In the last post -- last week -- I started to discuss the two blog posts that I wrote over the last month (here and here). Specifically, what kind of effect that the writing and reading process had on my own mental health. Last week, I spoke about realizing the onset of physiological effects of stress and the need to be able to identify them. I find myself more in tune with identifying stress and the onset inside my body. The process is a work in progress. Although, after listening to the talks and reading the posts to write the first post, I have learned the broad signs of stress emerging within myself. This realization is great thus far. I have been able to utilize the stress in a constructive way -- which is to say -- channel that physiological response in a positive way rather than let the effect degrade my body. Next, of course, is the ability to control the mind. Here, to control mental dialogue is critical. The underlying assumption is that "where the mind leads the body follows."
With this being said, recently, as in last weekend, I was challenged by events to see if my actions prevailed. What do I mean by this? Read onto find out.
Last weekend, Kayla and I took a trip down to the beach with our bicycles on board the Metrolink train. Here are a couple of pictures to set the stage for the challenge that awaited us near the end of the trip:
On the train...
Riding by the ocean ...
Looks great right? The weekend was filled with bicycle riding while staying around Disneyland in order to celebrate my mother's birthday. Again, sounds great right?
Everything went well -- which fed into our new lifestyle of engaging in "active transportation" and elevating our health and wellness by changing our lifestyle. New is a relative term since we have been living like this for the last 3 years. Although, during this time, we have been optimizing the process of completely living by engaging in active transportation modes when possible. This last weekend was one such event where the possibility existed.
Engaging in active transportation has definitely improved our lives by reducing stressors associated with the process of commuting by car in traffic. Additionally, the elevate in health has as a result has translated to other areas of life too -- which is wonderful. As humans, we are fallible though. Improving my life has been a continuous process as described in previous posts on this site and others. I enjoy learning.
As I explained briefly above, control over your mind is critical in order to control how a person deals with stress. I have been working on utilizing stress when it arises. An example is when I feel stressed at home and cannot concentrate on reading or watching tv, I get up and start cleaning. This action helps me tremendously drain whatever stress that I am feeling. If not, I continue to work on other areas of need in my life at home. But what happens when I am away on a trip (vacation) or at work?
I said above that we went away for the weekend. There are a couple of pictures showing our trip. What I did not tell you was that I found myself challenged at one point on our trip. This challenge really resulted in the need to revisit the values and lessons that I have been discussing and writing/reading about lately. Let me tell you about that experience and the ultimate outcome.
Traveling Home By Train and Bicycle:
On Sunday, we arrived at the train station to board a train within the hour. What we found was notices on the "message board" stating "Metrolink Train 663 will be cancelled due to gas leak...please take Amtrak Train 777 and bus to LA Union Station." I was surprised at the confusing notice. Next came another message stating "Alert: due to gas leak between Norwalk station and LA Union Station, ALL TRAINS will be CANCELLED." I was really confused. We sat at the station listening to confusing and mixed messages.
Kayla suggested that we just ride our bicycles back home -- which was 50 miles away. What? I told her she was crazy -- at least not yet. Finally, after an hour, I convinced myself that we would indeed have to bicycle back 50 miles. I was pissed off to say the least. But I only spent an hour in disbelief. That was too much time spent worrying rather than just riding.
To back up briefly, on the ride down to the hotel earlier that weekend, I was explaining to Kayla that I had recently gone through these changes in my thinking. I was proud to have found these new methods to change my mental dialogue. This was a side not that I needed to share with you before proceeding with the story.
Now, here I am riding a bicycle in the heat with a dog on the front and luggage in the back -- ticked off at having to ride 50 miles. I started to calm down as I accepted that not very many other options existed that did not entail staying in a hotel room. But, as I explained above, using the stress to turn the pedals helped me be productive and calmed me down. Later in the ride -- down the bicycle path -- I thought that the track was only one of a few that was shut down due to a gas leak. Metrolink has more than one line or track. Maybe we could ride to another line and catch that line to our house?
At the next rest stop, I looked up the schedule which stated that two other trains were available that were 25 miles away. Alright, if we biked 25 miles in time, we could cut out 15 miles of bicycle riding. Sounds better than riding the entire way. So, we started heading toward the next station.
As we were riding, the pain was setting in and I was trying not to concentrate on that aspect of the riding. Therefore, I started a conversation by asking Kayla the following question:
What is your mental dialogue like right now?
She stated that she had to admit that even with our previous discoveries about mental awareness, the dialogue was extremely negative. In fact, over the last hour she had been trying to come up with a positive aspect or angle by which to spin the situation in her mind to trick it into being happy. Well, as we discussed more about both of our mindsets, we arrived at two positive points:
1) We were lucky to be alive with the recent tragedy that hit Orlando Florida with the shootings the previous night.
2) We were lucky to have the opportunity to train more for next weekend's ride.
Next weekend we are going to ride 70 miles with a group of riders. The group will ride fast. And we have not been training. Although, the toughest part of rides for us is to sit on the bicycle seat for that long (5-7 hours). This was the perfect opportunity to train for that even. Again, we were lucky.
Upon arrival at the next station, we thanked our lucky stars for the ability to make it there. Now, in hindsight, I would say that what got us to the station by bicycle was the ability to look around the bicycle path and be thankful while accepting the beauty around us and change our mindset. Change the mental dialogue in my mind? Yep, go back to what I was writing/thinking about. Here is a picture from the bicycle path:
Changing our mental dialogue from a negative one toward a positive dialogue made all the difference in the world. Yes, we were supposed to arrive home at 2 pm without disruption. Instead, we had a chance to spend time training our rear ends to sit in the saddle of the bicycle seat. We arrived home instead at 9:30 pm at night. WOW.
Another therapeutic aspect about riding public transportation is that the control is out of your control. Although, having a bicycle present allowed us local control to have the ability to ride 35 miles toward the next train line coming from the East toward LA Union Station. A bicycle made an enormous difference in the process of getting back home. Had we not had those bicycles, we would have had to hire a taxi cab service. Instead, we got to spend time in the sun with eachother elevating our health. What a great day.
I hope that you find the ability to change the mental dialogue in your mind from a negative one to a positive one. Until next time, have a great day.