Happiness

I just returned from yoga class tonight, where the teacher spoke about happiness, a food-for-thought topic that's been making its way into my life as a common thread recently.

I heard a review of a book called "Shift Happens" that sounded interesting, so I downloaded the audio book.  To summarize, it's about how we all start life as perfect, innocent, unscarred souls, but as our lives progress, we inevitably experience negative experiences and emotions such as rejection, disappointment, heartache, anger, or feeling unworthy or unloved.  We develop mental and emotional wounds and scars, some that we are aware of and some that lie deep in our unconscious minds.  These  drive our emotions and our behavior, and mold our self-concept and our self-confidence.  We create a list of limiting beliefs that will be used to tell ourselves what we can and cannot do.  This list usually lasts for life.  

No one is immune to the bumps and bruises of life.  We all struggle with managing our ego that emerges to try to protect us from further pain.  But that ego often works against you.

The "shift" described in the book is about letting all that emotional and mental stuff be in the past - and really living in the present.   Can one really do this?  He presents a good logical and practical argument around the fact that thoughts aren't real.  They are electrical impulses in our heads; they come and go; and that they don't have to define us.  You can learn to recognize negative thoughts, see them for what they are, then choose new ones.   

It's also about choosing happiness, for no good reason. Most of us have conditions in our heads that we will be happy when we...

• a) find our perfect partner
• b) get that perfect job
• c) lose those last 10 pounds
• d) finally get that dream house or car
• e) win our age group in a race, or score that Kona slot
• f) .....fill in the blank....

And of course there's nothing wrong with striving for goals or focusing on excellence in your life.  The fallacy comes when you think that these things are the key to making you happy.  Once you achieve the goal, you enjoy it for a little while, then that emptiness that made you want it in the first place creeps back and you start focusing on the next thing to make you happy.  It's a vicious circle that can follow you your whole life, and make you wonder why you never feel completely whole or satisfied.  The truth is, real and long-term happiness is found inside yourself, not from an external source. 

People who are "achievers" often enjoy the experience of being very independent and self-reliant.  Yet, as humans, we are all connected  on a spiritual level, and share a collective consciousness.  Nothing happens in the world that is in isolation - the Butterfly Effect if you will.  Humans are wired to need each other, though our egos are quick to step in to encourage us to judge and compete with our fellow man.  That independent achiever personality mentioned above may fail to recognize his innate connection with other humans and cut himself off from meaningful relationships in his life, sadly never figuring out what was really standing between him and true happiness in his life.

Just like everyone in the world, I have negative stuff in my head I need to let go.  I'm sure it's an ongoing life-long process of reminding oneself what's important and what's not.  But I definitely see the power in the process.

As an athlete, it's helped me shift my attitude of doing workouts because they were on the schedule and I needed to "get them done" to really trying to be present in the workout and finding joy in the movement and the water/road/trail.   Thoughts are in my head.  They aren't all going to be great, but the ones that aren't, I can choose to let them go and try to find some better ones.   

As a competitive athlete, this perspective leads me to a place of wanting to do my best, but wanting my competition to do their best as well. I understand the common bond of a kindred spirit that I have with every triathlete who shows up on race day, and that they have worked hard to prepare as have I.   I know that the energy you send out to others comes back to you at some point.  I have so many examples of this in my life. It's also about letting go of the limiting beliefs that I have held about myself. In racing, I have learned that my mind will try to give up before my body must give up.  So, the power is in managing those rogue thoughts.

Our Team focus is on giving back at Ironman races, and the Hawaiian word "Kokua" reflects this concept for our Team.  So far, I have only met a few of the 43 athletes on our Team, but I do know that the Kokua spirit runs deep.  The commitment I see in their training and racing this year, the passion they bring to our online conversations, and the stories which have brought us all together tell me a lot about each of them as a person.  

Wishing you happiness.

A Mother's Day Story

Patricia McIntyre first became a mother when I was born on January 1, two weeks past my due date, essentially cheating my parents of a prior year tax deduction.  You think that at least they’d have a shot at those “first baby of the New Year” honors since I arrived at 12:10.  Nope, that’s 12:10 PM; way too late to the party.

My mom was only 18 when I came along.  She and my dad had gotten married the year before when she was a high school junior. In today’s world of equal gender opportunity and kids off on international backpack trips as high schoolers and college students, early marriage and family is rarely a choice made in high school anymore.  However, the culture of the small Southern town of my family back in the day, it’s what most of the girls did. My dad was a handsome firefighter 5 years her senior, and they were an adorable couple.  At her high school graduation, she was already expecting me, and they were on their way to  living the American dream.  

As I grew up, my friends always thought my mom looked so pretty and young, and that’s because she was!  My two brothers arrived three and eight years after me.  Except for a year in Oklahoma so that my dad could finish his bachelor’s degree  - we grew up in North Carolina.  My parents were great role models, both worked hard, and taught us to do the same.  We were Southern Baptists, and conservative values were front and center.   

