Attachments

If you wish to be happy the first thing you need is not effort or even goodwill or good desires but a clear understanding of how exactly you have been programmed. ~ Anthony de Mello

For the past nine months I have been working with a dynamic performance coach. If you are looking for some guidance in this area I highly recommend my friend Ashley with www.mindful-sports.com She is awesome!! In addition to sport specific skills with goal setting, race prep, visualization, etc. we have been doing a fair amount of work on identifying my "attachments". These are things we all have and "cling to" and they come in both the physical and emotional varities. Through this process I am learning to become more "aware" as both an individual and athlete. For example, most of us have an attachment to comments we receive from people. When someone tells us, "Hey Brad, you look really good today." it makes us feel happy and good about ourselves. When that same person says, "Wow, you look kind of tired today." it makes us feel a bit down or unpleasant. The key is to recognize our society, from the time we were children, has conditioned us to react in certain ways to what others say or think of us. I have experienced a tremendous amount of personal growth in recognizing my attachments and understanding them which in turn has really brought a sense of freedom to my daily life. Within my training and racing I have found a genuine purpose and peace. A super book to read which really acts like a daily devotional with 2-3 page chapters is one titled The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello. I may have mentioned this book in a previous post. It is an easy-to-read insightful piece of writing which I am enjoying for the second round.

Keep it smooth...