Mantras and Affirmations
You guys- what a week. Soooooo many things went wrong, but here I am, one day before my race, and I’m ready to go. What went wrong, you ask? WELL… My “difficult foot,” the one with plantar fasciitis, decided to implode. Yes, on a week with no long runs and no hard strength workouts, my foot was really sore. I did my stretching, mobility work and massage, and in desperation pulled out my trusty Louise Hay. You Can Heal Your Life was published in 1984 and I read it in the 1990s. Louise believed that all of our physical ailments are caused by thought patterns, and said that positive affirmations can heal everything, including cancer. As a matter of fact, she claims to have healed her own cancer this way. Well… I’m pretty sure if I ever get cancer, I’ll be rushing to the hospital for my surgery and chemo treatments, but I do believe there’s a place for affirmations. Flooding your mind with positive thoughts can only help. You can see there’s a list of ailments, what thought patterns supposedly cause them, and an affirmation to heal each one. For “foot problems” the cause is “fear of the future and of stepping forward in life.” The healing affirmation is “I move forward in life with joy and with ease.” I’m pretty sure it didn’t heal my foot, but it really helped to calm my mind. “I move forward in life with joy and with ease” is a much better thought than “OMG I can’t believe this is happening, what if I can’t run, what will it feel like to run 31 miles with a sore foot, this is a nightmare!” By Wednesday I was feeling more optimistic about my foot, and was enjoying my day off… until I got a text from my daughter asking to be picked up from school early. WHAT? When I picked her up she said she was achy and was so tired that she fell asleep in one of her classes. OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE’S SICK NOW THERE’S JUST ENOUGH TIME FOR ME TO GET IT AND MISS MY RACE WHAT IF IT’S COVID… no, no, no. I pulled out the affirmation for “colds”, which is “I allow my mind to relax and be at peace. Clarity and harmony are within me and around me.” Well, I’m not sick! (And neither is she, it turns out. She slept for twelve hours and woke up feeling completely normal- PHEW.) I’m not sure if the affirmation actually boosted my immune system, but it definitely helped me to calm down and get a decent night’s sleep. You know what’s just like affirmations? Mantras! Most runners have mantras they use during a hard run or race. One of my favorites is, “I am strong, I am good at this, I can do it.” It also helps to have a shorter mantra, something like “quick and light” or “fast and strong.” I’m going to modify the Louise Hay foot affirmation to make it a mantra for my race: “Forward with joy.” In Scott Jurek’s book Eat and Run he said that during a particularly painful section of a race, he repeated “This is what you came for” over and over again. Do you use affirmations or mantras? – if yes, what’s one of your favorites? I’ll be back on Sunday to tell you how the race went!