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Being My Own Champion

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by stepmommyrun in Uncategorized

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believe, Cheer, competition, goals, God, Mother Teresa, race, run, running, stepmom

I discovered that underneath all of my independence, is someone who is dependent on others to validate their work. And underneath all that reliance on others to validate them, is someone who finally knows how to celebrate themselves. Yesterday was a trying day. It was a last minute decision to join a race, rather than cheer and support. I had trained some, mostly inconsistently. But I had trained. I was getting there. Rebounding from illness, times two, and a round of depression that still seems thick on my skin, I was getting there. So when I signed up for yesterday’s race a mere 5 days prior, I was nervous and doubtful. I had no idea how I would perform, let alone finish. I had multiple layers of fear, both rational and irrational. What I didn’t have was my direct support team. I was doing this solo. Don’t get me wrong, I had some of my direct support, but they had their own things to get through.

As race morning was upon us, one member had spent the last 24 hours fretting and pacing, stressed and worrisome over the length and potential performance in the race. I spent much of my morning in silent support. Another member was battling her own demons with an injury that forced her withdrawal from her original race, to a lesser distance: my race. I spent much of my time trying not to be insulted and trying not to speak.

One thing I know to be true; I am the sensitive one. If I have an opinion, that is deemed excessive or too passionate, the natural response is “uh oh, she’s upset again, lets walk on eggshells around her” When in actuality, I’m just expressing an opinion or telling you how you make me feel. So I have a large basket of emotions at 6AM of race day. I’m doing my best to support the other two, as I still don’t believe I belong here, and therefore my fears and concerns about the race or my performance are not valid. I didn’t train as long or as hard as they did. I didn’t sacrifice the time I don’t have like they did. My battle is nowhere near the earned level theirs is. So I kept quiet. I said minimal about my injury. I said nothing about my fears. I tried my best not to retaliate, or even worse, pathetically beg for attention and validation on this cold run morning.

We arrive at our race, and the first runner takes off. We cheer, take pictures, we yell and clap for her and all the other runners. Then a nervous silence descended on the park. We had 3 hours before our race was scheduled to start. I set up to cheer anyone who came through the first checkpoint on. The injured went to sit in warmth. She was angry. She was frustrated. All of her hard work, training, sacrifice, and tears came down to destruction in her eyes. She was not going to run the race she signed up for, and all because part of her body had betrayed her. It wouldn’t function. It gave up. It gave in, and it would barely let her walk. I watched silently as she struggled to process her disappointment. That process, by the way, looks like rageful anger tinged with sarcastic humor. We are very similar creatures, using passive humor to somehow mollify the pain of failure. It wasn’t working. In fact, while not working, it was creating anger and resentment in me. It was pushing my limits of patience and understanding. I was near tears at one point, and considering lashing out in passive angry humor (ok maybe no humor). Here she was, shrouded in her own frustration and mutiny from her limbs, completely unaware of neither the words she was saying or the attitude displayed toward my race.

I accepted much of it. I accepted that my run wasn’t a real run. I accepted that the race I was doing wasn’t for real runners. Why? Because I lacked confidence in me. I lacked belief that I deserved to be here. I didn’t understand that although my race wasn’t the cream of the crop goal of every runner, it was still going to be an unbelievable accomplishment for me. I didn’t accept that I deserved to be here. I deserved to own and earn this accomplishment. I was spending my prep time battling for someone else’s sanity, and I deserved to have someone invest in mine. I was terrified. I didn’t think I could run as far as I had signed up to run! I didn’t think I could do it alone! I didn’t think I would make it. I feared I would be laughed at, walking this trail, by other runners that I’ve always believed were a supportive community.

And then, something changed.

I’d had enough.

I made an internal decision, which had an outward impact. I decided I deserved to be here. I decided my race was important. I decided my race was amazing. I decided I was valued. I decided to be my own champion. I decided I was important.

From that moment on, I was done worrying about others. I was done being an unresponsive emotional punching bag, intended or not. My race mattered.

The start lineup came. We lined up. We made the decision to run our own races. So often runners will unconsciously make the decision that they cannot leave each other behind. They will keep pace with a slower runner out of guilt, even though they may have trained harder than the runner they are pacing. I know from experience. I am the slow runner! I’ve had team members run their crappiest races because they have this internal desire to motivate and lift the entire team. I’ve had my mom make up songs in the middle of the race, just to keep me motivated and going. And she’s a regular marathoner! So we decided to run separate races. We decided based on our own needs, it would be best to do our races and do them for ourselves and on our own.

Best decision made. Injured took off like a bat out of hell. Her strategy was to run, and run fast before her limbs realized what she was doing, and hopefully once her limbs caught on she would be crashing through the finish line many miles later. I had committed to a 14 minute mile pace in advance. Based on the distant and my training, I believed this was a pace I could finish at.

The run was amazing. It was hard. It was trying. I had to stop 3 separate times to stretch out my own injury I was battling. But I never walked. Half the time I didn’t even pick my head up to look around. The scenery was amazing, but I didn’t know it. I was both my own cheerleader and captain. At one point I was babbling to myself through the trail. I called myself my own last name and my sister’s last name to chastise into running faster.

