Running Therapy

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Tonight, stress was stewing and bubbling up in all kinds of ugly ways. Everything around me didn't feel secure... my job, my finances, my house, my home. For a moment, it all felt unsteady. Unfamiliar.

If I know anything about feeling light in moments of dark, gratitude in moments of fear, it is to get out of my mind and into my body.

Because my body is here. Now. It is secure.

So I ran.

Until I couldn't hear the thoughts inside my head anymore.

I've never liked to run. It's always felt like a duty, a chore. But recently, it makes me feel grounded. There's something about the quiet of a dark road at night. Just me and the pavement and the trees and the moon. Just my breath. My feet on the ground and the stars above my head. My whole body working to move me forward.

At one point, the leaves on the ground rustled up behind me, startling me. My speed had created a little wind tunnel beneath my feet - it spurred me onward, forward, faster. Those rustling leaves became all I could hear. I left my thoughts scattered in that trail of leaves.

The moon that shined at my back and the road lamps that surrounded me shifted my shadow in strange ways.

When I looked ahead, I saw two shadows of me. When I looked down, I saw only one.

I lay on my bed now, fresh from a shower, feet up the wall, and these experiences hold special meaning to me now.

Now. In this stillness. In this steady. Which feels familiar. Secure.

Those fallen leaves taught how to move and stay still. They showed me how one can rustle to life even after falling - their movement inspired my own.

I learned how to not be distracted by my own shadows…

that feeling split in two is just an illusion. A trick of the light.

Which I realized, when I looked down — focused on the steps right in front of me, instead of looking too far ahead.