I guess no one really knows who they are in the beginning. I have spent a lifetime squishing myself into one idea or another of myself. Each squish had a part of me that fit but never the complete puzzle put together.

Something was always missing. Part of me felt blurred and covered up under pain. I felt lost, yet still I kept searching. Would I ever see clearly?

I would, and this is how it began….

She remembered who she was,
and the game changed.

Lalah Deliah

I started running. That was good. I stopped baking and cooking and planning. That was even better. I learned to listen to my body. Amazing discovery. I was walking forward, tumbling through memories that had haunted me for years, but one day, I would become free of.

As I ran along in my life, I found I wanted to skip steps 2-9 and go from 1-10. I wasn’t afraid of the work. I was full of energy and impatient. Ever feel like that?

On my runs, I discovered my body would naturally try to run faster. Then I would get tired and run too slow. I would develop this rhythm of rocking back and forth, both in my life and on my runs, trying to figure out what was me.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy,
not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

Socrates

I needed to trust what my body was telling me? But how? In all of my years, I had never even thought of doing that. And looking back, it was an impossibility at the time. How could I listen to someone who had no voice? This numbness was my norm, and now I had to rely on how I felt. How?

One day the embers of her soul were stirred and the fire began.

I tried running faster. After all, aren’t runners supposed to be fast? Aren’t they all about speed? My body would automatically pull me back, slowing me down. Then I would kick in trying to run faster. I would go along like this, back and forth, in a rocking motion, as I ran. Never once did I ever consider slowing down. Can you even be considered a runner if you barely ran above a crawl? So, I pushed forward, in my quirky rhythmic pace, searching for me.

One day I shared this with my son, who is also a runner, and he told me, “You are running too fast. Try slowing down.”
(Sometimes it is easier for someone else to see clearly into our muddled mess). On my next run, I slowed down and to my surprise I slipped into my pace. I went from running one mile to running six miles in one day. Just like that, my breakthrough came. I was free from the shackles that I wore around my body and my mind. Physical freedom and mental courage all in one blissful moment of slowing down and finding me.

What shackles are holding you down?