Walking and discovering!

I don't like to do exercise. I like to eat. Bad combination! Once you hit forty, you have to do one or stop doing the other but this combination will not fly anymore...so, I started the journey by getting on my treadmill in those cold winter mornings in my garage and feeling totally miserable. Little by little, those lonely times became more of "me time" when I could really think, sing, meditate, laugh, run and produce all the endorphins I needed to cope with my days. It was no longer an obligation but a joy to get 60 minutes to myself. I liked it and I craved it. Interesting, how something I was doing for my body, actually helped me mentally. Soon enough I discovered that I could break with the idea that exercising was not for me and that if it's true that I wasn't a sports buff, I wasn't allergic to exercising either, it was doable and I was doing it! With the early arrival of spring this year, I started itching to get out of the garage and hit the roads around my neighborhood. When I walk around the semi-rural areas of Lake Forest Park, I discover all sorts of reasons to keep on doing it - there are so many reasons to be thankful for creation itself, I welcome the opportunity to admire the beauty around me; it's like going to the spa for the soul! In my crazy life, I never took the time to "stop and smell the flowers" and I never considered myself a nature-lover but now things are different and my paradigms have shifted - it's time to stop and smell the flowers and take pictures too! By stopping and this is the key word, I have learned to feel the soul of the world and we are all connected...on those quiet walks, immersed in nature, you can almost listen to the world of the universe. A journey that began as an obligation, it's now a pleasure and I look forward to the continue growth of my soul. I am not sure if I will ever be a hiker or if I could ever be in good shape to run a marathon but I am sure of one thing, my spirit is stronger now because my body is weak and in the quest to get a stronger body, I also got a stronger soul....that's what winners are made out of!