Spring2007

We are pleased to launch the 5th issue of the Body, Mind, and Balance Bulletin. We’ll bring you new issues of the newsletter at the Body, Mind, and Balance website four times each year, to coincide with the first day of each new season. As always, this newsletter will feature topics related to the integration of physical health and mental health toward the goal of living a balanced life. Though the newsletter will change quarterly, you will be able to access archived issues. Do not forget to check back to the newsletter more than once during each quarter as new features may be added from time to time. For those of you who have been following our journey, thanks for staying with us. And for those who are new to us, welcome, and we hope you’ll keep visiting.

Summer is upon us! If you are living in the United States , then you are hopefully experiencing longer daylight hours and warmer temperatures. This is a time of the year for me when I am in my busy season with www.powerfulathlete.com, coaching people online focusing on better health, a higher level of fitness, and accomplishing various athletic goals ranging from running their first 5K to completing an Ironman triathlon.

I have observed over the past decade a pattern that many people fall into. This is the concept of people overestimating what they can do in the short term and underestimating what they can do in the long term. I have seen this with many of the athletes when I begin to work with as well as seeing it with some of the patients that I work with in my private practice when they initially start psychotherapy. I have also seen it with several of the messages that the media sends to society. Some examples that I have observed both personally and professionally include commercials such as six seconds to great abs, infomercials including get rich quick schemes, fitness magazines with programs such as going from couch potato to a marathon runner in just two months, and various weight loss programs such as losing 20 pounds in a single week. Many of the goals are fine, but the time that it takes to accomplish it for many of us will take considerably longer with reference to the previous examples mentioned. Unfortunately, many people buy into this succeed super quick philosophy and overestimate what they can accomplish in a short period of time. The concept of delayed gratification just does not seem to register. Therefore, the result for many of the people in this situation puts their physical and psychological systems out of balance. Furthermore, not only do these people not meet their goals, but physical ailments such as injury and psychological conditions such as depression may also appear. Think of all the people that you know that go on diets or start an exercise program (usually around January 1^st) with too much initial intensity-most of them get hurt exercising and therefore stop all together and a year later weigh even more and feel worse off. Quite simply, they fry themselves out before they have even given themselves a fair chance to succeed, let alone achieve greatness!

The flip side of this is that for those that build up slowly over time, they can accomplish great things, very often beyond their biggest expectations! I coached a client at powerfulathlete.com who wanted to run 5 miles straight within 6 months and not only did she achieve that goal, but 3 months later ran the Broad Street Run which is a 10 mile race! This philosophy also allows one to stay in balance physically and psychologically. Indeed, there are many people that achieve greatness with respect to their goals by chipping away at it a little bit at a time over a long period of time. Think of Lance Armstrong. He raced the Tour de France before he was diagnosed with Cancer and did not win. From the time he was in remission it took him almost 2 years before he won his first Tour de France and that came from training practically every day for those two years while slowly building up to his peak level of fitness. If you have read any of his books, you won’t be surprised to know that he measured his progress in seconds-for a sixty mile ride! Shannon Miller, one of the top gymnasts from the Gold Medal Team of the USA Olympics in 1996 was 20 years old when she won Gold. She had been doing gymnastics for 15 years of her life, gradually improving a tenth of a point on a yearly basis. Small, consistent improvements over time can lead to huge achievements even beyond one’s expectations!

Underestimating what one can do in the long term can be seen in other fields as well. George Clooney, who commands millions of dollars for a movie, appeared as a minor character in a couple of episodes of the “Facts of Life” and worked in the field for over a decade before making it big. Bill Gates dropped out of college and spent the next decade developing something that you are using right now (the internet-sorry Al Gore) reading this article. The great practitioners of their fields such as medicine and law all spent years in education before they even started practicing. Then it takes several more years to master the field.

The concept of staying in balance by not over taxing your systems too much right away while remaining positive about your goals and chipping away at them over a longer period of time is certainly a healthier and happier way to stay in balance. You will also be much more likely to achieve your goals, and in many cases beyond, while enjoying the process!

I’ve mentioned before I’m not the greatest one for flying, but I get on planes anyway because I love to travel. I don’t know if it’s the kind of books I enjoyed as a child, or movies I watched, or having grandparents who went to lots of places and brought back interesting items and photos, or hearing stories from people who lived or studied abroad. But I’ve had a yearning for the wider world since I was pretty young, and have always known that staying in one place all the time and never going out to see what else is there doesn’t work for me.