In my mother’s footsteps, I was drawn to a nice conservative guy in college who wanted to settle down, and got married in the Baptist Church just a few days shy of my 21st birthday. Unfortunately it never occurred to me to first figure out who I was as a person and what I wanted out of life before becoming a wife.  I just went into marriage on autopilot that first time, and in just a couple of years, realized it had been a mistake.  I know my parents really didn’t understand why that marriage didn’t work for me - but I do remember so well that my mom was rock solid there for me, supporting me even though she couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t happy.  So many times in my life, I’m certain that my mom  didn’t understand my choices or my path, but I could always depend on her love and her belief in me - and lean on her unwavering support.  She’s that same unwavering support for everyone in my family.

My teenage years had their moments of frustration for both me and my mom.  In the big picture, nothing too severe or radical, but I tested some limits.  My parents were super strict with me as a girl, while my brothers had a lot fewer restrictions.  This infuriated me at the time, though later as the parent of a son and a daughter, I understood the greater potential for bad things happening to girls and made the same protective decisions with my daughter and son.  

My mom taught me how to sew, and she made most all my clothes growing up, and I made a lot of my daughter’s clothes when she was little too.  My mom and I used to love to spend hours in the fabric shop, buying pattern and fabric and then going home to sew.  It was a real bonding  time for us.  Every Southern girl must have a pretty Easter frock every year, and my mom made me some beauties!   She also sewed my prom dresses and all the other special occasion outfits.  

Vacations were spent camping, often with extended family, and often at the beaches on North and South Carolina.  Most of my whole family was in the same town, so we got to know our grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. My parents were very frugal, and my mom worked as the secretary at my high school - most of that money going for our college educations.  What a gift our parents gave us...my brothers and I didn’t have to get student loans to go to college, because it was a priority that my parents planned for for years.  We worked for our spending money, but our room/board/tuition was taken care of -all we had to do was study.  I remember when I went off to college as a freshman and was clearly focused more on playing than academics.  There was no mistaking that when my grades came and I received the full wrath of my parents‘ disappointment.  My options were to turn it around immediately, or come home and get a job.  I became a great student, shot up to Deans List and even continued for a Master’s Degree.  All because my parents gave me enough rope to hang myself then let me pick up the pieces and learn the life lessons.

My dad developed some serious health problems later in his life, and it was my mother who was his strength through heart attacks, diabetes and cancer.  She had a no nonsense manner of taking bad news, or a bad day - and redirecting my dad and everyone to a place of hope and solace.  She helped to bring my dad to a place of deeper faith.  My dad wasn’t one of those people who was naturally positive and full of sunshine all the time - but my mom has a beautiful way about her that makes you feel better just being around her.  The deep bond between my parents in the last couple of years before my dad passed away is something that I recognize as love in its purest form.

My mom is a huge inspiration to me, and a role model of unselfish love and compassion.  Mother’s Day is a great time to celebrate how special she is, and to let her know how much she is deeply loved by her family and friends.

Patricia McIntyre, you’re amazing, you’re beautiful -  and I’m so proud to be your daughter.

A couple of days off is good, right?

Now that we have an empty nest, we like to open our home to international professional triathletes for homestays when they come to train in Boulder.  So far we have hosted Aussie triathletes Tim Reed, Tim Van Berkel, Lisa Marangon, and Aussie professional mountain biker Josh Carlson.  We've also hosted American triathlete Jenna Parker and 2004 Ironman Hawaii champion, German Faris Al-Sultan. It's a lot of fun getting to know them - and you really come to appreciate that the life of a professional athlete is not easy!  And we also enjoy having a live-in housesitter/dogsitter so that we can travel to warm sunny places like California when the weather is sucking here, as it sure has been lately.

Tim Van Berkel has been with us for the past 6 weeks - and certainly it isn't the training block he anticipated in the springtime.  Three snowstorms in three weeks, and generally chilly temperatures were not really what he signed up for, I'm sure.

Tim left today to return to Oz, and I'm sure he's ready to get home.  He came down with a wicked cold earlier in the week, and of course, now Warren and I have it.  I really hate being sick, and even more so when it comes with a severe cough.  My abs are sore from coughing my brains out last night.  I guess if there's a silver lining, that's it.....who knew that coughing is a core workout?!  :-)

Warren insisted that we go to the doctor today, so we at least got some drugs that ease the annoying headache a bit.  I'm spinning these days off in my head as "I am often overtired and overtrained but keep pushing through...this is my body's way of telling me take care of it."  After all, if my immune system were rock solid I wouldn't have gotten sick in the first place, right?

So I'm going back in my head to that relaxed state of bliss after my post-race massage in Kona a couple of years ago.

ZZZZ....