3 Principles of “Running Meditation”

There’s sitting meditation. There’s walking meditation. But what about running meditation?

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

I laced up my running shoes as mortars fell with a soft thud and lit the sky like lightning way off in the distance.

Every night, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d run around our patrol base through the dark of the night, feel the heat radiating off the sand, the dull hum of generators in the distance, and the sweet smell of diesel and sewage.

I’d run through the glow of the buzzing street lights, along the Hesco barriers, and up the ridge that formed the Northern wall, knowing that the risk of snipers was low because it was dark but still non-zero.

And in those moments, right in the middle of a war, I found peace. That’s when I fell in love with running. But it wasn’t until this past summer, ten years later, that I found out why.

Running as Stress Relief

I was in the process of selling my business. And at any moment, the deal could have fallen apart. Every buzz of my phone felt like impending doom. Every text message, before it was opened, was a Schrodinger’s Cat of disaster waiting to happen.

Every morning I’d wake up and go into work. I’d only get a couple hours in…