What not Why

Making meaning doesn't inoculate you against future failures.

Top of Mt. Elbert with Liz and Yiou.

I have worked exceptionally hard on myself for my whole life. I have always been introspective and deeply feeling. I have work so very hard on myself: to heal from trauma, to unravel my self understanding, to build healthier ways of being in the world. I have worked and fixed and reflected and worked and fixed and reflected again and again. For the past 5 years, I have been doing pretty intensive therapy to move the needle and make real change. I have learned a lot. I have grown. I have healed. I have seen glimmers of my authentic self. I have broken down bad habits like perfectionism. I have built up skills like trust and self-compassion. I have helped heal my nervous system.

For the past several months, I know realize, I have been seeing the downside of this incessant self-work. That is, that once you start pulling on that thread, interrogating your thoughts and feelings, when do you stop? Instead of feeling like I was making progress, I started to feel like I needed to do more and more work. Instead of feeling good about all the work I had done, I started to feel that I would never ever find peace. Instead of feeling self-trust, I started to feel dogged by self-doubt. And now, two-thirds of the way through the year, I can see how this dark side has had a cascading effect on my decision making and my mental health.

This year has felt like falling. The beginning of the year feeling like that first moment when you know you are going down. Between being dropped, DNF-ing Jackpot 100 and not getting to the startlines I had planned (like Comrades), I felt like I had caught air and was careening towards impact. Then, we opened the bakery and I committed to a wild plan of running 5 100 milers in 5 months. This was the moment of optimism that I could catch myself from the fall. That I could mitigate the damage. Then came actually falling and hurting myself before High Lonesome and not being able to start. Then came Leadville and a DNF. There was in fact, no catching myself. I feel broken and battered from impact. In all of this, I worked hard to make meaning. To understand WHY WHY WHY of all of these twists and turns. To burrow down deep into every choice, every decision, every failure. And the more I interrogated myself, the more unhappy I became. The more confused. I felt like I had to have an answer. I couldn’t just fail. I had to fail better. I had to make it into something. I had to justify and explain myself. And this is just all wrong.

I have been asking myself the wrong question: Why? Why was this the wrong question for me? Because you don’t need to make meaning out of every feeling. I have become so accustomed to working on myself that self-interrogation has become second nature. And it is not always the right tool. Introspecting on every single thing does not in fact create more insight. I kept trying to fix the past through understanding it and ensure that I would be safe in the future. But it doesn’t work that way. Making meaning doesn't inoculate you against future failures.

The better question to ask myself is: What? What am I feeling? What do I need right now? What am I excited about? What do I want to do? If I follow those questions with a Why? I feel immediately defensive and shutdown. I can feel my chest tighten. I have spent my life justifying and explaining myself, and I have worked so hard to not feel like I have to. I have worked so hard to trust myself and my deep inner knowing. I have asked enough “why” in therapy and self-work that it is no longer the right question for me.

This year has felt wildly off the rails. I have achieved nothing in running that I hoped I would. While I have enjoyed immense fitness, being in a bad mental space has triggered a neurotic desire to prove my fitness, prove myself and my worth. And chaos has ensued. It was not until Leadville that I could see how absolutely burned out I was. Burned out on self-work. Burned out on trying to do it all. Burned out on trying to prove myself and cement my place in the sport. Burned out on the wrong questions and by going the right direction.

Martha Beck says “integrity is the cure for unhappiness”. I can see I have been out of integrity (aka alignment) with myself this year. I can forgive myself for this and for my mistakes and for finding myself here. I am trying to extend myself self-compassion, even though that is definitely not among my strongest characteristics.

And so, I must begin again. And again and again if I have to. I don’t yet know what I want to do. But at least I know that I am finally asking myself the right question.