In the end, I sprinted my last 0.3 miles. I sprinted past our cheering team and Injured yelling and cheering me on. I sprinted over the finish line and claimed my medal at an average pace of 12.36 minutes per mile.  I did this. I did this for me. I accomplished something unbelievable, and I did it alone. No one else on my team really knew or acknowledged what it took for me to accomplish this, and it didn’t matter. I am amazing, and I know what I went through to smash this goal.

So in the end, your take away is this: Sometimes you spend your entire life reliant on others to validate your existence, to empathize with your struggle. And in the end, there is only you. In the end, you might be the only one who notices you. And that, needs to be enough. In the end, you are enough.

“The good you do today, may be forgotten tomorrow. Do it anyway…..In the end it is between you and God, it was never between you and them anyway.” –Mother Theresa

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Hello God, its me

16 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by stepmommyrun in Uncategorized

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Tags

anger, failure, God, judged, liar, life lesson, rating, success, thief

Are you there? Of course you are. Have you seen my performance lately? Is it part of something. Of course it is. Will I become a better person because of what I endure now? Probably. If I can pull myself out of this hole. I’m feeling defeated. Which is absurd given the high high I had with the success of this past weekend. Nothing like a work week to kick you in the teeth and make you want to run for the hills with your tail between your legs. My stupidity and frantic brain have cost me trust this week. I’ve been labelled a liar and a thief. All because I couldn’t remember what happened 4 days ago. In the span of 4 days so many things have changed. So many good. Some not so good. Some chaotic and intense. So many things I had to defend myself against. I have electrodes taped to my person monitoring my heart! And I am supposed to remember the chaos of 4 days ago accurately? Of course, by the time I remembered what really happened, it was too late. The tape had been played back. The fat lady sang. And there is nothing I can do or say at this point to force continued faith in me. And I’m angry now. Angry I’ve been betrayed by the people I’ve fought for. Angry that assumptions were made without ever speaking to me. Not that speaking to me helped matters much anyway, clearly as exhibited by my stumbling response of “I’m certain I was here, I think….I’m pretty sure”. Stupid. The unbelievable dedication I’ve had to this project for 8 months now, washed away in a poor review, all because I’ve been sick for 30 days which has affected my performance and my concentration. The sickness broke my defenses and my life just swallowed me whole. I’m feeling judged solely on 30 days out of 180. And that is a crappy place to be.

So here’s your take-away for today. If at any moment in time you could have your entire life, or career, or friendship judged on a single moment or even a single day, no option to explain or defend: do you feel confident you’ll rate well at any given instant?

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I’m not strong enough

02 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by stepmommyrun in Uncategorized

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Tags

enough, failure, Faith, God, love, step mom, strong

I’m uncertain as I start this, if there will be a happy finish; if there is to be a moral to the story, or uplifting message in the end. As of yet, I have not intended my writing to go the direction it has gone, it just sort of, happened.

I believe I’ve lost my connection and relationship with God. Not severed or destroyed, just drifted away. I’ve been angry for a long time, and I remember the last two times I was feeling as I have lately, and I had weakened my relationship with God. The first time, I was young and very angry with him. I chose to separate from him. What resulted was a very long and very dark year of my life, that ended in a very harsh and awful lesson. What became of that year, is the strength you see now. I still carry that time with me, ashamed, hurt, guilty, and saddened by it. But, I am incredibly strong and capable because of it.

The second time I lost my way, was not on purpose. It casually slipped away in the chaos of life. I was busy with work, with a home, with family, with friends, with my own emotional turmoil in trying to believe and trust in another human being. I lost my way. What resulted was an inability to trust and communicate with my partner. A passive aggressive relationship that ultimately spiralled downward into its own shrapnel loaded explosion.

And here I am now, feeling hopeless and inadequate. Wondering how do I continue? How do I find my way through this heartbreaking scenario day in and day out for the rest of my life? How do I manage to stay calm, level-headed, and rise above the pettiness of others on a daily basis? How do I accept that things will not improve? They will just change their shape and present in a new format. I cannot change others. I struggle to believe when they say they want to change. I try to have faith in human ability to self improve. I am struggling to believe in the wrong thing first.

I was given advice on a particularly difficult night of stress and frustration with this person. I was told that above all else, as humans, we are called to love. How do you love someone who continues to hurt you? How do you love someone who goes after your family? How do you love someone in spite of everything they’ve become, when you know nothing of who they were? How do you do this for the rest of your life? I’m not strong enough to do this!

And to all of these questions came this response:

You may not be able to love this person yourself, you may struggle to be civil. So love them as God would, because they are one of his own.

This is not easy. It is not easy for me to repair my relationship with God. It is not easy for me to ask anyone for help. So today, as I sipped my coffee and thought about doing nothing really all day at work, unmotivated and uninterested, a thought popped into my head: I should pray and ask for motivation to do what is best today. I sat down at my desk and had a timid conversation with God before starting work. I asked him ultimately for strength to be a better version of me today. I turned on my music and hit shuffle on nearly 600 songs, and this one played the moment I came back in my office and sat down:

“I know I’m not strong enough to be everything I’m supposed to be. I give up. I’m not strong enough. Hands of mercy won’t you cover me. Lord right now I’m asking you to be strong enough, for the both of us.”

I haven’t had a real conversation with Him in a very long time, and without argument or blame or judgement, He responds. Perhaps if I let Him love me, I can learn to love as he does; without expectation.

“Strong Enough” -Matthew West

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