PODCAST - What Running with My Dog Taught Me About Being Fully Present
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
Every morning, my dog and I head out for a run. She doesn't care where we're going. She doesn't care how [00:01:00] far she's just there completely in the moment. Well, today on the show, I'm gonna share ~with you ~what running with my dog every single morning has taught me about presence in my life.
My dog, Sniktau is the most present being that I interact with ~on a ~daily ~basis. ~My fiance and I, ~we ~do a lot of things to cultivate presence, and we are very present with each other. I just feel like dogs innately are present. Her name is Sniktau, S-N-I-K-T-A-U. She is an ~Aussie doodle. Very cute ~Aussie Doodle.
She runs, ~gosh, ~20 to 30 miles a week with me, and she's present for every single mile. You know, her tail's always wagging, excited just to be outside. Well, for the longest time I would just, you know, put on my headphones and listen to a podcast, listen to a book, or listen to music. Okay. [00:02:00] Now I rarely listen to music while running.
I ~do ~like to listen to podcasts like this one. I even listen to this podcast and I do like to listen to audio books just to become a better person. Regardless, ~no matter what ~in every ~single ~run, ~if I'm listening to something or not, ~I ~make sure to ~look over and see what Sniktau is doing. ~I do this throughout the run.~
It grounds me. ~It brings me back into the moment ~and brings me present into the joy she's experiencing, and that brings joy to me as well.
Here's what a run typically looks like for Sniktau Tail wagging.
Sniffing around, sniffing everything. That's how they experience the world. ~And she literally sniffs everything because she's fully immersed in the world. ~She ~even ~tries to grab sticks ~and ~leaves ~and ~grass ~and all these things. We'll say grabbing sticks, ~and I swear she's smiling. ~The whole time. ~She is just joyful overall, ~me or humans.~
This is typically what a run looks like for me, at least before I started really putting presence in the forefront, analyzing the [00:03:00] past,
thinking about future goals.
Focused on pace,
performance
progress, just numbers in general
and ~like I. And then a lot of times listen, ~then a lot of times listening to music, podcasts and books. This is very different. The biggest different is she's in the moment, she's in the present, and I'm in the past present. And future ~because yes, I do find myself in the present. I mean, technically ~when I'm tracking my pace ~that is tracking what's happening in the present, when I'm tracking my ~performance, ~maybe my ~heart rate, ~my other numbers, ~I'm tracking ~what's happening in ~the present.
I'm technically listening to a podcast ~or a book ~or music in the present. But I'm not experiencing the present. I might be focused on the present, but I'm not experiencing the present. Now I know that if ~s ~Sniktau could listen to podcasts, she would listen to this podcast while running. I know that, and there's so many podcasts and audio books that I love to listen to ~and really I, and really ~combining that with the endorphin release and doing something healthy for myself. I'm not gonna [00:04:00] take that away from myself, ~but.~
With that being said, I know the power of being fully present. ~'cause I see the joy exuding out of this beautiful creature. So when I am fully present, so when I run, I make sure that some of my runs. So ~when I run, I make sure ~that ~I cultivate presence in the moment outside of my headphones ~and ~inside of nature, and ~experiencing the moment ~with my dog.
~And what I find is I feel connected. And ~I feel connected in so many ~different ~ways. This is why substances like alcohol are so bad because it takes the connection out. It takes the presence out of the moment. ~You are literally not, you may think you're more present, ~you may think ~that ~you're more present, but ~you know how ~you forget what's going on and the next day you're trying to remember all of it.
That's 'cause you weren't fully present ~in the moment. So I feel connected. ~I feel connected to nature. ~I feel connected to ~my dog. ~I feel connected to ~Tatiana. When we run together,~ I feel connected to Tatiana because ~I take this ~outside of the run and ~into my life. I feel more connected to friends. I feel connected to myself.
And this is beautiful. It's beautiful to just get outside in nature, feel the sun, smell the breeze, look at the [00:05:00] flowers, the grass. If it's winter, the snow, the leaves on the ground, smiling face of my dog, the face of people that I run by saying hi to those people. I feel connected.
I ~also ~feel lower. Stress ~At the very least, ~if you're watching this and you ~are on your runs or in your life, you just ~don't feel connected, you feel stressed. It might be because you're on your phone all the time. When you're ~con, when you are ~constantly connected to your phone, stress elevates and the feeling of true connection goes down.
Stress goes up, connection goes down. ~When you are fully connected, when I'm fully connected on my runs, when I'm fully present on my lo, ~when I'm fully present on my runs. Stress goes away. This is a great way for me to start cultivating flow state, peak state in my body to ~really ~take on the day ~starting my day, but ~presence sets a pattern to be present in my work throughout the day, in my training throughout the day.
I ~also find that I just, I also ~find ~that ~I'm just happier. I have more enjoyment in my life. I smile and giggle when [00:06:00] I see Sniktau smiling and giggling. So I highly recommend ~that you take a book out of your okay. So I highly recommend that ~you take a page out of your dog's book ~and ~ground yourself and stop to sniff the roses, sniff some grass, maybe don't eat ~some ~leaves or sticks, but fully immerse yourself in the present, on your next run, in your next workout, and just in your life.
And if you wanna cultivate a healthier life in general, I have my three pillars of healthy living guide. ~Movement, accountability, movement tracking, ~movement tracking, and accountability. You can start integrating these ~three ~pillars into your life in ~a couple minutes or less and in ~a couple minutes or less.
And you can grab your copy of this free guide linked in the show notes and ~in the ~description. If you're watching this video on YouTube, you can also go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy. Living guide to grab your copy today. ~So go take that next run. ~Be fully present with yourself and others, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with [00:07:00] Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It is about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
