Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Make a commitment with your feet

Once I heard from a psychologist that when you are trying to get over an addiction, you should make a commitment with your feet. I thought it sounded funny and didn't quite understand what he meant. How can you possibly make a commitment with your feet if you can only make it with your mind? Everything we do is being operated by the mind, isnt' it? If so, what can be done if a mind is addicted to a certain pattern?

Oh, God! I always want to write something clever and ask a bunch of very important questions, most of which turn out to be rhetoric... This is exactly where and why I get stuck in my writing. I stumble on my own contemplative thoughts as if they are rocks and before I am able to go anywhere further, I need to stop and take a breath. May be even put my hands on a bigger rock in my imagination and say to myself: "You don't need to think so much. Just relax, take it easy." By doing so I instantly feel how the tension in my entire body goes away and I am not out of breath anymore, nor am I out of words either. I feel like I can make another step and write another sentence.

Today I devoted a lot of my time to finding the perfect hiking boots for the climb. I spent a couple of hours last night researching on-line and in the morning I went to REI to try on a pair. They seemed really nice, but the moment I was about to start asking a Sales Associate all the specific questions I had, I realized that my car's meter had expired and I need to run before I get a ticket. I decided not to go back to the store and drove home to resume my on-line shopping. Here they are! My fabulous hiking boots purchased on www.altrec.com with the help of a very amicable and nice sales person.
My boots will arrive at the end of the week and I will start breaking them in. I am so excited!

It's so bizzare to see myself being excited about purchasing hiking boots or to enjoy hiking as much as I do and even to prepare for Kilimanjaro climb... Being outdoors and excercising is a very new activity for me. I usually wear high-healed shoes and prefer driving to walking. Yoga was the most I could get myself into, but hiking???

I started hiking with my friend a couple of months ago. It was before I made a commitment to climb Kilimanjaro. She just got back from South Africa where she spent a whole month and I couldn't wait to hear everything about her experience. It felt so natural to walk and talk. Time would fly by really fast and it didn't seem like a boring work-out. One day she said that she wants to be outdoors more, that she wants to get her hands dirty. The next moment we saw a little pile of dark sand and the two of us pressed our hands against it. It was very cool and soft. We closed our eyes and enjoyed a moment of silence. A realization hit me that we are all the same -stones and trees, dirt and flowers, squirrels and birds - everything we see and all we are in our bodies, is just stardust. Being closer to nature, breathing it in, allowing oneself to be a part of it, is a little secret to happiness.

When I started hiking my life started changing. Everyday I am getting to know my body better and better. My spirit has inhabited it for more than 32 years, but never fully felt at home, always wanted to be somewhere else. I was looking for things I wanted on the outside, and miraculously found them inside. There is a Russian saying that there is no truth in your feet. Well, probably, there isn't. I don't even know what the truth is. What feels true for me right now is that my feet are taking me where I need to be and I am trusting them. Once and for all I decided to make a commitment to co-create a life that I will enjoy. I had no idea how to fulfill it and just started walking. This is how my journey began.

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