What’s In You

As I ease back into a regular running routine training for the half, I am so so thankful for the gift that is moving my body + endorphins + better sleep.  If you have never run before, check out this novice post (I promise all my posts won’t be about running, but if you can’t stand hearing people talk about running, you know where the close button is so click, click.)

I started checking in regularly with one of my favorite writers on running , Kristin Armstrong. I can’t read one of her posts and not go for a run that day. If you have ever met me in person and we have gotten into one of those soul searching conversations, chances are I have mentioned her at some point, because that girl gets deep. And she gets happy too.

When I opened up her new post, I was so glad to see she has not slowed down in the wisdom department. If anything she has gotten even better now that she is getting a degree in counseling. This post revolved around a comment her yoga teacher made at the end of class: “What would you do if you fully understood that you already have everything you need to achieve your goals?”

Umm.

Well.

I had to think about that one. This is so contrary to my normal inclinations. I’m always thinking about striving, growing. Becoming more. What do you mean I don’t need to add to myself?

Of course, I had the formula inverted.  All that growing is just becoming who we were meant to be. It is so much more about letting go, and so much less about acquiring anything that could possibly contribute to our worth.

For some reason, it got me thinking about an interview I listened to with Mary Karr on NPR.  I had to rewind one section three times to think through exactly what she was saying. Karr said her main problem was herself, what she projected onto life, and the more she spent time praying, the more that projection improved.

Somehow these two ideas are intertwined. Our mind can guide us to our goals, or hold us back from them. So figuring this out would make us…a badass, basically.

And then I experienced this in real time. I had an epiphany while running; I recognized the source of a ghost lurking around most of the corners of my life, the one that whispers you’re not good enough. You don’t measure up. I figured out exactly where it came from, how I fueled it, fed into it, let it diminish me. I was using a script that was a lie, and I was projecting it onto life. Not all the time, of course, but enough to rob me of my full joy and confidence.

Dropping that script feels like the universe shifted. It is a kinder, gentler, more forgiving world. And I am less afraid. Of course, the world didn’t change, only my projection onto it. Now I know how to silence the lies and how to let them go.  And you know what? It totally makes me feel like a badass. I was projecting onto this life something that was excruciatingly painful – that my worth wasn’t up to the task at hand- and it was dragging me down. And now it’s not. Cue this song.

So I am working all this out while I put in my miles. Sure, I might fall into old thought patterns, when I am tired or freshly wounded. But if I am taking care of myself and my people well, working hard, running, and as Karr said, praying, then my projection stays hopeful.

How’s your projection going? What’s holding you back?  If it’s fear, what would you do if you weren’t afraid? Let’s change our screens, ladies and gents. Life is too short not to, and you’re too beautiful.