What do we do when our shadows of fear engulf us, when we feel so stuck that we can't move forward?
I have been blogging about my first-ever Half Marathon occuring this Saturday. I leave for Catalina by boat tomorrow night! I am staying in a hotel with some of my girlfriend's friends of whom I've never met. They'll be 5 of us in total that are running. It just won't be together. At least, that's not how I picture it in my mind. My visitor (shadow) keeps telling me I'll be the one at the end of the race that everyone is waiting for so they can take down the finish line. She also tells me that I can't do this, that I'm too old, that my knee won't be able to handle the race after undergoing and ACL repair nearly 3 years ago. When I listen to her it's how I view the rest of my life. The snowball starts to move down the mountain getting feverishly bigger to the point where I then feel like I'm a horrible mother, wife and friend. Next thing you know I feel like no one loves me and I'm all alone.
All this because I took a big step forward to do something good for myself. I can now recognize that when I do something good my shadow wants to pull me back to what's familiar. What I know now is that my shadow is scared of change and that's HER voice, not mine.
So have a seat, my shadow, as I watch the warmth of the sun melt that snowball. I am choosing to move forward and am embracing this change for the better. Someone once told me I'm never alone anyway, because I always have a relationship with myself. The picture of me at the end of the race will be with one big smile on my face, because I will have sipped in all that Catalina has to offer: the sunshine, the buffalo roaming, and the very thought that I did my best to overcome my shadow. However long it takes me to finish, I realize that I am a WINNER!
What has your shadow been saying to you as of late? Isn't time to ask him/her to pack her bags?
Happy weekend,
~Lisa
*photo by Chris Sharp
