Let Your Soul Guide You

About 13 years ago, I stood very near the shore of the Sea of Azov in Taganrog, Russia as an orphanage worker put a 13 month old baby boy in my arms.  I was to spend about a half hour with him and decide if I wanted to keep him or not.  Well, in my mind that was never a question, but went through with the exercise to make the adoption people happy, but the fact was I was more worried about how hard it would be to give him back when our visit was over.  He was perfect.  A round faced blonde Russian cherub who clearly needed to be mine, and two months later we would board a plane and bring him home forever. 

As a mom of five, I can attest to that each child is unique.  This child though, he is apart from the rest.  He approaches his interests with a laser like focus.  Early in elementary school he was into animals.  He could spout off what kind of ears an Indian Elephant had verses an Asian.  Later, he got so into airplanes he could tell you the name of every control on the panel and what they did by the time he was 8.  More recently, he decided to play the piano.  YouTube and practice and suddenly after a month or two Chopin erupted from my front living room.  That's just him.  Takes his brilliant mind and grabs hold and becomes a master in no time. 

When you're down and they're counting
When your secrets all found out
When your troubles take to mounting
When the map you have leads you to doubt
When there's no information
And the compass turns to nowhere that you know well

-Sting,"Let Your Soul be Your Pilot"

That is, to clarify, a master in his interests.  By fifth grade, I would find myself in IEP meetings as he could not seem to focus on school the way he did other things.  He could tell you how to calibrate an altimeter yet without a lot of support could not pass fourth grade math.  It didn't make sense.  He was not a lazy child.  He did not seem to have learning problems, but for whatever reason, he just couldn't do it.  School was not his interest like planes were, it was a stressful unchartered territory for him that led to failure after failure.  

When the doctors failed to heal you
When no medicine chest can make you well
When no counsel leads to comfort
When there are no more lies they can tell
No more useless information
And the compass spins
The compass spins between heaven and hell

To the doctor we went.  He was anxious.  He didn't sleep.  He had headaches and vomited from time to time.  He would get so overwhelmed with school he would literally shut down.  My little brilliant man could somehow not see his own abilities and apply who he was to this big hairy beast known as school.  Medications were tried, each with it's own side effects.  There were tics from the stimulants, vomiting from the norepinephrine uptake inhibitors and sleepiness from the clonidine.  He was given lots of diagnoses,  none that really fit him well.  Nobody seemed to know how to help him other than adding more staff to his team to literally pull him along, so he could advance to the next grade.

Let your pain be my sorrow
Let your tears be my tears too
Let your courage be my model
That the north you find will be true

As a mom, I can truly say there is nothing more painful than watching your child spiral around with no real answers when all you truly want is success for them.  Last year, finally, a special teacher would enter his life.  She met him exactly where he was.  She shared his love of music and used that as a spring board to apply to his day to day school activities.  She helped him to see the victories and realize that although he was not like most kids his age, he was wildly special in his own right.  She helped him to find direction and a way out of the spiraling mysterious maze that had held him hostage for so long.  Little successes led to bigger successes, and the confidence snowballed as he realized he needed none of what was offered before, only the ability to count on his own soul to pilot his way.  A month ago, he entered high school.  My little Russian cherib suddenly more grown up than I care to admit, has been texting me from school regularly excitedly reporting the A on his math test, or the A on his French quiz, all without special education support or medications.  

Let your soul be your pilot
Let your soul guide you
Let your soul guide you
Let your soul guide you
Upon your way

This whole experience with my middle son has made me wonder how many times we enter difficult situations and shut down because after a few stumbles, as we don't seem to believe we have the right skills to navigate through?  How many times do we give up and let outside forces try to pull us along, as fear has blinded us to our own abilities?  I think the challenge is to find those people who are willing to help us see who we really are and allow them to introduce us to own own skill set so we can truly learn to trust our souls to pilot us upon our way.  As for my middle son, despite growing like a weed at 14, I can honestly say, he walks a little taller these days.  He speaks with confidence about school and helping other struggling students learn from his journey.  When his face lights up after all he has conquered its easy for me to see, the best is truly yet to come.

It's Time

                                                    

Last weekend was long run weekend, as marathon training waits for no one.  Fifteen miles this time.  It is the furthest I have run since my first full marathon in January.  Admittedly 14 was rough the week before and I had serious doubts about 15 being any better.  Yet, I had a special medal to work for the coveted Helderberg to Hudson Half/Mohawk Hudson Full medal.  I decided it was time for strategy.  I was able to rally two of the runners I admire most to join me, or at least start with me, as they had their own runs to do.  We picked a new venue, a different trail across town I had only been on one other time.  Clearly, I partly struggled with 14 the week before because the trail I have run on all summer had grown stale.  That must be it.  I would arrive to the Rail Trail last week to a perfect day.  The sun was shining, my friends were there and off we went.  We would all take off at our own paces, but I would catch one of my friends on her way back in.  I was on mile six and feeling decent and she would run for a time with me just to encourage me.  Ah yes.  The beauty of belonging to an amazing tribe.  I would catch the second friend around mile 7  on her way back for a fist bump, and keep myself rolling.  I had enough water this time, and it already seemed better than the 14 I did the week before.  

