Apostate

A women's search for meaning

I have been asking myself a lot of questions lately. And when those same tired questions have led me to the same stalemate in understanding, I have begun to ask myself better questions. I have spent my whole life digging, fixing, trying to understand better, do better, be better. I have always been committed to self-work and understanding. It is only recently that I have begun to question if I am committed to change or how much I really am willing to do to change. Knowing is one thing, doing is another. And doing, especially when it comes to changing deeply rooted self-beliefs and habitual behaviors, is hard.

I was saying to my husband, Nathan, the other day that as an enneagram 4, I am very good at thinking & feeling. I think and feel and think and feel and think and feel. I try to think and feel to get myself positioned to do, but often doing is the hardest thing for me. I want things to be perfectly thought out and my feelings perfectly sorted and understood in order to ensure right action. This is a well-worn habit. My self-work then has often been about working really hard on how I think and how I feel. But doing things differently? Am I actually doing that?

Coming off being dropped by lululemon, I was faced with the humbling reality that I can think and feel differently but ultimately fail to act. In that partnership, I ultimately did not do what I needed to in order to maintain boundaries and protect myself. I did some of the same things that I have done in the past that have led me to getting hurt. I gave away my power, I did not protect myself well enough against manipulation, gaslighting and unprofessional behavior. I slipped into my habit of desperately trying to meet or exceed expectations. I was not buoyed and lifted up by the relationship, I was used and discarded. I did not do for myself. I did for them under some naive assumption that when they said they genuinely cared about me, they meant it. I left myself. I could have done things a lot better. And the part that hurts is that I genuinely thought I was doing things differently.

As I have tried to sort through the aftermath of that, I have watched protective habits rise to the surface. I have felt righteous anger. I have resolutely sped forward with “THE ANSWER” of what I do next. Only to find myself tied in knots and very confused. I found myself in the Dark Woods of Error. The only thing that has illuminated the path out of there is starting to ask myself “what can I do differently?” and then doing it. I’ve started running tiny experiments (great book by the way) by doing things differently and then seeing what happens. I have start to pay attention to where I am spending my time, my attention, my energy, my health, my money, my data, my fucks given. I’ve noticed what happens when I change that spending.

For example, over the last 3 weeks, I have been completely off Instagram, save 3 minutes I took to monitor my business accounts. As I mentioned in my previous post, I did not feel like it was serving me, but I also did not know how to address the issue. Basically, I was trying to over-think and over-feel my way into an answer. So instead, I just decided one day to stop using Instagram. I neither committed to a period of time, nor told myself it was some sort of digital detox. I just decided that just for today I want to spend my energy elsewhere. I have had no inclinations to use it, no curiosity. The 3 minutes I was on the platform just felt ill-fitting and not interesting. More importantly, by doing this, I actually started to facilitate BETTER and more clear thinking and feeling. Which led to more experiments of doing.

What happens if I stop marinating in righteous anger about the state of the sport and ignore all the superfluous extra stuff and goings on? What happens is that the clouds part and I am able to see exactly what is I want to be doing and racing and how I want to show up. I stop trying to think my way into a solution for all of the sports problems and instead, narrow my focus right down to my own running. What the FUCK do I want to be doing? Turns out it is a lot easier to hear myself when I turn down the noise of other people’s opinions, online personas, and the marketing machines. As I do better at paying attention to where I am spending my precious commodities like time and attention, I am able to understand just how much I squander on a daily basis and just how much I am commodified. This in turn makes me much more deliberate and mindful. It makes me much more committed to doing things that align with my values and how I want to show up in the world.

I had been told from a very young age that I was a black sheep, a deviant, somehow wrong or bad. This (untrue) narrative was told to me over and over and over again throughout the first part of my life and then ironically again picked up as a narrative in the sport of ultrarunning. The reality is that I was simply living my authentic existence in a way that made people uncomfortable and thus, they wanted to make me change. I didn’t, but I did develop the habit of seeking other people’s approval and always, always trying to meet or exceed other people’s expectations of me. This was never satisfying and never served me. In fact, it led to a lot of deep wounds. As I begin to start doing things differently, I can anticipate the resistance that will come. Heck, I have already seen it in the way that many of my fellow competitors backed away from me after being dropped like I have a contagious disease. Like being around me might sully them in some way. I found this hurtful a few months ago, now I find it amusing. If thinking for myself and coming to my own opinions and conclusions makes people uncomfortable, that is just fine with me. I am not starting shit, saying shit or doing anything other than quietly going about living a better life for myself.

For the past few weeks, I have been selling off a lot of my belongings. It is amazing the levity that comes from unburdening yourself of too much stuff and distilling down your life to the essentials. It makes the things I do have, have more meaning, become more precious. Seeing how this external act produced internal change, I further experimented with offloading worry, anger, frustration and care. Why do I still own this shirt, I don’t even like it? Why am I concerned with what people on the internet are doing, it doesn’t have anything to do with me? Making space begets the desire to make more space. To have more room, to think and feel and do and breathe and simply be at peace.

A handful of years ago, I made the drawing that follows and I recently came across it again in one of my journals. I can see now that what I am doing is moving into the sweet spot. I am titrating my existence and way of showing up in the world so that the things that matter can flourish. The life of connection, community, passion, meaning, joy and peace is the life for me.