I enjoy living where I live, but I can’t look at the same thing all the time. It’s important for me to see something different every so often. I have this thing about expansive landscapes and far off horizons. I like to wander in places where other languages are spoken, and spend time silently listening to those cadences and rhythms. I observe the way other folks do the quality of life thing - people watching is always interesting, especially in other countries. Here in the US there are so many different places to visit as well. I’m drawn to the West, probably because I’ve spent my whole life in the East. There is something about the desert Southwest and about the Rocky Mountains or the Grand Tetons - maybe it’s that expansive far off horizon thing again, but it definitely thrills me, as do shore horizons and cities on water. Tasting other foods, seeing other sights, hearing other sounds - there’s such a sensory element to traveling that is just as important as the photos taken or the people encountered.

My own travels elsewhere began in 1985 when I went for the first time to England to stay with a college friend. I’d been on planes before, but this was going to be a long flight, at night, arriving the next day in a foreign country, I had to have a passport for the first time, the whole thing was different and so exciting! I pored over guidebooks and asked others for recommendations, checked out information about what to see and do in London, which was where I was going to stay. Since my friend was in graduate school and had classes during the daytime, I was on my own with my guidebook and my ability to navigate a strange city, learn a different transportation system, and trust my instincts about asking strangers for information when needed. And I still do those things when I plan to travel. The planning is just as much a part of the excitement as the trip itself. Once I’ve decided on the destination, my first travel purchase is a Frommers or Rick Steves guidebook, which I’ll read from cover to cover, marking sights to see, places to stay, restaurants to try. I’m on the Food Network and Travel Channel websites surfing for details and information - it’s great to have that added set of resources nowadays! I’m clipping articles from newspaper travel sections, asking friends for recommendations - it’s all part of the fun, as is the actual surfing for travel bargains and airline points and all the rest of it.

While it’s great to have people along on the journey, I’ll gladly travel alone as well. When I’m ready to go, if nobody else is available, then I’ll go on my own. I enjoy meeting new people, and have always believed in that “kindness of strangers” thing anyway, and so have had some great experiences meeting and talking to strangers when traveling. There was the Pakistani man who sat across from me on the train from Hampton Court to Victoria Station in London who complimented me on my nice white teeth. There was the couple who sat next to me in a Paris restaurant and talked to me in French about American politics and American television shows, and the American couple who sat on the other side and participated in the conversation, with me translating back and forth - that was a stimulating meal! There was the guy with the heavy Cockney accent in the London tube station who actually took the time to walk me to where I was trying to go. I could barely understand his English - and we’re supposed to speak the same language! When I thanked him and tried to give him a tip for escorting me, he refused, said something else I couldn’t understand and walked away. On a day trip to the Grand Canyon, a couple who saw I was by myself asked if I would sit with them at the meal break included in the trip. How nice it was of them to reach out to the solo traveler and offer companionship. Sometimes strangers I’ve met on group trips have become friends when we chose to stay in touch once the trip was over. It doesn’t always happen that way, but when it does, it enhances the vacation experience that much more. Then there are future opportunities to meet the friends again, and that’s special too. I’ve been to visit vacation friends where they live, they have been to visit me, and sometimes vacation friends and I have traveled together again.

Along with the many photos of my travels, there are the “memory snapshots” I’ve gathered over the years. When I took my parents to Paris for their first trip to my favorite city in the world, as we walked through a neighborhood together, we turned a corner and there in front of us was the Eiffel Tower. The look on their faces from seeing that up close for the first time was unforgettable. One night on a camping bicycle trip through the California Wine Country, I got up to walk to the bathroom at the Bodega Bay campground, accompanied by the mournful sound of the foghorn in the bay. I looked up and the stars were so close overhead it seemed as if I could have reached up and touched them. Seeing the Western Wall in Jerusalem for the first time was so emotional. Another woman on the same group trip who was also there for the first time linked arms with me and we stood together in silent awe. We hadn’t really gotten to know each other that well, but somehow it seemed natural for us to stand there together at that moment. On a trip to San Francisco together, my boyfriend and I walked across the Golden Gate Bridge hand in hand and there again no words were spoken. We just kept looking over at each other and smiling - it’s a cherished romantic memory.

Travel changes me for the better every single time. There are good memories and some not so good, happy adventures and unpleasant mishaps have occurred along the way. Whether abroad or here at home, the opportunity for a change of scene and change of routine are renewing and rewarding. Knowing that the world is a much bigger place than where we live is a worthwhile concept. Realizing that there is always something learned from being somewhere else can be refreshing and helpful. It’s good to take a break from our regular lives - sometimes it’s a welcome and needed change. It can be intimidating to step outside of our comfort zones and experience something unknown. But for me it’s that unknown that challenges me to reach inside myself for the strength to manage whatever situation comes my way. It also helps me realize that if I can navigate the wider world while traveling, then I can use that same skill set to stay balanced here at home as well.

If you’re already a traveling person like me, then I wish you good health and good fortune in your travels as I hope for them in mine. And if you have yet to begin, I wish you the courage to get out there and begin your journeys. It’s worth the risk.

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