Too busy to exercise, pray AND meditate? Multitask.

Five days a week I skip rope, run, box, something, anything for an hour. Rarely more, never less. During the workout I attempt to put away all angst and worries about deadlines and book sales and book talks and family bills and family problems. Instead I focus myself in prayer and meditation.

If I’m skipping rope I’ll focus on a lone spot in the window, usually the logo on my shirt or a spot of sweat as it grows from the size of a drop and begins to spread outward into a broad swath. I never feel as though I’m staring at a reflection of myself, just at a reflection… of something. Of energy, of spirit, of ego, of things yin and yang.

Throughout the hour as I pray I imagine the perspiration as cleansing, a mental/physical/spiritual flushing of the day’s pollutants. Somewhere in the last half of the workout I feel the bad things in my diet, my environment, my thoughts, my selfish nature evaporate. It’s a baptism of sorts. Finishing, I am soaked — but cleansed. I have a keen sense that I have been granted a fresh start.

This blog was originally published by The Huffington Post July 6, 2012.

July 6, 2012