Julia's Gone Running - Day Eighteen

There Is Only Running...

I felt tired as I jogged to the park this morning; this week has been a less sleep week, due to earlier morning commitments and my propensity to chat to Anadi late into the night, joining him in 'owl land’...!

After a gentle five minutes, I arrived in my now familiar park...

The trees were as always standing still and beautiful on this damp November morning.

Elegant, reaching up into the sky, not standing too near to one another, not stealing one another's energy, not comparing themselves to one another, not taking the nourishment from the earth for themselves that is for all...

Their stillness reminds me to be still; they adapt to all the elements and the challenges of changing weather; when the wind blows they bend with it, they do not resist...

It reminds me not to resist the flow of life, not to question or rush or want something that isn't there, to bend with what is happening in every moment and to trust myself.

If we don't trust ourselves how can we possibly trust anyone else…?

Deep inside we all know our own answers, we are all the best expert on ourselves, and when we ask for guidance from another, we must only take what resonates deeply inside us as our own truth...

I have received so much support for the recovery of my ankle, and all the voices have lead me back to my own knowing.

Thank you Greg, Kader, Danny, Anadi....

Today as I ran, I could feel the forward motion within me, and a trust that the way will reveal itself...

I have new running shoes…I am in the 'not wanting to get them wet and muddy' phase...!

It won't last long; but for today I indulged myself…

I ran circling the duck pond on the tarmac path, instead of running on the squishy water logged grass...round and round I went, passing two other runners, running separately, both going in the opposite direction to me; both in their own running world.

I did not exist for them.

We ran past one another many times: they ran past me as if I was not there...

Once I knew they were silent, internal runners I did not try to engage with them, but left them to their own running path and went on mine; travelling together but apart; all three of us aspects of the universe all a part of the whole.

There was no need to smile, or talk, to connect, because we are already all connected, it cannot be any other way...

I looked again at the trees and was reminded of the Kahil Gibram's writing on marriage,

He writes 'Love one another, but make not a bond of love..'

And finishes by saying...

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

I love this passage and have always believed marriage could be thus - I have always dreamed that I could be in a relationship with someone and still live my own life - I have had a few goes!

And of course, as Jane wrote in her article on relationship yesterday, the first step in an authentic loving relationship has to come from loving ourselves...

My running has always reflected me in motion, and therefore shown me how deeply I love me....

In the past, not much love came my way to me from me…!

So running was often an escape... The only place where I could feel 'I know who I am', the only time I felt happy... except that the lack of self regard showed itself in self sabotage…

I hoped for immortality through fast running times... I sought salvation where there could be none...

And instead, I often crashed out of competition - the very place I hoped for redemption - with illness and injury…

As the years have gone by, I have discovered that all that is written about loving ourselves first, so that we are open to receive love and to truly love others, to be true.

I have discovered that running in isolation cannot make me happy, but me being happy can reflect through my running.

I now know that I can't find myself through running: but in finding my ‘self’, in the reflection of everything I do or engage with, and all the people in my life…

By living this way...

I have found the essence of me, the true 'self' reflects in each step; and running truly becomes a meditation on the move...

It is why I have embraced this injured time; it has revealed another space within me, greater freedom, places I had not seen before...

The space has led me back to daily writing… It has led me to honour and recognise and to truly embrace the huge changes that have occurred in my life since meeting Anadi two years ago...