No Need To Plan...
Last weekend we met up with our friends Brioni, Kevin and Tim and the conversation turned to hay fever!
I was sharing with them about how when I lived in a little lodge cottage, fifteen years ago, in the summer months it was like living in the middle of a field, when everything burst into life around me...
For the two years I lived there, I felt ill all summer long, with a nondescript, fluey feeling, type malaise...
I never equated it with hay fever until much later....
We arrived in the mountains on Wednesday afternoon, and I woke yesterday morning not feeling very well. My chest was tight, and I had a general energyless ness about me... I put it down to the travel, the altitude, a new land for my body to adjust to...
As the day progressed the feeling got worse!
'I feel like I did last year, when we stayed here,' I said to Anadi... Last year my lungs had become inflamed, and it reached the point where breathing had become very painful and difficult and we made a trip to the hospital in the middle of the night... Anti inflammatories had eventually 'cured' the extreme symptoms...
Today I woke up feeling better, and we went for a fabulous run in this awesome, expansive, embracing scenery... The rocks invited me to climb them, the paths to explore and run along... The wide, dusty trails with the trees either side, holding the promise of new experiences, adventures, joyous running...
I contained my enthusiasm to run and run, to go further, higher, stronger - just yet - mindful of last years 'illness...'
When we had eaten breakfast on the terrace, and had begun working, I started to decline... Feeling worse than yesterday.
'Do you feel anything like you used to in your Lodge cottage'? Anadi asked me....
'Oh yes, I do...' I said....
'If it is hay fever,' he continued, 'it would explain last year, because it can cause Inflammation, and problems in the lungs. It might be that it just got very bad without us knowing what it was...'
Anadi went on an 'anti histamine' mission to the pharmacy... And within an hour I perked up... One little white, magic tablet!
I am to take two a day, it says on the box...
I live from an orientation that my body holds all the wisdom, and that whatever is 'going on for me' there will be a message, a clearing to be done, a process to engage with....
From the Shamanic perspective, as I was exploring with the weather in a previois blog this week, if we approach everything around us as a living, self-aware, connected system; then we can come from a position of collaboration and co operation with everything on the planet, rather than battling with what is occurring....
So instead of avoiding the land, or being upset with my body's weakness, I see it as an opportunity to discover the message within it, to heal more deeply and to therefore let go to another level....
I looked up the emotional roots of hay fever...
This is what it said, “You are allergic to someone, or yourself, who denies your power."
This was resonant for me....
On our journey here I had said to Anadi, 'I will plan my training when we arrive, so that I can get really fit for the Masters half Marathon Championships in September....'
There is nothing wrong with planning; but for me it is connected to an old life of 'trying to get good at running, to know I was loved... To win my Dad's approval...'
I internalised when I was little that my energy was bad and wrong... I have journeyed a long way from that place...
Thankfully!
But occasionally the unhealed parts, the threads that are still binding me to that outdated story, arise to be cut, released, thrown out....
Another opportunity to let go....
I have been 'Running to learn' all my life...
To learn to run free, without the pressure of 'not good enough' - 'could do better', rather to simply run and see what comes out....
In recent months I have been enjoying my running more than ever before...I have run for far too long now, not to know what is needed to prepare to run a race...
Lots of running, some of it for long distances and some of it at race pace....simple!
No need to plan, but rather listen to my body, claim my own power fully, with no part of me seeking the approval of my Dad, who has not been on this planet for twenty two years now anyway!
If there is a denial of my power, it is me who is doing this, and no one else!
