Running just reinforces living out our highly conditioned tendency for “automaticity”… for busyness… for distraction… and for a fragmented way of life.

How often do we use the word “run” in our daily language?
Run to the store…
Gotta run…
Run to a meeting…
Run to class…
Run to the doctor…
Run errands…
Run out for lunch, etc., etc.
Do we even realize how much our scripting reinforces our attitudes and behaviors to live mindlessly running on automatic pilot- racing here and there like a roadrunner, both internally (mentally) and externally (physically)? Our emotional imperatives to “run” and keep running are mental habits that have been deeply ingrained into our personality make-ups from early childhood. For e.g. “Hurry up and get dressed… hurry up and finish your meal or you’ll be late”. In tandem with “running”, the speed by which we live has gradually become a way of life whereby for many it has become an addiction, and for many there is an inherent complacency with an increased pace without even knowing. We have become entrained in perpetual acceleration where our lives appear to be unfolding faster than the human nervous system and psyche are able to effectively manage. It’s no wonder, stress and anxiety are reaching epidemic proportions.

When we look deeper at our propensity to keep running, stay distracted, and pathologically busy- we discover a connection to a conditioned reaction from a seemingly perpetual dissatisfaction with things in our lives.  For years we have been training to run- in desiring, reaching, grasping, getting, and then wanting more, and then, of course, more- all subliminally reinforcing the underlying feeling that this moment is not enough- constantly running and rushing to get everywhere but here. More often than not, we don’t even feel the sensations of this repetitive running in our own bodies. As you might infer from this conditioning and repetition, the effort to train to pause and be still is no easy undertaking. We are riddled with emotional dissatisfaction, distraction, and disturbances in our everyday experiences. The act of running keeps us from having to touch or directly relate to the ‘psychic entropy’– the chaos & disorder that compromises our capacity to be present. We’re too busy rushing to the next moment that we are unable to connect with what actually corrupts our potential to live more fully.

For many of us, it is easier to keep running than to be still… it’s often too disturbing and not very relaxing. We sleep to rest, but yet many of us never really awaken. We have become a nation of sleepwalkers… or ‘sleeprunners’ often chasing a lifestyle of illusion constructed and perpetuated by a collective consciousness that is hooked to a ‘virtual screenplay’. We are simply acting out what we have been conditioned to believe we are. To transform and to change means we need to stop, breathe, and face what we may have become- and we may find in doing so that this being is contrary to the nature of who we really are. Catch your breath... and breathe into the moment, you might be truly amazed at what you may come to realize and better understand.

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