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Hey Reader,

Thank you for opening my letter.

I'm in training mode currently as I am preparing to run the Stockholm Marathon on June 1st. This will be my fourth marathon. I ran my last one in 2019 in Scotland, just before the pandemic hit.

Training for marathons has taught me a great deal about how to live life well. It's difficult to do, isn't it? Life is messy and we are constantly bombarded, implicitly or explicitly, by messages from our environment.

We are told:

• What we lack and ought to want.
• What we need to look like.
• How we should feel or if we don't feel a certain way, something is wrong with us.

An average human being today is bombarded with more information in a single day than previous generations were in a whole life time.

It goes without saying that we need to protect ourselves, mindfully and intentionally, from the bombardment of info out there.

So, how do we live life well?

Here are some insights based on my marathon running training.

Insight #1: Detach yourself from the outcome

I usually have a goal of how fast I want to run a marathon. I set the goal, a specific goal. This year, my goal is to run the marathon sub 3.5 hours.

Once the goal is set, I forget about it. Instead of focusing on the outcome, I focus on the daily habits that I need to run well instead of focusing on the outcome.

You don't achieve your goals in life by focusing on the outcome.

You achieve your goals by falling in love with the process.

Then process of running everyday, running 70km every week. That is what's going to help me reach my end goal.

Perhaps I won't run sub 3.5 hours and that's okay. I'll adjust for next time. Stressing about the goal is not going to help me run faster.

It's the process that is going to help me get there.

Insight #2: Spending time alone is necessary for individuation

If you're constantly plugged in you won't be able to discover who you are.

I run alone, especially when I train for a marathon. I run in the forest and listen to the birds chirping away.

To discover yourself, to learn to love yourself, time alone is necessary. This became vividly clear to me when I was on my silent meditation retreat.

No phones, no interactions with the outer world, no inputs, only sitting with my own discomfort and listening to what's going on inside.

I can tell you this, I realized that most of what I thought I wanted was not truly of my own desire.

Childhood formation left me wanting and needing things I thought would fill me. But I realized I truly do not want those things.

With new insights, I could start to play around to discover who I was and am.

Insight #3: Life is much more fun when you do fartleks

Training for a marathon involves fartleks.

Fartlek is a Swedish word and English loan word. It literally means, speed play. You run at a slow pace and then for certain distances you speed up for a couple of hundred meters (or however long you want to) and then go back to normal running.

In the forest, I choose to speed up from tree to tree.

Running becomes fun.

Life is like that.

I work intensively for a certain amount of hours and then relax. I don't dread that I have to work tomorrow (even when I'm in a job I dislike).

Instead, I allow myself to be in the moment.

When I work, I work. When I relax, I relax.

Insight #4: Limitations of what you can do is in your head

I got into long-distance running approximately ten years ago.

Prior to that, the farthest distance I had ever run was 10km. I decided one day to run a route in the countryside that was 13km.

I got to the 11th km on my route, and there was a farm with a dog. The gate was open, and the dog approached me from afar.

Now, I was afraid of dogs. Especially dogs I do not know. I had two choices to make. Continue running the route and be home in less than 10 minutes or run the entire route back and avoid the dog.

It was cold and winter and there were heaps of snow everywhere. I actually considered crossing some farmland but the snow was way too high and it was cold outside.

I decided to run back.

I ran my first half marathon. 21km. Thanks to a dog.

I realized then that limits are in our heads. We all have limiting beliefs about what is possible and not possible.

These beliefs also come from our upbringing and surroundings. We are and have been bombarded, from childhood, of what we ought to do and ought to want.

We are bombarded with information from our environment about what is possible and what is not.

Now the human condition is such that it limits us.

You can't grow wings and fly tomorrow (I think).

But you can run a marathon. You can do much more than you think you can.

It took me a week to recover from that first haphazard half marathon.

I loved my pain. It was a reminder that I could press my limits and that I was able to do much more than I thought.

Life has become about expansion to me.

Insight #5: Life is messy, and it's supposed to be

Don't listen to the gurus who tell you that you can be happy all the time.

If life was only about being happy or joyful, it would be boring. But more importantly, it would not be a full life.

When you run a marathon, you go through heaven, hell, and everything in between.

One moment, you feel great, and in the next, you have aches somewhere, and in the next, the ache is gone, and your thoughts go haywire.

Life is messy. Embrace the mess and the suck, and allow yourself to feel all of it.

I've got some exciting news. I've been working on a project in recent months. I've been recording a podcast. I hope you listen. It's called Pathways.

I'll be talking with psychologists, entrepreneurs, creators, coaches, and poets about their paths in life.

My first episode will go live on Saturday.

I'll send you the links on Saturday. Check your mail!
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​If you want to book a discovery call with me, here's my calendly link that you can use.

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See you next week!

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