I have an author I’d love for you to meet today. His name is Paul M. Martin and I know he’ll leave a lasting impression on you. He has written a beautifully moving book, Original Faith, that details his own personal spiritual journey. It basically chronicles how Paul Martin found Paul Martin.
I am, literally, venturing off of the couch – out from under a mountain of Kleenex, hot green tea, and warm blankets to publish this particular post – I’m that excited for you to become familiar with this inspiring author. However, my mind is a little cloudy (a head full of nastiness will do that to a person) so I’ll save my own personal book review of Original Faith for Monday.
For now, I’ll allow Paul Martin, himself, to introduce himself and I’ll just step aside and try not to breath on anyone.
ABOUT PAUL M. MARTIN:
Paul M. Martin writes with exceptional clarity about spiritual matters. His depth and breadth of first-hand experience allows him to speak compellingly to people across a wide range of perspectives on religion and spirituality.
At age twenty-three, Paul had a spontaneous experience of the kind that is often sought through meditation and 
prayer. It was immensely hopeful. It stood in complete defiance of his despairing world view. It was the primary source material for the rest of his life and the genesis of Original Faith. Within a year, Paul visited the Trappist monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts, where he learned meditation from the late Fr. Basil Pennington. Within two years, he went on to receive an M.A. in religious studies from the University of Chicago. In the coming years, he would also earn a M. Ed. in counseling as his public school career transitioned from English as a Second Language teacher to elementary school counselor.
At age thirty-seven, with Original Faith perhaps two years from completion, Paul experienced the onset of a condition that would never be diagnosed. He was forced to set the manuscript aside for the better part of the next decade as he combined full-time work with extensive medical research and travel. By May 2002, Paul’s disability had become too severe for continued work outside the home, and he resumed work on Original Faith.
Between 2002 and 2006, he completed the book, along with two additional manuscripts, managing to convert his handwritten notes to Word documents before he lost the ability to walk and work with paper.
Find out more about Paul by visiting his website, www.originalfaith.com, and his blog, http://www.originalfaith.com/blog/index.html.
As part of the WOW Women on Writing blog tour, Self Help Daily is honored to have the opportunity to publish a guest post by Paul Martin.
Running as Spiritual Exercise
By Paul M. Martin
When I first started jogging, I only ran for the health benefits and really didn’t care much for the activity itself. But sometime during my second year, I began to make some changes that made it less of a grind. By the time they were all in effect, running had turned from drudgery to spiritual exercise.
Here’s what I learned:
How to Find the Spiritual Side of Running
Pick your best place: It’s worth a warm-up walk or even a short drive by bike or car if you
need that to get away from heavy traffic or find a place with some natural scenery.
Pick your best times: Exposing yourself to extreme weather conditions can be dangerous, especially in the long run. And depending on where you live, year-round running may be hazardous to your health – for example, if it forces you onto unsuitable roadsides.
Forget about speed and distance goals: Unless you’re a competitive athlete, once you’ve reached a comfortable run or jog that fits your schedule and helps keep you fit, forget about further speed or distance goals. Why?
Find your pace: Because this will let you find your own pace, your own rhythm of breathing and stride that represents your personal peak efficiency of movement. When you get that right, it will often feel effortless and like you could run forever.
Spiritual Outcomes
Anticipate…
Deep Relaxation: Running at your own pace, like meditation, has relaxing effects at the time you perform the activity. These eventually start to carry over into your day to day life.
Creativity: You’ll find yourself doing much of your best thinking literally on the run. Fresh, unanticipated ideas will unexpectedly pop into mind the way that you may have already experienced say, in the shower or on long drives – but more so.
Runner’s High: It comes with that physical and spiritual sense of ease and freedom that makes you feel like you could run forever. It includes a relaxed and elevated mood with sharpened sensory perceptions.
Spiritual Experiences: Expect to feel “one with the universe” now and then. Running saturates you with the outdoors. Your own perspiration seems to mingle with the mist in the air; the rhythms of your own body can feel like part of the rhythms of the larger world.
After a few years of this, I would have found it hard to stop running even if I’d learned that it was bad for my health! Taking steps to make your runs a joy is the key to stepping into the spiritual side of running.
Paul Maurice Martin is the author of Original Faith. Please visit his web site and blog to read more about the author and his spiritual journey. You can also order his beautiful and uplifting book on his web site.
