Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #158 BITESIZE | How To Use Running as a Tool to Transform Your Life | Sanjay Rawal

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

When we think about running, we often think of it as a way to lose weight or stay healthy - but running can be so much more than that. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my new weekly podcast for your mind, body and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 79 of the podcast with Sanjay Rawal - a documentary maker who directed the brilliant film ‘3100: Run and Become’. Sanjay believes that if you approach running with the right mindset it can become a tool to transform your life. He describes how his experience of running with the Navajo tribe changed his perspective and made him realise that running could be transformative.  The benefits to be gained from mindful running, walking and movement are available to us all and Sanjay explains how to run more mindfully for a totally different experience. If you’ve never tried running, or you feel discouraged, Sanjay also gives some great tips on how to get started and find joy in mindful movement. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/79 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. 

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10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More, bite-sized your weekly dose of optimism and positivity to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 79 of the podcast with Sanjay Rawal, a documentary maker who directed the brilliant film 3100 Run and Become. When we think about running, we often think of it as a way to lose weight or stay healthy. But running can be so much more than that. If you approach running with the right mindset, it can become a tool to transform your life as Sanjay first experienced when he ran with the Navajo.

I ran competitively in high school, a little bit in college and thereafter, but it wasn't until I started making this movie in 2015 and went for a run with our Navajo character, Sean Martin, that I realized like I was missing something from running. Even though I'd studied with Sri Chinmoy who recommended this type of running, it's like I just never sunk in. What we threw that, you went out for a run. Yeah, so we're leaving his front doorstep. And first of all, he tells me like,

we start running in the morning towards the east to greet the rising sun. And I was like, I've never started a run with that type of intention or that type of relationship with nature. Even when I run at the Grand Canyon, it's like, how fast can I get to the bottom and come back up? It's like, no, it's like we start running to the east to greet the rising sun. I was waiting for my GPS watch to go. And I realized like this guy who's like a top ranked ultra marathoner doesn't even have a watch on. And so I take off after him and I realized as he's running and as he's breathing, he's got a different look in his eyes. And I realized afterwards what that look was, that he understood that this particular run could be transformative.

Not like the heavens would open up and like all the angels would come down, but like if you go into a morning meditation thinking that it's a good thing and that if you achieve a small sense or small moment of silence, your day is going to be better. You open yourself up to having that small moment of silence. If in a morning contemplative practice, like you're literally just like thinking about breakfast, you know that nothing's going to happen and that it's not going to be a transformative experience. So it's like he started this run with a loose and soft mind. And it was evident in the way he was moving. He wasn't worried about time.

He wasn't worried about distance. He was just worried about his breath. And he later told me there are three reasons why Navajo run. Number one, running is a celebration of life. It's kind of easy to feel when you're running in a canyon. Maybe not so easy when you're running on a street, but point taken. Number two, running as a teacher. If you're going through a really difficult patch, we all know that if you've got the

inspiration to go for a walk or go for a run, the problem doesn't necessarily get solved, but it becomes less intense. There's no reason to analyze why, but it just does. Go for a long walk, go for a long run. You're going to feel better about what's going on in your life. But number three, he said running is a prayer. When you run, your feet are praying to Mother Earth. You're breathing in Father Sky. You're not only asking them for their blessings, you're showing them that you're willing to work for those blessings.

And that's running as aspiration. That's running as a cry saying that I'm an insignificant human being and I understand that there's greater forces around me that can feed me in my journey to achieve something beyond me, something deeper, something more significant than what I can conjure on my own. And I saw that with Sean when he ran. And when he finished, it wasn't like he was stopping his GPS watch, looking through his stats, unplugging his iPod or iPhone. He had a sense of calm that I never really achieved in running. And it wasn't like he started with that calm, but I could see that he achieved something through that run. And I was

step for step with him. I didn't have a phone. My GPS watch wasn't working. But after the run, I realized he got more out of that than I did. Like, why? We ran the same pathway. It was maybe even more exotic for me because it was the first time running in the Sacred Canyon. I should be feeling better than him. I should just be totally blown away. Like, what did I not do? And then afterwards, when he was explaining to me the Navajo philosophy of running, I realized it was simple. I didn't recognize that this run could change my perception of myself. I just didn't know. No harm, no foul, but I just didn't know. And now I know that if I want running to make me a better person and not just a faster

person, it can do that because it always has i just find that so inspiring the way you just describe what they get out of running in fact in many ways calling what they do running and what we the collectors sort of we in the west do as running almost feels as though this should be a different term because yes you're're moving your feet on the earth, but it feels like a completely different experience to the point where we probably need a different word for it. By changing one's mindset, I think one can get a lot more out of running. Instead of looking at running for performance, running for miles, running for body shape, running for burning calories, looking at running as a pathway to

transformation. I mean, running will get you any of those previous examples that I mentioned. It's like, if you want to lose weight, running will do that for you. If you want to look better and feel better, running will do that for you. But if you want to get closer to God, running will do that for you. The question is like, how many of us look at running as that kind of tool, as a way to get into our innermost self and performance as a way to achieve self-transcendence, the idea of going beyond your personal limitations. So if you happen to win a race, great. But if you happen to become a better person, to learn about yourself, even better. And so the prescription for running as an act of transformation requires being soft

between your ears, learning how to connect with your heartbeat, learning how to connect with your spiritual heart, and letting those energies drive your run rather than your GPS watch, rather than thinking about what you're going to eat or what you're going to do afterwards, rather than even listening to music and having some external source pump you up for three, four minutes at a time. If you strip away what's between your ears, you end up having a naturally beautiful experience because running or walking or moving with our feet when done with the right intention is one of the most natural things out there. Yeah, so powerful. So it has such potential to be transformative if we reframe the narrative around running,

around walking. I always like to leave the listener with some tips, something that hopefully is going to inspire them and something that they can start putting into practice into their own life immediately to improve the way that they feel. I'd love you to have in mind that person who might be listening to this podcast who thinks, you know, I would love to get more active, but I don't. I don't do anything. I find it a struggle to get off the sofa. You know, I love hearing these stories. It's inspiring, but I don't know how to take that first step. If it comes to trying to motivate yourself to get out the door, literally start small. Like don't have a prescribed goal in mind. And that's the idea of running soft, moving soft.

If you have a struggle getting out the door, it's like walk down the block, do one lap of your block, you know, once or twice a day for five days. And you'll build on that, not based on your own desire for doing more distance, but your desire to have a deeper and more freeing experience. I think that's where it always starts. It's not so much hammering through suffering to get to a certain amount of miles or a certain number of hours each week, but it's like you increase your capacity based on how much you're enjoying an activity. So if you can focus on the enjoyment first and rather than the destination or the goal of walking or running 5k or 10k or 20 minutes or 50 minutes.

That's the best start ever. Exertion is immaterial if you can't find joy through it. Finding joy through exertion is a secret in human life. It's a secret both in the physical life and in the spiritual life. Finding joy in those very, very difficult moments takes practice, but people have achieved it and have enjoyed it for hundreds of thousands of years. And I think we all can share in that experience. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Please do spread the love by sharing this episode with your

friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the full conversation with my guest. And if you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my new bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it at drchastity.com forward slash Friday five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversational Wednesday

and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.