“Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you.”

-Eckhart Tolle

We live up on a hill here in Honolulu. What is absolutely beautiful about it is that we have breathtaking views of the ocean. What is not so nice is that if you want to go out for a little 30 minute walk, it’s never leisurely. Well, it’s leisurely in one direction and a punishment the other way. The slope of our hill is quite deep. It’s like a stairmaster on steroids. If I don’t get a run in, I try to walk to the bottom of the hill and back up again. It takes about an hour and it is a very good work out. I can also do a mini loop that takes about 30 minutes and I try to do that one when I want my girls to go along with me. The mini loop goes by avocado and banana trees. There are also lime trees and signs encouraging the neighbors to pick whatever fruits they like. It also goes by the house of our great friends who have kids the same age as ours. When we get to their house, we say: Aloha! They come to their Lanai (balcony) and we chat a la social distancing for a bit and then finish our loop. 

It really is super fun, except my younger daughter will give you 20 excuses not to do this little walk with me. It matters to me that they get some physical activity during times of COVID so I keep bribing her with things she wants to do later.  A little Mochi ice cream here. A little Gilmore Girls show there.

She also always tells me that I am walking too fast. It is hard for her to keep up. This is not the case, but I am also not just strolling about. It’s 6:45 in the morning and I need to get back home, shower and head to work. So today I tried to tell her what I learned when I was training for my first Marathon. 

We lived in Sacramento at the time and most running trails are pretty flat. When you do miles and miles of running, and if you have had very little hill training, running up anything with any slope feels unbearable. Your thighs start burning and your lungs don’t seem to handle the air exchange. 

I was running with a group of runners at the time and we had a coach. When we would get to the hills, and he would yell:

“Big Arms. Little Feet!”.

The idea being, instead of having the same cadence and pace, you try to run with your arms instead of your feet: Arms with exaggerated motion and sparing your legs buy taking little baby steps. It sounds crazy but it works. It makes no sense that you could in theory run with your arms instead of your feet, but going up a hill with that little change in your body dynamic works out perfectly. 

I have yelled this nugget of knowledge at my daughter’s classmates running up hills during their little cross country races and the expression on their face as they hear it for the first time and try it is priceless.

This morning on our little hill hike I said that to my younger daughter and for once she listened and actually agreed that it helped her keep up with me.

This made me think of how we go up hills in our lives.

Sometimes when life gets hard, we try to keep up with the difficulty by trying harder. It seems like a good idea at the time, and somehow logical that it should work. 

But I promise you that at those times, you have to think about what is happening in your life in a whole different way to get results. You need to pivot. I think the pivot in this story is trying to come from a place of centeredness and mindfulness looking at a bigger picture and not every single thought that’s dragging you down. 

When we get hurt, our very first instant reaction stemming from our primitive brain is to hurt back. 

Hurt people hurt people.

What if you used your big arms instead? To get yourself out of a situation where you think you must use your over stressed feet. I promise you if you use your tired legs, you won’t go far and you’ll burn out and quit.

But what if you used your arms instead?

What if you thought of your mind in a way that controlled how you moved forward? How you navigate the difficulty thrown at you. To know that your big brain can decide what you should or shouldn’t react to and in that awareness you can move past any obstacle. 

Without any self-judgment, shame or anger. 

Just awareness of what you can and cannot control and deciding how you’ll react to the situation so you can get through it with a fresh perspective. 

One in which you will have total peace.

Use your big mindful brain to move you through life instead of your individual little primitive thoughts. 

Try it next time you are flustered, it works. Also, next time you’re on a run and you’ll see a hill: Don’t look up. Look down and say: 

“Big Arms. Little Feet”

And enjoy the shift in your body and the pace and experience the ease it provides for you.

So much love to all of you