So this is what you meant,

When you said that you were spent,

And now it's time to build from the bottom to the top

-"It's Time"                                                                 

Imagine Dragons                                                     

Oh yes, that is run was going great, until it wasn't.  There was a problem with this trail, the seven and a half mile jaunt out was a gradual hill.  Slow and steady gain in elevation like Chinese water torture.  I would hit the turn around realizing I was more tired than I should be at this point, suddenly worried about my real ability to finish.  Well, that and my irrational fear of snakes in that moment, elevated my heart rate when I ran into, what I would learn later was just a garter snake, right there on the trail at the turnaround.  My heart pounded, I felt winded and terrified, as my irrational brain made this thing out to be an 8 foot king cobra ready to strike right there on the Rail Trail in upstate New York.  The good news is, I was able to run ridiculously fast for a little bit late in mile 8.  Later, my friend would inform me she too saw it and was reasonably certain it was deceased.  No danger at all really, just a further energy sucker.  Nonetheless, I hit the next miles already spent, to where I finally had to, at mile 11, attend to the nagging voice in my head that had been present for weeks.  The one that said, "if 15 was this tough now, could I really do 26 in a month?"

I don't ever want to let you down

I don't ever want to leave this town

'Cause after all

This city never sleeps at night

                                           

It was time to get real.  Backing away from a marathon I signed up for months ago seemed like such a disappointment to me.  It would mean admitting to my motivational clients I was not ready.  Backing away from a challenge was generally not something in my inspirational wheelhouse.  However, I was not totally prepared for my first one.  As I slowed to a walk on mile 12, memories of mile 20 in Disney came back.  The moments I said out loud,"I just can't do this."  My feet hurt.  My back hurt.  My hips hurt.  I was miserable.  I was blessed with an amazing team that would never let me walk off the course.  This race was different though.  It was just me on the course.  Other than two faster runners doing the full, my whole crew was doing the half.  In that moment, I realized this question has fueled my chronic insomnia for some time.  What was I losing, outside of another medal, if I dialed it back to the half?  Well, I was risking the disappointment I would feel in myself plus running the risk of my clients' disappointment in me.  I finally bit the bullet right there on mile 12, took a deep breath and texted my accountability partner.  This was the hard part.  After weeks of pushing me through training I did not want to have this conversation.  

So this is where you fell,

And I am left to sell,

The path to heaven runs though miles of clouded hell,

right to the top,

Don't look back,

Turning to rags and giving the commodities a rain check

As I tend to do when I get nervous about talking about difficult things, I would text his ear off with my justifications for doing the half.  I wasn't letting down our accountability arrangement.  I was doing a half and doing it better. A Spartan Beast hovered around a half and it would make me a better Spartan racer.... I had a million comments....  see, my theory was if I kept talking he couldn't tell me I a being an idiot and should go for the full.  However, that diatribe was met with something totally different.  It was met with absolute support for changing trajectory to match the training I am currently doing well, rather than risking injury or taking on the misery that would surely accompany the full.  I would get the same response from my amazing tribe.  Honestly, I got nothing but support which made me wonder why I let this keep me up at night for so long.   So, in the end, without looking back, I have given the full marathon a rain check.  Not never, just not now. 

It's time to begin, isn't it?

I get a little bit bigger but then I'll admit,

I'm just the same as I was,

Now don't you understand,

I'm never changing who I am

As I walked through those last few miles last week, I felt relieved.  I had done better than a half the last two weekends.  I had the distance in the bag. Suddenly, the river was brighter, and mile 14 of the trail I was on was less like Chinese water torture and more like inspiration.  In the days that followed, I would throw all of my previous training plans away and start on something all new preparing for the half. Speed training, inclines, and suddenly it just was all easier. 

This whole experience makes me wonder how many times we get so caught up in chasing the bling and avoiding the disappointment of what we are not quite ready for, that we forget to celebrate where we are on the journey right here and right now.  Now I can't wait for next month. A race I have done before, on a trail I truly love, with a lot of my favorite people for a distance I can do well. Leaving the marathon on the table for now has done exactly one thing, added one fewer medal to the rack I don't look at all that often anyway.  I am learning that the challenge here is not made up of mileage, fancy medals or racing.  The real challenge is embracing our spot on this journey even if it means giving a  goal a rain check, and choosing to be the best current version of ourselves instead because, after all, the best is yet to come.

