November 2020: Pace Yourself
As a kid, my dad was the catalyst behind a couple of sports that my siblings and I participated in. One was soccer; the other was running. He was a runner in college and always felt that running taught you so much about life: it’s about keeping your pace so that you don’t peeter out and can make it to the finish line; it’s about literally leaning into hills and pumping your arms to take you up the hills. To him, these parts of running taught us about moderation and persistence.
It’s actually simple: the people who can pick themselves up and keep moving, no matter what their circumstances, are powerful.
Both these lessons are very relevant to this pandemic. Innately, we all want to do our best, whether it be while running a race or participating in life, but it’s been an intense nine months in which we have all had to figure out how to pace ourselves through the intensity of everything.
Right now, I think we are all on a hill, pumping our arms trying to make it to the finish line until this vaccine shows up for some relief. We can decide to lean in to the hard stuff, walk up the hill, or just stop entirely. What we all need to do right now is lean into the hill and let our best, most powerful selves show.
How do we do this?
It’s actually simple: the people who can pick themselves up and keep moving, no matter what their circumstances, are powerful. It’s these people who know that in life there are hills and mountains, but once you get over those hills, there will be a plateau and relief. Knowing and remembering this… is power.
Power is knowing you can sustain yourself through any situation, through any circumstance and know you will find your grounding. You will find a solution even though you don’t know what or where that solution will be found. You believe in the power of having faith in yourself. This is the only tool you really need in life to be your most powerful.
We can also never forget that love equals power– loving yourself through whatever situation you are in and coming out on the other side with more love in your life even though at the time, it may not seem apparent. You always have someone on your side whether you are conscious of it or not. Always. And this is you in your power.
My dad is in his 70’s and although he doesn’t run anymore, he takes daily walks in the state of mind of a runner. Keep pumping those arms, people. We are almost there.