emotion

I am a little over half way through my latest book, My Stroke of Insight by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, and one of her realizations on recovery hit the spot on an issue I have been thinking about for some time.  I have heard this type of speak before, but always in a very metaphoric, fantastic sort of way (read: hippie-speak) and never from a scientific point of view.  So I thought I would share an excerpt from her book.

A very brief synopsis: Dr. Taylor is a neuroanatomist (brain doctor) who experienced first-hand what a failing brain feels like, living to tell the experiences of her stroke and how she recovered.  Here she speaks of recovery after losing her left brain functions (calculation, past/future, details, "brain chatter").

"One of the greatest lessons I learned was how to feel the physical component of emotion.  Joy was a feeling in my body.  Peace was a feeling in my body.  I thought it was interesting that I could feel when a new emotion was triggered.  I could feel new emotions flood through me and then release me.  I had to learn new words to label these "feeling" experiences, and most remarkably, I learned that I had the power to choose whether to hook into a feeling and prolong it in my body, or just let it quickly flow right out of me.

100+

What a delightful weekend - turned week - visit to the Atlantic. St. Augustine is a lovely city. It holds much of what I love about Savannah. My main purpose for visiting was accomplished in the first 15 minutes of my arrival: delivering items to the bro's new apartment. The secondary purpose wasn't revealed until I felt it was time to leave: a mental break from the rut and the routine.

I managed to meet a bunch of cool new people, get some burden-free alone time, and, believe it or not, actually get some work done. Finished my book, too; Born to Run. It took a while, with a few week-long dry spells here and there, but I slammed through the second half all at once. I good read for any level of runner, not just the unshod and ultra types. I also managed to get in a couple of runs in unfamiliar territory. Always a nice refresher as you really have no idea where you are going, or how far you are going. My last run was over 6 miles and felt like 3. Crazy.

When logging the run, I realized I had just crossed over 100 miles of running barefoot. More if you count all the Rowdy walks, but the counting is not what matters. If my past experimental endeavors where to bear any resemblance to this lifestyle change of going bare, then it wouldn't be out of the question to begin seeing it fade away. However, I am pretty sure this one is going to stick, as I see no need to go back. I enjoy running...again? (I think I liked it before).