Self-Love & Inner Peace

And how it can step up your game...

                One thing I’m learning as I’ve stepped up my goals and made larger steps in my triathlon progress is that you end up spending a lot more time alone with nothing but your own mind to occupy yourself. More bike time, more laps in the pool, longer runs, harder interval sets, all done mostly alone. And that can be very scary, especially if your mind is stuck in reverse or in a negative state. I am no stranger to negative self-talk, doubt, and inner turbulence, making my mind suffer constantly, but I have come a long way from those thoughts.

                It is incredibly easy to let the negatives take over your mind, to let yourself go to the dark side so to say. It’s easy to be in the middle of a workout and think “ugh this is so hard” or "I'm too tired" or “I am hurting, this sucks” or “my body is not working for me” and subsequently shut down without even realizing it. As soon as the negative self-talk begins, the body stops wanting to push itself, listening to your mind that you cannot do it. I’ve ruined many past workouts with this thinking, sometimes even before I’ve started a workout. And this certainly applies for race situations as well. But starting in 2017, with the help of Siri to shape up my mind as an athlete, I begin to think lighter and happier, and more than that, embrace the pain and defeat of hard workouts. I also cut out nearly all music from my runs, knowing I wouldn’t have access to those during race time, and stopped staring at my power and heart rate numbers. Everyday I practiced changing my thinking from “ugh, I just cannot do this!” to “wow, this hurts, but I am building myself into a better athlete!” And as it turns out, this practice of positive thinking has pushed me through some of the hardest workouts and left me feeling much happier after those workouts.

                Seems easy enough, right? Hell no. Endurance sports have a way of taking you to the deepest of places in your mind, especially when you have nothing else to occupy your thoughts such as music or TV. We dive into the depth of pain and defeat and let it engulf us. It not only takes practice to get rid of those negative thoughts, but I also realized it requires you to learn to love yourself. Sounds cliché and silly, I know, but I honestly didn’t realize how much I was not appreciating myself. I did not take the time to celebrate each step in my journey, including “failed” workouts. Recognizing that missteps and bad workouts are all a crucial part of learning and beating ourselves up over these things only fortifies negative self-talk. It takes defeating our own inner demons, coming to peace with our past, present, and future, forgiving ourselves, shutting out negative people, and embracing what you really want to maintain a positive mind. Taking in our beautiful surroundings and letting that beauty shine within you. It is a process, it has been quite a process for me, but I have found my inner peace through it all.

                The past couple months in particular I feel that I have really made a break-through in loving myself and finding my inner peace…and I have to say, it is an amazing feeling. But not only does it make you feel good, it has brought me more success in my triathlon training: helping me start and complete workouts that I did not want to do and ending up loving every minute of them instead. Self-love and inner peace has helped me thrive through my training and fired up my determination even greater. Practice loving yourself and finding your inner peace and you will release a new warrior within that you never knew existed.

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me…and I’m feeling good”