1/9/22 Retreat Writing
It feels good not to run.
That’s a true statement.
I’m the one who said it.
But there’s another side to it. Is there always another side, to everything?
Here, the other side is: it doesn’t feel good to not want to run. That’s not exactly the opposite, but a shifted other side. Or two things existing together.
It feels good to not run. Not running means I’m listening to what my body is saying. I’m proud of myself for listening.
But not wanting to in the first place, detecting the signal from my body, feels like an alarm bell.
I can’t help but think something is wrong.
And, well, it’s probably true – something is not as it usually is. Something is out of alignment. And that’s okay. It happens. I can be curious and present as I observe, and I can trust that desire will return.
But what if it doesn’t?
That’s an understandable question. But you know it’s not helpful to stay in that space. That’s future thinking and that’s what causes anxiety, for me.
Yesterday I wrote the following:
I turn myself *inside out* through writing and *outside in* through running long distances.
I felt excitement as I read those words back to myself because: they are true. And those words are coordinates to a truth I’ve always felt. Running and writing have always been connected for me. But I didn’t have the exact coordinates until yesterday. And now I do. The excitement I felt reading those words back is because with the coordinates in hand, I can get to the truth easier and faster.
If running is how I turn the outside in, and I don’t want to run right now, it follows that I might not have the capacity to take the outside in right now.
If writing is how I turn the inside out, it follows that writing might be the way to balance myself right now. I need to write, I need to get the inside out, so I can find the capacity to take the outside in again.
This feels like Alchemy.
Writing and running are ways I transmute energy.
My energy has been off lately.
My capacity to run and to write might be external barometers for how my energy is doing. Writing and running are weather reporters for me. I can check in on one or the other and easily see how I’m doing.
They are also release valves I can adjust. Or maybe locks for dams. Adjusting one or the other might raise or lower something within me. I can use them to balance myself.
Oh, okay. Right. I knew this, I think. At least on some level. But to intentionally name it gives it more power. Power tools. Ah ha. I see. Okay.
Write more, right now.
