What running taught me about acceptance
I never thought I’d find myself here, getting ready to extol the virtues of running. I’ve never been a “running person.” As a kid, I had a visceral dislike of sweating, getting out of breath, feeling my face overheat, the pounding of my feet against hard ground. Honestly, I still experience a fair amount of discomfort about these things today — though I do think my protests have gotten a little quieter.
I started running (jogging, really) as a way to test out a different form of physical activity — one that got me outside, could take me to a destination and back, and could be done with another person if I wanted. At some point, I became willing to subject myself to all the aforementioned loathsome sensations in order to try something different, and to spend some time in ways I care about (in nature, with a loved one, nurturing my body). It went… okay. Months might have passed between my first few attempts at jogging through my neighborhood.
Then, COVID hit. My world shrank: I was no longer commuting to work or class (still in grad school at the time), and it wasn’t safe to exercise in a traditional indoor gym. Desperate for novelty, social connection, and maintaining our health, my partner and I took up two new habits: hiking and — you guessed it — running. I was again willing to push myself for the purpose of self-care — not just for my physical body, but also to create some semblance of agency, order, and discipline for a mind churning with anxiety about the longevity and consequences of the pandemic.
The acute stressors of the pandemic gradually eased, schedules changed, and running threatened to slip back into the realm of sporadic or outright avoided activities. Enter Rayla: our 14-week-old puppy. Suddenly, we needed to figure out how to give this round-bellied, shark-toothed, gleaming-eyed creature enough structure and activity such that she could snooze peacefully while my partner and I worked. Once she was old enough, running re-entered the fray. I found compassion and ease in spades for my half-grown pup, still building motor coordination and stamina, that somehow I hadn’t managed for myself in my first few attempts at jogging. And watching her flop forward, ears flapping, mouth agape, tail held high, gave me so much joy that it was almost enough to forget the agony of my own sweat, flushed face, and pounding feet.
Running became an important part of our morning routine. We were preparing Rayla to nap through my work meetings, and preparing me to show up for those meetings with a sense of equilibrium and accomplishment. As it turns out — you may have heard this before — there is truly reward in doing hard things! And in addition, I could see myself practicing what I preach to my clients about mindfulness, willingness, self-compassion, and meaningful action. I found myself noticing and describing the sensations I experienced while running, including all the things I most hated about running, as well as urges to give up. I tested myself to keep going until the next tree — if I still wanted to slow my pace to a walk, then I could. And I was able to convince the all-or-nothing part of my mind that my only options were not just “walk” or “run” — I could, in fact, run at a slower pace when I needed to, instead of automatically resigning to walking. I made space for the sensations of sweating, panting, skin heating, and pounding that I still don’t love to this day; and when I did, I also found that there was a feeling of strength in my feet pushing off from the ground to propel my body forward; a sense of constancy alongside the struggle of continuing to pull in my ragged breaths and let them out; and even pleasure in feeling the sun’s warmth, trees’ cool shade, and wind racing alongside me. I had been so used to thinking of myself as “not a runner” — and yet here I am, running regularly multiple times a week.
One moral of this story is that having a dog helps with motivation. But once I committed to doing this thing I hated — for her well-being and mine, for time with my partner, for the sake of doing a hard thing — well, it turns out I don’t hate it so much, after all.
