Body And Mind: Two Sides Of The Same Coin?

A few weeks ago, in this blog, I spoke about moving to the next level in life. Now, it has been a while since I moved levels, so I have forgotten what I did when I levelled up—in fact, I am not even sure if that concept existed for me back then.

However, as I work at mastering this level, flashes of similar experiences resonate with me. This reinforces the belief that the universe wants me to master this level; hence, opportunities come my way - I need to get out of my own head to ensure that I can notice them. For example, last weekend, I was at a book festival where I ended up reading my own book - ‘Make Your Life Easy’, and it was very humbling to realise that the answers to my questions were written by the version of me a few years ago. I was in two minds about whether I should sign up, but in the end, a voice inside me said to sign up - I guess the universe thinks a few steps ahead.

Continuing the thread on how the universe works, as part of my workout routine, I run once or twice a week, usually for 20-30 minutes. Recently, I started running in one of the metro parks—and up to 5 miles. A few weeks ago, my husband told me that he wanted to run a half marathon. Internally, I was scared, but I wasn’t going to let him get one up on me, so I said I would do it, too. Since then, I have been slowly building up to the thirteen miles. I started with five, six, seven, eight, and today, I did ten. Now, just like a long flight, it is the last couple of hours that feel longer than the entire flight - the mile that I am working up to feels longer than all the other miles I have run.

And I am realising that the last mile is where the magic happens, where I exercise the muscle to breathe and not give into my mind chatter. That mile is a critical step in mastering the next level. When you are in that space, insights emerge, and one such note that caught my attention was breathing when it gets tough. Yes, I know it sounds very obvious, but when you know you are tired, your mind wants to make excuses for your body, and there is one more mile to go - having the awareness and then actually focusing on breathing is a huge step. As I found myself doing that, I realised that this is practice for when things get tough at work. When the stakeholder who didn’t have your back or was rude to you in the past is now exaggerating the issues they are having, the awareness of breathing will kick in because it is uncannily similar to the last mile while running.

In both situations, it does not matter whether the mind or the stakeholder is telling the truth or not - the reality for me is that I have observed the reaction starting in me, and breathing should kick in. This muscle memory of me observing my breath, even if it was for a few seconds, is the gem I need to focus on and grow more. Thank you, universe for providing us with a simple tool like breathing.

Do your body and mind also come across as the two sides of the coin?