Self Improvement Through the Spiritual Practice of You

The Spiritual Practice of You 

September is Self-Improvement Month 

YOU 

If you are reading this right now, pause and meditate on these words: “YOU are God’s Beloved.” “YOU are wanted.” “YOU are loved.” Now if you are in a place emotionally or mentally where this does not feel true, then change the word YOU to I and use this a trailing mantra: I am wanted, I am, I. When you come to the I, understand that that is you that you are talking about.  Self Improvement starts with you. 

Self Help Month 

September is self-help month, and I would like to offer my reflections on how we can better ourselves on the path of becoming. We are all a work in progress. When we engage in thinking about ourselves as a spiritual practice, it challenges us to see ourselves as God sees us, as beloved children of God. Also, co-creators of all that exists, in union with God.  

I am getting ready to teach an introduction to Philosophy course in October and going through old notes and listening to new material to get ready. I was recently spending time with the Stoics and sometimes overlooked Cynics. We are probably fairly familiar with the Stoics right now with the names Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus household names. We are less familiar with Diogenes. Cynics believed in living in accord with nature and opposing conventions. Their major tenets were freedom and parrhesia (free and candid speech) and training and toughness. For the sake of self-help, I want to take a moment to look at Cynical toughness and training. 

Train like a Cynic 

To be a cynic, one had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. One had to accept and engage with a life punctuated with challenges. I have made it a life goal to engage in hard experiences . For the cynics, a life of askesis or a life of constant training was their life mission. Diogenes, who I mentioned above believed that the ability to live without the luxuries of what we think we need can be liberating and beneficial.  

I have studied contemplation and meditation for all my adult life thus far and you will see this askesis notion punctuated throughout the different monastic traditions. We do not have to go to the extreme measures to model a cynic’s lifestyle to incorporate some of their values in our lives. In Cynicism, we see a thread that reappears in Buddhism, we suffer because we cling. If we can cultivate less reliance on the things around us and the expectations of others and ourselves, we will suffer less. Next week, I will look at Aristotle’s Golden Mean. We need to look at the middle road of Cynic thought. For example, the cynics believed that leisure is the most enviable thing of all. But too much pleasure leads us to hedonism and not enough pleasure can lead to despair, depression and loneliness. The trick here is have what you need and want what you have. The cynic training here is understand that the fewer wants you train yourself to have, the more likely it is you will find satisfaction in life.  

A Race Report 

All this brings me to last weekend. I did another 25k race. An easy one comparatively and one that I have completed several times at the 50k and 25k distances. But then there is thing I am dealing with around long covid. While I was not as ready as I wanted to be, I still had several ten plus mile runs under my belt going into this event. I am almost at five hundred miles of running for the year, almost one hundred miles ahead of plan over last year. Prior to having COVID, I did one thousand miles of running a year for about ten years.  

I arrived in Youngstown, Ohio for the Youngstown Ultra Trail Classic to light rain, but sunny skies. This would be the twentieth running of this event. My mind was ready, my legs were ready, but all the weird pre race COVID things that seem to happen were all there. After I cleared that all up and got squared away, I collected my bib, filled my water bottle and walked over to the start to watch the 50k runners start. Then I went back to my car to mingle with some friends and warm up. Then it was time for the 25k. To say I love this race would be an understatement. Millcreek Park is a Victorian era park much like many of the parks in the Cleveland metro area Emerald Necklace. It is beautiful and relaxing to run through. Unless long COVID issues keep breathing and heart rate regulation a problem.  

From the start of the event, breathing issues were a problem and by mile eight, I was struggling to maintain my heart rate, jumping as high as 191 bpm. Ultimately, this would slow me down on the back half of the course as I needed to walk to recover my breathing and heart rate. I would finish about nine minutes slower than my previous 25ks on this course.  

This race was a practice in self-talk, mindful awareness and acceptance. The 2024 season has continued to be a sobering reality that my pre COVID endurance days are truly past me. While I recovered well from the event, the event itself was a practice in patience and letting go of expectations and letting the moments arise as they come.  

You may be in a similar boat with either your physical health or mental health.  I mentioned at the beginning that we are all on the path of becoming. Regardless of if I got COVID or not, at some point all of this was going to have to end. Despite my well-meaning daughter telling me that I am just getting old, I do have to accept that I was not going to stay in my peak 30’s forever. But I am also not giving up, and neither should you.  

What the Cynics, the early Greek philosophers, Buddhist and Western monastics can all teach us is to let go of our expectations. To lean into focusing on living and let our living inform our being and our becoming.