A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

I Googled this quotation to make sure I had it right, and I discovered a translation even more interesting underneath the popular understanding.

Although this is the popular form of this quotation, a more correct translation from the original Chinese would be “The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.” Rather than emphasizing the first step, Lau Tzu regarded action as something that arises naturally from stillness. Another potential phrasing would be “Even the longest journey must begin where you stand.” [note by Michael Moncur, September 01, 2004]

In other words: Begin where you are. Get the feet moving.

I did, in fact, make my goal of running 1000 miles in 2009. In fact, I made it to 1001.5, as the running watch flies. It was not easy, because while I was way ahead of the game by the end of June (when I ran the marathon), I slacked off immediately thereafter. By October, I realized I was well behind where I needed to be to get to 1000. I really had to start ramping up the mileage in November, which wasn’t easy, given that we were spending a week in Michigan, and I had to do 120 miles in December. The most I’d run all year was 130, and that was when I was training for a marathon.

(As it turned out, I could have run in Michigan: while it was colder than it was here, it wasn’t that much colder than the coldest days I’ve run in this area. No snow, only a little rain. Lesson #1: bring your damn running stuff with you.)

I ran the 120 miles in December, even though I had to give up weight training to do it. I’ve definitely found that once I get to about 90 miles for the month, doing any other sort of exercise along with the running becomes impossible. I keep expecting my body is going to adjust upwards, but no: over 90, and running is all you get.

The question becomes, of course: Why on Earth did I pursue this goal?

And the answer is: To see if I could do it.

When I signed up for the challenge (at 3fatchicks.com, best site on the Web for weight loss support!), I thought, This is insane. Then I thought: I wonder how far I’ll get. The idea attracted me strongly, so I put “Run 1000 miles” on my list of goals for the year, and every time I went running I added the total to a spreadsheet I’d made to keep track. Once I made it a goal, I think my mind started figuring out how I could do it.

I’ve found that making a list of 10 goals for the year is really valuable, if I really sit down and think about what I want to accomplish. Not what I think I should do, but what I want to do. The process outlined in Your Best Year Ever! by Jinny Ditzler has helped me a lot to make goal lists for the year. Making lists of goals I should do is a complete waste of time, and I’ve never made a New Year’s Resolution in my life. But seriously considering things I would like to accomplish during a year, writing it down, and posting it somewhere where I can see: that has been a powerful and useful practice, one I highly recommend.

(Another recommendation for a yearly practice I highly encourage: finding your Word of the Year, which I got from Christine Kane. It really sets your mood for the whole year, particularly if you keep reminding yourself of it at various times. It’s a shorthand way of reminding yourself what kind of experience you want to have, without beating yourself over the head about doing this, that, or the other.)

Doing 1000 miles reminded me that I can take a crazy, outsized goal and actually achieve it. That when I think of something I want to do and immediately react with, “Oh no, I could never do that,” I can remind myself, “You did one thousand miles, babe. You can do this.”

One really important part of making 1000 miles was that I told myself I could do it, over and over again, reminding myself of the goal, seeing myself finishing. It was a goal far outside my comfort zone—I run somewhere between 9 and 11 minutes a mile, depending on terrain and my exhaustion level, so 1000 miles is a hell of time investment, not to mention the physical costs. And yet it was really exhilarating (even while it was exhausting) to keep racking up the miles.

(By the way, if at any time my body had hurt (beyond the simple aches of making it move), I would have stopped. These people who run through crippling pain? I am not that person.)

I’m not sure I would even think about doing it again, except my running bud Nina wants to run 1000 miles this year, and I am duty-bound to get her there! I don’t know if it can really count as a yearly goal this time around though.

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I’ve started working on a couple of side projects—one of them that I’m willing to share with the world right now is Let The Freak Flag Fly, a blog dedicated to people being who they gotta be. I find stories about people who find out who they really are and live large as a result to be very inspiring, mostly as I am trying to find my own identity for this period in my life.

If you have any suggestions for topics or want to suggest URLs or even want to write an entry about how you let the freak flag fly, please drop me a line at diane -at- let-the-freak-flag-fly-.-com (please to remove all dashes and spaces and replace the at with an at-sign…you know the drill).

I mentioned in a previous entry that I would put an update here on how my meditation practice was going. I have continued to meditate about five days out of seven, usually twenty minutes at a time, but a few times doing thirty. I do the usual shtick: I sit on a zafu cushion, close my eyes, listen to a calming background noise via the Brain Wave app on my iPhone, and try to think of nothing until the program turns off. I have three ways of doing this:

1) Breathe in for a count of four, and then breathe out for a count of four.

2) Do a chakra meditation. I can’t remember where I read about this, but you imagine light (or energy, or the universe, or whatever) pouring into your body, and it lights up your first chakra, which is red and sits at the root of your spine, then the second chakra, which is orange and is roughly where your internal genitals are, then the third… There are seven spots, not hard to learn them, and they follow the colors of the rainbow.

3) Do a verbal chant, such as “Ooooooommmmmm” on the out breath.

Why do I do these funky (and quite frankly, extremely Californian) meditations?

Because they allow me to empty my mind and only focus on that one thing. It’s almost impossible for my mind to wander if I’m fixated on visualizing lights of various colors lighting up through my body. I don’t actually feel any different when I visualize an area lighting up with energy, but I sure can’t think about anything else. (I have a very strong visualization muscle–I really “see” things when I imagine.) And if I spend time focusing on my body, I will relax the various areas as I go through them.

With the “Om” I don’t believe it’s really the sound from the birth of the universe, or whatever it’s supposed to be. (Sorry: am card-carrying atheist.) Chanting that sound just massages my body from the inside, being both soothing and tingly at the same time. Seriously, take a moment right now (possibly in your bathroom or your closet or something where no one will hear you) and say “Oooooommmmmm” a couple of times, really letting it reverberate through you. Doesn’t that feel wonderful? Now imagine it saying it for twenty minutes straight. You’ll feel like you got a tummy massage.

Our brains don’t want to calm down. Meditation is you learning how to take control of your mind. When your mind wanders onto thoughts of what you should be doing or your shopping list, a great technique to deal with it is just say “Thoughts, thoughts” and dismiss them. Or, if like me, your mind wanders to fantasies about what you should have said to the rude salesclerk or what life would be like living in a fabulous Paris apartment, say “Fantasy, fantasy” and get back to the whole breath-counting thing. I can fantasize any time (and if you know me, you know I probably am). There’s plenty of time during the day to fantasize about my Parisian castle while standing in line at a store to buy that thing I didn’t buy from the rude salesclerk.

What’s the point of all this sitting in place and counting breaths and quieting the mind?

I have no idea.

But it feels awesome.

On days when I don’t meditate, I can feel it. I start feeling antsy. I crave those minutes of just sitting there and doing nothing.

I don’t think it’s improved me as a person yet: I haven’t had any spiritual experiences, I haven’t heard a small internal voice telling me what I should do with my life, and I’m not noticeably calmer during the day (I think). But that twenty or thirty minutes of sitting with myself has really helped me say, “You know, taking a little time just for myself and quieting my mind is worthwhile.”

So, of late I’ve become a big proselytizer for taking up a meditation practice. I guess I should put up some links here for places you can check out for more info, but frankly, all you need is ten minutes and a willingness to give it a shot. Honestly, it’s really as wonderful as all the propaganda has made it out to be.