Lakeland 100 mile Ultra-marathon: My Psychological Experiences

Now guys I want to talk about some little psychological tips and tricks that have allowed me to experience such intense good feelings over the last three years, and are what I believe will REALLY be the keys to my success in this run…

So, I spoke before about moving to Lancaster and then went on to feel good for no reason etc… but when somebody says to you, you just have to learn to feel good, you just have to learn to get your head in the right state, bla bla bla. What exactly do they mean?

See I have learned over the last few years that the things inside your head can literally change your life instantly, but as soon as you stop doing the things in your mind that you were doing to feel that way, they instantly also, change back…

I am speaking from experience here, both from what I have learned from speaking to amazing people , to playing about in my own life… and you know what, I don’t think it always has to be trial and error. Ok take this for instance… your walking down a cold dark path through a little wooded area, and you hear a cracking in the forest floor behind you; your hairs instantly stand on end, trying to rationalize, you convince yourself rather poorly that it was probably just an animal… then suddenly the wind starts blowing, your cold and beginning to spook yourself out, suddenly that ghost at the end of the corridor where the boy in the Sixth Sense had his tent shows up, the ghost stories your dad used to tell you about seeing someone stood staring in front, etc, whatever it is that might creep you out, then the crack happens again, this time you start speeding up, then you convince yourself there might be someone chasing you, your too scared to look back, you think you hear a footstep!, now sprint! Ah, at last your out of the woods… but are you really. Because that mentality, towards life is a bad habit that you have got yourself in, however emphasized my idea may seem. If you unconsciously put those kinds of thoughts in your head, you’re always going to succumb to such kinds of things…

Now its ok to theorize, so long as I back up what im saying. I have personally found such things going off in my life, bad things used to happen in my home in Sheffield, and I used to find myself, no matter how good of a day I might have had, thinking bad thoughts as soon as I hit the long road I lived on… I used to do it without even sometimes realizing I was doing it, but I used to be arguing in my brain with my parents, it would be crystal clear, shouting, buts of spit rolling down the side of their face cause they’re shouting so loud. I would feel the hatred; I’d be sticking up for myself! Crazy you might say… and I don’t think it helps to tell someone it’s not real either, or tell yourself, it is! Because as long as you’re building up all those bad thoughts, you’re tensing, putting your body under stress, your giving out an atmosphere no matter whether such a thing can be proved or not; its real because you feel shit! And people can make themselves feel so bad, they would rather kill themselves than to go on living… they would rather die, than try to change… that is just a true fact that often happens! Why did I used to do this before we move on? Because it was a negative pattern of thought that I had learned very well without being consciously aware that I was always practicing. Ok that sounds vague to you? The stuff that used to go on in that house required me to have a hardened attitude to life, I was strong because I wouldn’t go down without a fight mentally, and in the end when I ‘did go down’, it was through my mind…

How can all this be related to my run? To my life? How can I turn this around, so that I can feel good for no reason, after all I learned to feel bad for no reason, because sometimes I would go in that house and they’d be no one in, so I made myself feel pants for no reason.

What I did when I cam to Lancaster, is I had my ‘enemy’ taken away… I wanted to feel so good, so bad, I did this portrait around the time I am speaking of. Ill let you work it out for yourselves. I saw smiling happy people, I wanted to feel like that. I learned, believe me I learned big time!!!

Heres my simplified process without going to the story of it all.

You wake up feeling numb, wanting to feel good. So what you do is you have to literally go out of your way to focus on the things that make you feel good. For me it was having my own food in the fridge! My own knives and forks! I had an amazing bed that was so comfy, so warm, I had a window I could open all the way so I could hang out of it and listen to those absolutely amazing sounds of the bell ringing that went off in the cathedral, where people would play with making different patterns etc, I’d think of myself looking out of this window in the 17^th century, people dressed in these old interesting items of clothing on the city square, pulling milk carts, laughing… you have to go out your way to feel good, deliberately, making yourself think things you enjoy and not even paying the slightest bit of attention to anything you dislike…

Eventually you start feeling better, but at first you really make it hard for yourself, constantly as soon as you switch off, slipping back into the negative mental rut you were in before, it taught me to be more conscious.

You go to sleep feeling that bit better. Then wake up, and then again, think of the things you enjoy, I would go out in the city center and smell the great Lancaster air, smells that I hadn’t smelled in years! I smelled a Twirl and was INSTANTLY little again, with the flake in my ice cream, the eggs at Easter, the smell… that smell, blew me away because it was a realization at how little I had sniffed over the last few years, when you starting living and thinking deliberately, choosing thoughts that ring to true to how you want to feel, surprises like this start appearing everywhere, so insignificant to someone else, but so massive for yourself. Now you’ve spent long choosing these thoughts, you just start to do it instinctively, it gets easier and easier, the more good thoughts you think of/ feel, the better you feel, the better you feel, the easier it gets.

