certainly is part of the beautiful experience of being fully present in our lives.  It is a balance.  To know happiness, one must know sadness.  To experience the taste of sweet, one's tongue must know the taste of sour.  Although I had read his words in the past and cerebrally understood, last week I got it like never before.

Sitting in the audience (of 1,200) in Boston, my mind traveled back less than a week to the ten days I’d just spent trekking in the Alps (bringing the past into the present).  It had been a relatively difficult trek.  Not at high altitude (although high enough to get snowed on).  Still, each day included at least one pass with quite significant elevation and descent.  The routine pretty much was: three- to four-thousand feet up (often over a scree and boulder-filled trail), to an amazing pass with breathtaking views and an exaltation of “I did this,” followed by a jaw-clenching, knee-jarring descent (over the scree and boulder-filled trail on the other side the summit). 

People often ask me what it is about trekking that is so alluring.  My "getting it" in Boston last week gave me the words to explain.

It is the struggle of the uphill, the wonder and joy of the summit, and the treachery of the downhill.  My appreciation for the summit is at least in part grown in the “mud” of the up and down.  I appreciate knowing that I can have these amazing experiences in many places because I choose to trek – and because I choose to be fully present in the trek.

I do not try to avoid the suffering by stopping, turning back or seeking an easier path.  I accept that the rocks and scree deepen the beauty of the summit. 

It is a way of trekking.  It is a way of being.

There are no trains, planes or automobiles that deliver me.  Yet I am here.

What are your ups and downs today?  Dwell not in one or the other.  Experience each fully.  Appreciate the balance.  And think:

No climbs, no summits.

No mud, no lotus.

Koyaanisqatsi and A Tire Rotation

O.K. so you’re feeling a little “off” today.  No big deal – you’ll just “push through” and ignore that nagging imbalance, eh?  What difference can it make anyway? 

It might be more than you think.  Consider the following:

Yesterday my husband took my car in for a check up.  When he came back he reported all was good, except wheel balance, in which case the technicians recommended rotating the tires.  I was pleased with the report – and glad to know that now my wheels are balanced.  And I thought, how come I didn’t notice that and why does it matter anyway? 

So, I did what any reasonable person would do, I “Googled” wheel balance.  According to E-How (the same source I went to when I wanted to learn to play the djembe drum and dance the running man), my wheels might be out-of-balance when I notice a slight vibration in my ride, reduced fuel efficiency, or an uneven wear pattern on my tires.  Failure to address this imbalance, apparently can eventually strain the wheel bearings and suspension system – leading to larger problems – certainly more costly to fix than the $40 to rotate the tires. 

That notion caused me to think about the human body in motion – and how we adapt to biomechanical imbalance.  For example, when we have a weakness of the Sartorius muscle in our leg, we may notice a change in our gait (disharmony), decreased performance measured in speed or strength (reduced efficiency) or an uneven wear pattern in our shoes.  And if not addressed, what happens?  Well, the human body is smart – really smart, and so our muscles, joints and nerves find new (dysfunctional) paths to generate movement – causing changes all along the kinematic chain to compensate for the muscular imbalance, which eventually strains the entire system (to include joints and bones – think bearings and suspension).  When we end up at the doctor’s office months later his medical sleuthing will likely involve some big bills to identify the cause, which may then require surgery and rehab to restore balance.

And this line of thinking naturally took me to the notion of work-life balance . . . an area in which 39% of workers worldwide are reporting imbalance (according to Global Management Firm, The Hay Group).  And how do people recognize this issue?  They may report being filled with a sense of having too much to do in too little time.  They may be feeling less productive (and less positive about their productivity) than in the past.  They may complain of fatigue, disrupted sleep patterns, or a condition known as burnout.  Disharmony, reduced efficiency, and dysfunctional patterns -- I’m sensing some repetition here.

So what is there to learn from the parallels of out of balance tires, bodies and workers? 

That there are signs that precede (forewarn) damage.

That a little thoughtful diagnosis can help to determine the cause.

That some changes are required to resume balance. 

Sounds simple, right?  Why is it then that we often resort to the same old patterns when looking for a different outcome?  You likely have heard the oft-repeated adage, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”  While variously assigned to such sages as Anthony Robbins, Henry Ford and Mark Twain, I find the wisdom of the words enduring – though perhaps a tad shortsighted.  In terms of tires, knees and living our lives, it may be, “If you do what you’ve always done, you get . . . worse.”  After all, the bearings and suspension of our vehicles can only take so much shimmy.  The bones, joints, tendons and ligaments of our knees can only take so much out-of-balance compensation and certainly, our minds and bodies can only take so much Koyaanisqatsi (coy-on-is-kat-see; the Hopi word for life out of balance).

So what to do?  Well, I’m taking a cue from my mechanic:  Observe, diagnose and rotate!

Observe:  Develop a practice for stepping outside of yourself and really watching what is going on.  How do you do this?  Go back to that values list you developed earlier this year and compare what you want (value) to what you’ve got (how you are choosing to spend your time). 

Diagnose:  Are you finding some discrepancy in your lists?  What’s the cause?  Maybe you have lost your “no” (have decided to take any monkey).  Perhaps you lack clarity (in the absence of a clearly defined goal, you’re wandering).  Maybe you’ve even become a mind reader (“I have to do this because if I don’t it will upset my (spouse, boss, friend)”).

Rotate:  Now from what you observed (that shimmy or shake) and what you’ve diagnosed (this is causing that) – choose to change!  Find your “No.”  Restate your personal vision and focus on some clearly defined goals.  Stop telling yourself that you know what others really want/expect and ask – the only way to truly know.  Your personal observations and diagnosis will define your change.

Does this sound too simple?  Maybe.  But the truth of the matter is that many of us sink into Koyaanisqatsi and think it’s an inevitable state that we must accept.  Then, mired in a disharmonious, inefficient rut, we stay. 

In the words of American Express: tire rotation, $40; arthroscopic knee surgery, $3,650 dollars; a life in balance, priceless.