Born to Run

We are born with everything we need.

Tarahumara Indians of northern Mexico are known as The Running People. They can run 16x further than a marathon . . . Barefoot! Studies have shown the modern, expensive running shoes, with all their extra cushion in the heel, have destroyed our natural running style, causing decades of injuries.

Running barefoot allows our feet to feel the ground, remain flexible to the environment, and adjust to changing conditions. If you take off your shoes, after just a few strides, your brain and body will bring your running back to its natural, healthy form.

The inventor of the first NIKE shoe sold the running market on the perceived need of a better shoe, then sold his shoe as the solution! If one is not broken, there is nothing to fix (NIKE has since backtracked and remarketed a new shoe as “running barefoot”.)

We are born with everything we need to live a happy, healthy, productive life. Babies are raised taking their experience and instruction from adults as what is true and right. If they are taught they have value and worth, without conditions, they have no need to control or steal from others, in fact, they grow with a sense of abundance, readily giving to others as they already have everything they need to be happy (watch the movie “Captain Fantastic.” a wonderful story of a family growing up in the wilderness, experiencing the abundance of having everything they need for health and happiness right where they are.)

When outside influences (parents, peers, religion, media) tell us we need something else, something outside ourselves in order to be happy, at peace, saved, forgiven (for what?), relieved, and fulfilled, we are adding the foreign and negative elements of control, fear, agitation, anger and frustration, as nothing outside ourselves will ever produce what is already there.

Is a baby born angry? Frustrated? Fearful? A racist? A bigot? Controlling? Guilty?

These are symptoms of living in a false state of needing something you really don’t need.

I had a brother-in-law who grew up the youngest in a large family. When it was meal time, he learned if he wasn’t aggressive and charged after the plates of food, he would go hungry, his older siblings grabbing everything up first. He literally ate like an animal who didn’t know where his next meal would come from.

He came to stay with me one weekend when I had gotten my own apartment. We sat down for a meal I had prepared and he attacked it like the animal he was raised to be. When he went to grab for the food, I stopped him and said, “It’ll be there when you need it. You have everything you need without grabbing everything for yourself.” He relaxed and it wasn’t long before he offered the plate to me first. He realized he already had everything he needed without feeling the need for aggression, control, or fear.

We are born with everything we need to be a healthy, happy, productive individual. When we shed all that was placed upon us from birth (modern shoes = guilt, blame, low self-esteem, racism, greed, conditional value) and return to our natural state (barefoot = personal value, self-worth, contentedness, happiness) we find peace in the journey.

When a baby is learning to walk and falls down, do we say they are “broken?” Of course not! They are simply learning the awareness of their own capabilities, skills and techniques to successfully walk naturally.

When a person is feeling depressed, angry, at war within themselves and others, some would prescribe medications, religious rites, or walk away muttering, “what’s wrong with them?” The answer? Nothing! They have not yet learned their own capabilities, skills, and techniques of self value and worth. Their lives have been overrun by the opinions, instructions, and false guidance suggesting they are incomplete and in need of outside fulfillment.

There is never anything wrong with a person that cannot be fixed with what is right with that person.

When you find yourself out of step, pain will tell you something isn’t in it’s natural state. Stop. Examine your technique, your motivations. Are they something placed upon you from the past? Are you carrying a backpack of rocks? Set it down. Remind yourself of your natural state. Be aware when the path has changed and what your response will be. You will be running farther, faster, light and easy, a much more rewarding journey, naturally.

You have been told that to run fast and far you need cushioning. The problem being it’s cushioning the wrong parts of your body, the heel, and thus altering your stride in a dangerous manner. Allow yourself to return to your natural state, your unconditional birthright of value and worth, and you’ll find yourself more flexible, attentive to the ground your feet stride over (our environment and the people around us), adjust, step aside that which would cause injuries, (negative and destructive relationships), move forward with happiness and fulfillment knowing you have everything you need.

You will see yourself running with ease and lightness.

You are born with everything you need.

Run barefoot.