You wake after another comfy night, you now feel lighter, good, for no reason, but wait, you can feel even better! Wow, how much I really love these photos I’m looking at, I had such a good time, you strangely seem to have separated the negative that might have gone on in your life and for maybe the first time you’re looking at the situation with a clear realization. Then honestly, I can vouch for this myself, THIS is where things begin getting ‘weird’? You will go out and strangely something might happen that seems… other worldly… a miracle? Maybe the perfect song came on at the right moment, you have been wanting something and it just appears right at your feet… once I went down the canal just for a nice ride on my bike. I had been wanting to hear some live music for a while, and suddenly I see this man (I didn’t quite realize this until I left him), he has a old guitar stuck to his back, a purple shirt, old shoes and ragged curly hair, I get closer and see he has dark circular sun glasses on held together all over the place with tape, a real interesting character!! I knew where I was going, I’d never been but im like a homing pigeon when it comes to finding my way around the country without any problems or maps!, but anyway, I decided to ask him for directions to galgate, I didn’t do much thinking, I didn’t think ooh I would like to talk to this guy, I know ill ask him blab la.. I just did it, and he told me, and I just got off my bike and started walking with him, uninvited… we started chatting, he was an AWESOME GUY. He gave me some of his music on cd, and before I knew it, we were having philosophical conversations and sat in the heat of the summer afternoon, beside the canal, ducks quacking, blue skies, golden fields behind me, hair whishing in the breeze, and there he was, playing music on his guitar… live music… ha-ha, he was awesome, very inspirational, he really felt what he was singing, and he his the strings with such passion, playing such songs as Dear Prudence by John Lennon… as we were leaving our separate ways, he said I had the biggest smile he’d ever seen and I should keep on, he thanked me for being such good company, off I went… I got directions, a cd, an amazing chat, warmed by the sun, offered drinks, told I had the biggest smile an be played to by his guitar… talk about inspirational!

I could honestly speak of such experiences all night but I have to get to my point ha-ha

When you choose your thoughts and live deliberately, life awakens, you realize how asleep you have been.

As my friend Dorian Iten says, never become dull!

Now back to running. I have found that I can have absolute feelings that are so intense that your body almost feels in orgasm, just by altering the way you think… you have to work out these things for yourself, but I tell you now! Its about simplifying and doing as I have mentioned above. I have found that its easier to get into such states when there is a mixture of music and images and feelings you put in your mind… do you ever find yourself flicking through songs, like, no, no, no, this one will do etc… that’s not the state. It is (I would say) then trying to fit the world to match you mood, but it’s not about that, you have to let go, and become the world! Alter the images in your head to the music.

Here are three examples that I want you to try, you only have to do it once with one song if you want. But do this… shut your eyes. You’re doing something worthwhile. Whatever that may be to you, making a cup of tea, rebuilding a motorbike, i.e (scrubbing up old parts ;) for me its running (that’s what I was doing). The song comes on and your there, for me, when Louis Armstrong’s playing, ill be there, in front of him! Today I was running down the road and I imagined him there in the back of a van, egging me on, laughing and playing La Vie en Rose out the back of the truck, you hear the music rebounding off the streets, you feel the music, the vibe. I would usually imagine being there at one of those old 40’s bars where they would play. With Oasis I’m always one of the band members, bashing the drums, I feel the sticks in my hand, the weather is always very windy, making my hair go wild, feeling it all over my body, adrenaline pumping as you sing the song, band members winking at you, the audience going wild for you! Screaming, you laugh inside, this is awesome!.

try this one, imagine riding away from the police on a mountain bike ha, ha, jumping down steps, skidding round corners ha ha, not something i've done but we can imagine how exciting it might be haha, feel your pulse rise, adrenaline ha, weaving round the corners, fast pedalling

try it with what ever! all are good exercises!

Or you can run down a quite road in the middle of the pitch black and imagine I’ve got my baby sister with me, holding my hand and trying her hardest to keep up with my slow pace but big steps. The determination in her face, the funny half proud smile as you look down at her and she’s please with herself… making you psychology work for you, be like grass, bending in the strongest winds. That can b a unintended castoff sometimes also, that you realise how much you love the people in your life, and they’re not even there!!!

I’m gonna stop now, before my fingers fall of ha-ha.

Hope you have enjoyed

wes

Lakeland 100 mile Ultra-marathon

Friday, 11 February 2011

My Psychological Experiences

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