In The Short Run

 Running is part of my physical, mental,and emotional health regimen. I have certain activities and practices that make up my self realized mind, body, soul, life prescription for healing, feeling, awakening, and evolving. These are the things that keep me on the path of being alive in life, instead of living a half life, a numb life, a forgotten life, a caged life. Running cracks me open and sets me free.

There are mornings when I NEED to run, but depression and anxiety do their damnedest to upset my flow. They tell me to just leave it, no use, curl up in a ball and hide, go back to bed, give up, stagnate, fester.

I had a morning like that today. I could feel in my bones the deep calling for my movement medicine, but it seemed lost, unavailable, I resisted its call, depression and deflation had a grip.

My husband got a read on me and insisted. "GO for YOUR RUN!"
I pouted around it, felt the pull of that other voice, "Why bother?"
I put my running shoes on, laced up, plodding out the door.
I committed to a short run. The long run was more than I could consider today.
Sometimes it is like that. Start with one step. It is something. Just to start, to change the momentum
begins in the lacing of shoes, the plodding out the door, the shift begins with the intention, the shaking off
of that lying voice that says, "Why bother?".

I ran the short run.

In the short run I persisted, I met struggle. The first five minutes, step, struggle, breathe, step, struggle, breathe, repeat.

In the short run I let feeling have its time and space. I met it in the moment. I acknowledged what I felt
and knew I could be with it, all of it.

My running partners showed up each in turn; fatigue, frustration, fear, doubt, anger, hopefulness, courage, lightness, strength, fortitude, joy, freedom. The slow pass of one to the other, all of them needing that run. All of them needing that movement of energy, to be awake, felt, seen.

In the short run I drank in the air, danced with the earth, met the day, heard the birds, felt the wind, connected to flow, returned to nature, that true nature living in me. My true nature where nothing needs to be hidden, fixed, exiled or denied.

In the short run I shook myself awake. Now with the fog cleared,the long run looks amazing.