I finished a 5k today - and I want to share with you what happened...

My daughter and her friend asked if I wanted to do a fun 5k with them - we would walk it. Since I haven’t done steady cardio in ages I said - sure!

Now race day came and for absolutely valid/important reasons, both of them had to cancel so I was at the start line... by myself (my thought)

Now, I’ve read and embraced some really interesting concepts over the years...and I’ll share them with you here... someday during your meditation, think of your inner self as a bus. And all the parts of you are sitting on that bus. Some of them you can see and know well - they are usually sitting at the front of the bus and they are the ones we let drive and/navigate the most. Some are in the middle. Maybe you don’t pay attention to them as much and some of them get obnoxious to try and get that attention. Some are quiet and don’t want to be noticed. Some are waaaay back - so far back we can’t even see or recognize them. But they are all US and they are neither good - nor bad. They just are. A fun excercise is to try walking theough the bus - talking to each one and getting to know them better - find their names.. Some of mine are - the mother, the child, the sister, the father, the dictator, the feast beast, the wild child, the vixion, the minx, the Amazon. So - if all this entities are us.. who is it that’s looking at them, talking to them, and processing their characteristics? That’s who I call the watcher. Some might call we the inner goddess - I think there is a physiological term for it - but I’ll get it wrong if I try to guess. Anyway-they are the one who can separate our selves, observe them and does nothing but love them. When I’m not getting the results I want or not feeling the feelings I want I engage the watcher and try to observe everything from that place of non-judgement.

Soooo back to the race. I was at the starting line and The Child was in the drivers seat fighting with the dictator and others

The child: this sucks! Everyone is here with their friends and we’re here alone. This was supposed to be fun, but it’s no fun at all!

The mother: stop - they couldn’t be here for good reasons!

The child: I know, but this still sucks. It’s hot and we only agreed to do this cause they were doing it!

Announcer says the race is three laps and we can stop after any of them.

We start and...

The child: good! This is boring! We only do one then go home!

The protecter: it’s hot, we didn’t train we shouldn’t over do it. Only one

The perfectionist: but it’s a 5k, one lap is not a 5k. We have to do all three

The dictator: stop being a lazy cow! I can’t belive you would even think of stopping!

On and on...

Then 1/2 way through the first lap - someone maybe the mother said “does any of these thoughts making doing this any easier?” (Even the ‘helpful ones?)

Everyone: No!

Engage the watcher

The watcher: Well then - what will

Everyone:....thinking of our goals!!

It started then. “What are my goals?” And the ones I write on my planner every day popped up - fitter, faster, stronger... I held onto those like a mantra with the dictator leading the chant with ever step

Then others started joining in:

The vixen: sexier running is sexy

The minx: and it makes our butt look good

Amazon: running is badass too

The crone: and it makes our bones strong so we won’t be a ‘bent’ old lady

The rest of the event flew by! All the reasons to finish coming up - even the feast beast helped by reminding me that his goal is to eat more... and running means we can do that

“With in reason” reminded the mother

When I got hot - the Amazon reminded me that Amazon’s don’t fear the heat!

When I got bored - the child started making up games

When I got tired - the protecter reminded me it was ok to slow down...

And we all crossed the finish line together with a big SMILE!!

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442Kim Siberski, Angela Moore and 440 others