                                             

Perfect

Made a wrong turn, once or twice,

Dug my way out, blood and fire, 

Bad decisions, that's alright

Welcome to my silly life

-Pink                                                               

Yep, that's what I would be doing today.  Digging my way out of what feels like a bad decision, which may in fact, involve blood.  I was marathon training, 13.75 miles on tap today.  Further than a half marathon, yet among my fellow marathoners preparing for our races, we are calling it "a training run" like this is no biggie.  For me?  The glory of the marathon sounded amazing.  I did the sister half marathon to my upcoming race back in April.  Do the half in April and the full in October and you get a special medal.  Ugh... my propensity for bling has once again gotten me in trouble.  Now I am saddled with long training runs that some days are not as easy as others. In fact, the only way I do these things is to make a promise to my marathon training group as well as my personal accountability partner, as I am much less likely to let them down.  Left to my own devices, this may not be the case.   As I went to leave the house, I found myself annoyed with said personal accountability partner, freaking 13.75 miles, clearly this was his fault.  

As I went to leave for the trail, I passed through the family room to the door, the kids were watching some action movie and I found myself saying what I always do,"turn it down, that thing is screaming." Which, in my state at the time, probably came out a little harsher than I intended.  But seriously, why is it in recent years movie makers have found a way to make the dramatic sections of the movie so much louder?  I find I have to watch movies, remote in hand, ready to turn it down for these parts so my ears don't bleed  The whole thing is just annoying.

I would hit the trail at Lock 7 for my run along the Mohawk.  The weather was cool for a change, which was a bonus, but I was still dreading my run. I thought about the group I belong to known as "Fall Marathon Training Group."  The group was formed by a friend when we realized there were quite a few of us training for fall races.  This predominantly female group has helped me to remain accountable but I can't help to be jealous of these seasoned runners.  They are all so much faster than me, and they seem to make these training runs look so much easier.   I suppose it is my history of lifelong obesity, which meant I was last to be picked in gym class, counted out and bullied, that had my brain ruminating over my own inadequacy as an athlete.  Probably not the greatest time for this internal diatribe of negativity while I was at mile one, but yet, here it was.  However, as music often does, at mile two Pink had a lot to say to me.

You're so mean, when you talk, about yourself you were wrong,

Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead,

So complicated, look how big, you'll make it,

Filled with so much hatred, such a tired game,

It's enough! 

It dawned on me in that moment, it's quite possible I was wrong.   I do tend to spend much of my time letting the loudest voices be the negative ones.  The ones that remind me I don't measure up, or the gentle grieving thoughts for relationships that have significantly changed during my four and a half year journey to health and wellness.  Pink was right.  It was time to put this to bed, and focus on a solid run to the best of my own abilities.  I would get through the 13.75 miles that my training app called for, and add another quarter for a nice round 14.  Why?  Because I could.  My paces were pretty even, I was sore and tired, but I did it.  

The whole world's scared, so I swallow the fear,

The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold beer,

When I finished, there were messages waiting in my private group chat with select members of my tribe asking how I did.  I shared my run there and was met with cheers and congratulations.  Then,  as we do, among our Fall Marathon Motivational group, I posted my run before I even got in the car.  I immediately had the greatest comments from all of the marathoners I admire so much.  Here I was jealous and feeling inadequate when each and every one of them are firmly in my corner, cheering me on.  My paces did not matter.  This was not a competition.  Rather, a celebration of all of our successes.   My accountability partner, who I was way less annoyed with at that point, would send congrats as well and shut down comments where I tried to downplay the parts of my run that maybe were less than perfect.  Fourteen miles.  'Nuff said.  

Oh pretty pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel,,

Like you're less than f**kin' perfect,

Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel like you're nothing,

You're f**kin' perfect to me!

As I write this I am thinking more about the volume problem of modern day movies, and I found myself asking, when does it get really loud?  When it gets good.  Maybe our job is is to have our own remote to dial back the negative and less interesting voices in our heads and lives, and crank that shit when it gets really good.  Maybe Hollywood had it right.  I ran 14 miles today, more than a half on a lazy Sunday September afternoon, a quarter mile further than I intended, and was celebrated with so much love and support.   That right there is a whole lot of perfect and should be cranked til my ears bleed.  I heard a phrase today about looking for the people in your life that pour into you.  I am so grateful to my tribe that shows up for me every single day to remind me I am nothing less than f**kin' perfect, just as I do for them.  After all, we are all in this together and the best is yet to come.