Free And More Me
We swam before breakfast out into the blue ocean, the itchy ocean this morning!! ‘Are there fish biting us?’ I asked Anadi, ‘No, I think its something to do with the sea today…!’
I have discovered the tropical blue green islands of Thailand, with the long and beautiful beaches to be full of unknown things; in the jungle and in the sea.
Everything is different here and opens me to a deeper trust of the adventure unfolding, the mystery and the magic of the universe.
After our swim, we walked along to the patch of beach that wasn’t covered in sea and practiced our routine of exercises – Burpees, plank, squats, bounds, step lunges and more… we finished and stood in the sea cooling down and recovering our breath…
Time for handstand on land practice!
The pool practice, the assisted stretching in my Thai massages, my own ongoing commitment to realign and rebalance my body meant that accomplishing the handstand is nearer than ever before…
‘I believe that working to perfect a handstand is helping to release the ‘holding on’ in my left side’ I said to Anadi; ‘I feel that I really am releasing from its grip...’
My left side limitation and injuries that have come as a result of the tension there, has been a long process of learning to ‘let go’; the endeavor to get to the core of the pain, to release from the wound deep inside has spanned half my lifetime….
I lay today enjoying my massage, noticing the difference in my body, how open and free it feels; I reflected on the time when this tension first really revealed itself…
It was as I was approaching my first Saturn return. A time astrologically of big planetry transitions, not always easy to navigate, but with the possibility of big transformation in their movement.
I have now been on the planet for the same length of time again, and approach this transition once more…
Last time it accessed the need to stop and recover from years of unresolved distress… but even within the healing and transformation and understanding this afforded, I was left with the legacy of, if the truth be told, never ever fully being without the imbalance and, so always aware of the need to discover and unravel and keep on the path to wholeness…
Half a lifetime ago, I was a top athlete and hoping for even more success…
Then there was a pivotal point in my life where everything changed…
I wrote about it in my book ‘Running to Learn’ and here is a précis of that event…
‘August 2nd 1986. I walked across the meadows from my brother’s house in Edinburgh, towards the biggest race of my life. I walked alone and I cried all the way – I missed my mother and wanted her to tell me everything would be alright. I wanted her to say that my leg would be alright, my stiff left leg that had been bothering me for so long. I wanted her there. But she wasn’t there and I was walking alone across the meadows to run the Commonwealth Games marathon…
We filed out onto the track, the stadium packed with people. The enormity of it hit me, and I was overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed.
It felt like a plug was pulled out of me and something drained away onto the track. I deserted myself, leaving my body behind when it had a long journey ahead. I don’t remember much other than lining up, hearing the gun going and starting to run - 26 miles ahead…
A foot race, nothing more, but a foot race that held my sense of self and everything I had worked towards to ‘make’ me feel alright about being me within its hands.
We ran along the coast road, one step in front of the other, it should have been simple. ‘We’re running fast,’ I said to Angie after about six miles had passed. ‘We’re on 2:32 pace.’ It felt good, comfortable, easy. I was the fittest I had ever been in my life, but at the core of me I had huge tension. I didn’t really believe that my dreams would come true, not at the deepest level, the level that counts when they are about to be realised.
The next 20 miles held in its hands the chance of my salvation, the fork at which my life would go in one direction or the other. The desire for peace inside, to know once and for all that I was okay was so desperate within me, and I saw this race as the path towards freedom from the pain and destruction I had imposed upon myself….’
What then happened is now history, a part of the story of my life… but I was unable to finish the race. I dropped out at twenty miles…
‘I stopped running... and everyone else carried on…’
Later on I was back with my friends and family after the event, this is what happened next…
‘My brother hugged me tight and he said ‘You don’t have to pretend this is okay for you, Julia,’ and I carried on, pretending it was okay for me.
Later we went out to eat in a Turkish restaurant, all was laughter and animated conversation, people meeting up who hadn’t seen each other for some time, a happy evening, a sharing of love and laughter, and my brother stood up and spoke to us all. ‘It doesn’t matter what happened to Julia today,’ he said ‘What matters is that she has brought us all together’ and everyone raised their glasses and there was merriment and appreciation and fun and excitement and I smiled and laughed too, whilst inside I felt lost and alone, miserable to the core of my being. I felt a failure and I did not know which way to turn.’
As I read that account now, it is like reading about another life. It is another life…
And as I approach this Saturn return, I fully understand this tension that has meant that I have never stopped seeking how to be free from it.
The tension that has obstructed at times my free flowing running expression, and because it has stopped me from doing what I love; I have continued to recognize where it is still within me, and shown me that there is more clearing to be done to be able to run free and express with clarity and love…
Like I wrote in my runners prayer!
‘Let love and light shine from my heart, and as I run let me become me, more free so others may see it and find it for themselves'
