Keep it Moving

I am so grateful to myself for regularly committing to an introspective, healing journey for as long as I have because it’s taught me how valuable tenacity is. I often find lessons in comparing my healing journey to my journey toward becoming a runner. More often than not, motivation is nowhere to be found, and the only thing that keeps me going is trusting the process.

What’s interesting is that the process never ends. The closer I get to understanding myself, the more I uncover. Sometimes I have these moments of elevated consciousness and being and I think to myself, “Finally! I get it now! My work is done.” Then I get smacked in the face with another wound that needs healing. The work truly never ends, and that is one of the most important lessons I’ve learned as well as one of the hardest ones to accept.

I’ve recently been smacked in the face with the reality of how impatient I am and how problematic that has been for me. I have always had big dreams and big goals and my impatience has led me to accept too little too soon. I think it has to do with my faith in what the world has to offer me, as well as my lack of faith in what I believe I’m capable of. Being impatient has allowed me to give up before I have a chance to fail. My rationale has been, “If I settle for less than what I hoped for, it’s just because I’ve accepted reality.” That’s not true. When I settle, it’s because I don’t have enough patience or trust to stick to it and see things through to the end.

I’m so glad I became a runner. And I’m claiming that identity. After a decade of consistent running (that started with me not being able to run for 5 minutes straight and continues with me having completed several 10k, half-marathon, and 1 full marathon race), I am finally letting myself claim this as part of me.

This claim is a practice too. Just a couple of weeks ago I was talking to someone and he was giving me so much praise and admiration for being a “marathon runner.” In that moment I felt a wave of fear and shame wash over me. “He thinks I’m something I’m not. He thinks I’m better than I am? I can’t live up to this.” Then my thoughts moved from my head out and came out of my mouth. “A marathoner? I don’t know. I’ve only run one full marathon and I ran it pretty slowly.”

The second those words slipped clumsily off my lips, I thought, “Why am I saying these things? Why do I feel the need to cut myself down?” I realized that I was and have always been afraid of people expecting too much from me, despite the fact that I expect way too much of myself.

I mulled over this conversation and my thoughts and experience around it many times now because I knew there were lessons for me to learn here. I could feel it the moment I spoke – something was not lining up.

I realized, thanks to my commitment to my meditation practice, that this specific snippet of conversation could be a turning point because of my meditation practice. My meditation practice allowed my brain to move slowly and patiently enough, with enough self-awareness to recognize my own self-betrayal. In noticing my self-betrayal in that moment I saw a pattern in my thinking that plagued and inhibited me my entire life. Now that I’ve become aware, I can start doing more work.

The work doesn’t end. Like running. If I want to be a runner, I have to keep running. Even though I almost never want to go out for a run at the outset, I know once I push past this momentary lack of motivation and desire, my run will generate more motivation and desire moving forward. I almost never want to go for a run when it comes to actually getting dressed, outside, and putting one foot in front of the other. But I’ve never regretted a single run.

Even when I come back feeling exhausted and depleted after long runs. Even when I feel like it was not a pleasant run. I am always so proud of myself when I finish and I always feel an emotional elevation. The only run I did not feel emotionally elevated after was after that first full marathon run. That was perplexing to me at the time, but now I understand a little better.

Putting my body under that much strain stripped me of all of the bullshit I fill myself with to avoid looking at what’s really there. What was really there, both despite and because of the race, was my true self-perception. No matter how much I have managed to accomplish, I still can’t give myself a break. I still can’t give myself the love and support I deserve – whether I run a marathon or not.

I think I was under the impression that once I accomplished this amazing feat I would no longer be able to deny my own greatness. I was humbled to find that no matter what my external accomplishments are, the only way to really heal this lack of self-love is to confront it head on. I wouldn’t earn self-acceptance via proof. I can only learn it by actually loving and accepting myself.

I’m still not where I want to be yet, in regards to self-love. But I am starting to recognize my progress. I am realizing that progress, real progress, is slow and incremental. It takes faith, commitment and dedication.

I’ve decided to sign up for another full marathon race. This time it’s not because I want to prove something to myself or anyone else. It’s because in training for the previous race, I had to run incessantly for 18 weeks – and that led me to feeling like I was living on a higher plane of existence than I’d ever experienced. Running so regularly had me experiencing life at a higher frequency. While it was incredibly challenging to maintain, the elevation was impossible to deny or ignore.

So, I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep running. I’m going to keep loving myself and supporting myself in a way that feels new and strange to me, yet feels more and more natural as I continue to show up for myself.