“New Year: New You”

Oh the PRESSURE! That saying makes me cringe. Why do we do this to ourselves? Starting the new year believing we in some way we need to present a newer-spruced up version of self?

(As I write those words, I am struck by the irony as this is my first post in my “newer/fancier formatted blog site”…. ) Sigh…..

This “New Year: New You” concept has me thinking: how do we embrace this time of year to perhaps reflect on the person we are, the person we want to be, the person we once were without sacrificing the integrity of who we innately were always meant to be?

I remember reading this quote years ago accredited to Oscar Wilde, “Be Yourself, everyone else is already taken” thinking, um…. duh….. obvious, right? But is it? Are we fully embracing and understanding the message?

Everyone. Else. Is. Taken

You are all unique, just like everyone else! Giving the message year after year to create a newer, more evolved version of self is perhaps at a minimum flawed and possibly damaging to think we need to change in order to be worthy or enough. What if it is not about being a “newer” version of self, but more so of finding the authentic self we often hide from the wold and trying to be vulnerable enough to show that version to the world? Wow!

I’ve been exploring this concept within myself. There is both this strong desire to create and write and teach others on an increasingly public and grand scale, and an opposing desire to stay small and quiet and invisible. Which do you feed? Which do you allow to grow? Neither are “new” as they are both aspects of self. Is that latter desire, largely influenced by my introversion and at times experience with anxiety more powerful or compelling than the desire to use my experience as a way to help others? I am starting to believe it is a combination of both that are necessary to find ones authentic self.

May be you have been distracted? Overwhelmed? Grieving? Bogged down by the minutia of everyday life?

While I cannot give you the exact road map to finding yourself, what I can say is this…. it is in the quiet, the stillness that I have started to see the glimmer of the most pure expression of who I have always been meant to be. I can attempt to ignore that version, but she continues to show up and nudge me to be courageous and be more than I at times even want to be. Finding my old self….

I was a runner. Although I was not particularly talented in my running, for over a decade I encouraged (some may say coerced) many people to run. I gathered previously unknown people together to train (now long-time friends), fundraise for charity (raised over $100,000) , and to run races near and far. May be the “runner” aspect of self was never meant to be the first to cross the finish line, but rather to inspire and encourage others to reach for seemingly impossible goals, and do that thing that seems really freaking hard?

I quit distance running for almost 5 years. I have missed it so much, both the training and the races. I found my runner self again this week, and committed to train for a half marathon in the fall. The decision was like welcoming home an old friend I forgot even existed. I inadvertently allowed the injuries I have had, the chronic pain condition, & the increasingly slow pace, to SPEAK REALLY LOUDLY & to validate my existing inner monologue that suggests I am “not enough” and thus gave it up. I realized in giving up running, I was telling myself I am broken, I am not worthy, I am not enough.

Do I want to feed that narrative?

Or do I want to feed the narrative that suggests my running is more than about a pace or time?

Running in the streets of my hometown or the races from Detroit to Berlin, Germany and many sites in between have always been about my pushing myself to find strength and courage and now I am understanding humility….. and truly embracing and learning to love myself.

I do not have to be fast to be worthy, I just need to show up. I do not need to be fixed by anyone, I just need to embrace what is. I do not have to be loved by others, I just need to love myself. I do not need to praised or admired, I just need to honor and respect myself for who and what I am, and who and what I have always been.

So do the thing/s you love. Messy. Awful. Ugly. Slow. Sloppily. Just show up and keep seeking not the person you think you need to evolve into being, rather the person you truly are, and were always meant to be.

Wishing you peace….in your journey…