( MEP ) Post-Race Depression, Instagram & What is Meditation?
Post Ironman 70.3 Depression
What a comedown… I’ve been meaning to do a full solo podcast about this experience but dealing with a lot of resistance as the last month has been incredibly challenging physically and emotionally. Going into the race on April 2nd I was actually feeling better than I had in years holistically but within a couple days of the race I was in a dark place and suffering quite a bit. I dug the hole for myself over a few days and then stopped, crawled out a little and then dug a couple more feet. This went on for a couple weeks. I felt emotionally and physically wiped out after the race and the whole build up to it, a lot more emotionally than I had expected and it’s been hard to navigate. I am fortunate that I have built good routine around food, sleep, meditation and have a great partner and therapist to support me, otherwise I can imagine it would have been even darker. I am happy to feel a lot better today as I write this, and plan to share more depth about this journey and the race in an upcoming solo episode, and how I was feeling so high before the drop off as well.
Mindful Endurance Program Instagram
Is now live and rolling, having taken over from Into the Well. It’s the second time I’ve changed this account in the last 10 years and it’s a strange process. On one hand there is a lot of excitement of the new vision coming to life but also the pressure to deliver… something? But who knows what? How to engage, what content is the right content, making it look nice and hopefully worth following. I’m trying to be patient and gentle but so far I feel at the very least, it looks nice. Hope you’ll follow along here.
What is Meditation?
Quite a question and I’m still in the midst of pondering it myself. There are many schools, many linages, teachers teaching their own versions of altered methods, so how are we to know what’s the right one for us? Personally I’ve tried a number of methods over the last five years from Vipassena to TM to Joe Dispenza and many in between. Recently I’ve been diving deeper into Nei Gong and Daoist internal arts through the teaching of Damo Mitchell, he and Adam Mizner talk about meditation as not actually being the practice but the unified state that we can achieve, and so everything before that is not meditation. I’m not sure I completely agree but I also have very limited experience relatively so I am trying to keep an open mind and body. While the meditation cross-training has served me well the last few years I’ve finally decided to commit to Damo’s school and Nei Gong which covers 5 years in his online school. I’m 3 weeks in, so a couple to go but I finally feel ready and willing to commit and dig one deep hole.
This week’s MEP compendium ♾ ♾
🔊 Michael Singer is great, all of his books but also his new podcast and specially Episode 2: Stages of the Spiritual Path: A Continuum of Letting Go, I listed to it two times in a row and probably need another ( Link )
Myodetox has been a great resource for me the last couple years and they’re now offering Run Analysis in all of their locations, which seem to be opening every other month ( Link )
💧 I find these video captures of water visual cymatics for different vibrations incredible and a reminder of the wisdom of sound ( Link )
📸 Really love these photos by Jojo Harper from Paris-Roubaix ( Link )
Are you going to watch the Ironman World Championship this weekend? It’s the first one since I got into the sport so I will be 🏊🏼 🚴🏼 🏃🏽 ( Link )
📖 I’ve been listening to What I Talk about When I Talk about Running after over six years since reading it, and it’s been well worth diving back in. It’s also free if you have Audible ( Link )
I just got these new 2xu Motion Compression Shorts and they’ve already become my favorites, I’ve worn them three times in a row, with one wash ( Link )
The MEP Cycling Retreat is less than two months away and still have some spots available for this transformative journey using bikes, meditation, breathwork and connection as a way to grow, explore and experience.