And your mind lies. I can’t believe this lesson comes up for me every single day. It’s Sunday. I’ve already hit my quota of running this week. But I just wanted to do a little run this morning because we missed park run on Saturday and I didn’t want to go 3 days without running. So the plan was for a fairly short, slow pace run, nothing difficult. And yet I was so scared before leaving home. It’s nuts – of what? That it’s going to be too hard? I ALWAYS think that about any run. It’s going to be too hard. And what’s the issue with that? It’s out of my comfort zone and that is the issue my mind can’t get around. It’s trying to save me from doing anything that’s uncomfortable because quite frankly it’s not fun. Our brains are wired to lead us towards pleasure and away from pain. So 7km later and I feel totally fine. I was feeling lacking in energy the 2nd km but I love the idea of scanning your body to see what’s wrong with you – and there is nothing. Nothing particularly hurting or straining and not too puffed. And I ate cheese and crackers for dinner so a good reminder that doesn’t fill you with energy. I was feeling ok at the end and thought I could do more or I could do some hills but I decided to give my mind a gift – that running could be easy. It didn’t always have to be hard. Why not do an easy run – wouldn’t that make getting out of the house a million times easier for future runs? Instead of what happened this morning desperately not wanting to get out of bed and going to the bathroom about 4 times because I was nervous. What a waste of energy and negativity. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to say ‘yay, I get to run, today is an easy run, I can stop whenever I want to, I am a hero for doing an extra run, isn’t it amazing I have come so far I can do small runs fairly easily, I am going to feel so unbelievably good about myself and my life once it is done’. And I am kind of giggling to myself that this post sounds just like another post this week – it’s exactly the same message. But why on earth does it take so long to learn this lesson? Are we dumb? Are we too old to change? No. It’s a life time of ingrained habits that can’t be changed overnight. Like everything in life we want to be good at, the key is practice, practice, practice. And more practice. While that sounds dreary and monotonous, what if it ultimately leads to happiness? And if we help our mind to realise what we think isn’t true, maybe that allows us to question our mind about other things it believes to be true. What if they aren’t? Would life be easier or better if we had different thoughts?

Be kind to yourself.

Wxx