The Zone
‘The Zone’ is a term often used in sport… ‘Being in the zone’, refers to a feeling of flow, of being so completely absorbed in what one is doing as to become the activity or expression…
So much so that self disappears and the experience of flow is total and there is no thought. It is almost as if it is just happening…
The human experience often blocks this feeling, the mind gets in the way. Thinking happens and instead of the creative flow coming from the soul, the mind takes over to try and make things happen…
As human beings we often try and do things to bring us the chimeras of status, success, recognition, believing this will bring us happiness.
But the moment we recognise them as the distractions they are, we can let go, and go with the flow. We can drop between the thoughts into the space, consciousness itself, creativity itself and allow our true expression to emerge in the flow of us in motion, our soul in motion…
When we experience this feeling of flow, we recognise that true freedom and happiness exist within us already…
All we need to do is clear the blocks that prevent us experiencing this, and free ourselves from the myth that happiness exists outside us in the form of our experiences…
It is the other way round… Our experiences as an expression of our soul, show us how to live life as a meditation, so that every moment we are in the flow…
Running can be a ‘hard sport ‘- each step requires the effort of lifting myself off the ground, attempting to fly….
The heaviness of thought can keep the movement just that, hard, difficult, tiring….
But I have experienced lightness, freedom, fluid motion….
Fast running feeling like jogging…. In the zone, flying on land, going with the flow….
On top of the pace, on top of the pain….
A spiritual experience in human form….
One such glimpse of immortality happened many years ago on a cold day in February… I was in Woking in the UK… There was even the presence of sleet and hail as the gun fired, and the body of folk running this particular race tore off down the road, around a corner and onward for ten wintry miles….
And something happened to me that day, on grey wet Tarmac on a grey day, wearing grey running tights and a navy blue long sleeved winter running top… I flew on land and I – I who thought I was Julia – wasn’t there, my body ran and let my soul direct its course…
It felt easy, joyous, each step light and the miles went by and I ran that day faster over ten miles than I ever had before, and it felt so easy, no effort…
I glimpsed eternity, I glimpsed the truth of our nature and that we are all one and that there is limitless flow, limitless energy….
All we need do is let go…
I have been running all of my life – it feels I was born to run. In the running step I experienced freedom and my true expression. I came to see that I needed to ‘get out of the way of myself’ and let my energy flow through the running step; allow it to express itself in the dance and the motion of running. I ran for England and GB for some years. My first international was in 1979, a three mile cross country race; and I continued to run at international level until 1993. Two of my best results were first place in the Dublin City Marathon in 1985 and 7th place woman, 3rd British woman in the 1986 London Marathon in a time of 2.36.31, which gained me selection for the Commonwealth Games.
Mobile: +44 (0) 7866 396 233
