CAROLINE PEDLER ...INSPIRED: RUNNING & BEING IN CONTROL

Yesterday I had a lie in, I let the dog up on the bed, I went for a run and a new path has been created across the beacon. So a day of new things and doing it differently. I can't normally lie in but I was dozing for ages which was just bliss. I got up, fed the dog and went for my first run in months. It was warm, and the hills were hard, but I didn't let myself stop, well only to pick up the dogs doodoo! I ran up the beacon and felt as though I was the only one in St Agnes, it was so quiet. It was a nice feeling of being alone with only my breath, the breeze and my dog. I ran down towards the coast path and on the way down the National Trust (I'm guessing) had created a whole new path across the bottom of the beacon, which oddly made me feel happy. Almost the hope of a new path to run or walk along.

I was tired by the time I got to the road and I realised that the lack of yoga, rowing and general exercise has made my body weak. I had been concentrating on my inner strength til now, but it was time to focus on my outer strength.

So I continued across the coast path, wishing I was in a gig rowing around Bawden Rocks, running towards the village. My leg was aching but I wasn't going to stop. I kept my torso high, kept the pace steady and felt good to be running again.. well jogging!

As I met another incline, my mind began to think about how you approached or handled an activity or exercise like running, was a reflection of how you handled life and it's contents. When I run I feel like I have started something and finished it well. Something I find difficult in my work so when i run it sets the pace for the day and i feel like I have achieved something before I even get to work, which is nice.

When I was at Swindon. a student called Evie was telling me how he gets distracted easily and never finishes anything. He asked me how he could change this. I advised him to firstly work in a place away from distractions, people and his phone. But when your own mind hasn't the strength to sit still it comes down to training your brain to sit still in other ways. I told him to look at the way he lives his daily life. He had just moved out of home and into a new home of his own, for the first time. It was all quite overwhelming for him and all very new. So he found it difficult to concentrate and finish things and especially projects, constantly having a head full of ideas in his head, with nothing to show for them. I said maybe to make sure that he finished chores at home to help...like doing the washing up before he left the house, and to tidy his room and make his surroundings controlled, in order to train his mind into completing chores and therefore hopefully informing his practice? it's worth a try and something I have started to do and is helping me too. It's a simple but effective exercise.

Below are a few bits I have got together for the Stuff fair, mostly hand embellished, so even the prints are individual. The book is yet to be printed and bound and I'm working on a new one in my studio later. Very exciting and all very affordable.