Share your positive running pictures!
We want to see your positive running pictures, and we bet that everyone else does too! Send them to us, share them on our Facebook page, or just tag us on your positive running moments when you share them on social media with #positiverunningmovement. In the meantime, here is a very positive picture to whet your appetite!

(Picture credit Lucid Images.)
Happiness is an emotion that is universally understood, and shared. A simple smile shared with anyone, in any place, at any time, can light up someone's life. I had a chance meeting with a mountain biker on a local trail this morning - a bright and cheery "good morning" to him, brought a response that I loved:
"I've never had a bad day in my life."
I told him I loved his attitude, and he said that he would will the saying to me, so I thought I would take him up on his offer. I bet like all of us, he has had challenges and yet here he was, biking on this beautiful trail in the middle of nature, having a good day, and being open to every day being a good day.

I have nearly finished reading a wonderful book called "Lessons of a Lakota" by Billy Mills with Nicholas Sparks. The book is a young man's journey to happiness and self-understanding, where he learns to leave despair behind, and gains wisdoms that help him realize happiness.

One quote in the book struck a chord for me:
'Happiness will reduce stress in your life because you can adjust to any problems in a positive way. This in turn makes you physically healthier.....Happiness makes you work positively to to improve your situation. Happiness also creates enthusiasm, which provides additional energy in everything you do. If you combine this enthusiasm with desire, faith, and persistence, you'll have a way to reach your personal goals no matter what they are. In total, if you're happy, everything in your life is improved. Happiness is both the beginning and end of all the goals you have in your life. And most important, it's the most wonderful feeling in the world."
The book goes on to list why it's important to be happy, as when you are happy:

• you feel good. You feel joy, peace, cheer and contentment.
• you are pleased with who you are and what you do.
• people enjoy being around you.
• you have higher self-esteem.
• your life is improved physically.
• you can more easily solve any problems that may arise.
• you have additional energy.
• your life is improved in every way.

One factor that most of us as runners struggle with at times is learning to be happy with what we are doing right now. So often our ego is wanting us to be faster, stronger, and not happy with where we are at this moment. We put off being happy until we hit a certain pace, or distance, or both....yet this internal struggle is one that is doomed to failure, as we are always putting off finding happiness in what we do.
In Lessons of a Lakota, Billy Mills shares the sequence of happiness that the young man learns from a wise elder, and Mother Earth. The sequence is simple, and yet powerful, and here are the steps to take:

1. Meditate three times each and every day
2. Think about something that makes you happy
3. Tell yourself that you are happy

Follow these three steps and you will find the path to happiness that will hep you appreciate that you can be happy with exactly where you are, and that your life and your running will change from learning to be happy.

One of the services we can provide is an interview to highlight ways that you can introduce greater happiness into your life, and your running. Contact us to find out more.

Guided imagery is a gentle yet powerful technique that focuses and directs the imagination. An imagery session involves all the senses, and mobilizes unconscious and pre-conscious processes to deliver conscious goals. As a listener, you are empowered to use your own imagination to create a detailed, complete experience to move you towards a goal that you have determined.

A session can involve visual, auditory & kinesthetic (movement or physical feelings) imagery. When you use your imagination in a directed way, you create neural patterns and connections in the brain, in exactly the same way that you use drills to improve your running form, and create new neural pathways to your muscles.

Your mind is one of your greatest assets, and yet it is also one that very few athletes pay much attention to.  Mental training is at least as important as physical training, and should be part of a daily training regimen for all athletes, regardless of pace level or ability. The daily sessions contained in activacuity™ provide a mechanism to train the mind, develop new neural pathways with a positive focus, and result in enhanced focus, confidence and performance for all athletes. Use activacuity™ on a daily basis, and create a positive support system for your physical training and performances.

activacuity® for enhanced focus, confidence, spirit, athletic experience & performance for all athletes