The gray November day met me with a chill that I simply wasn’t expecting. I should have because I had been out a couple of times that day already. I pulled my thumbs out of the holes and tucked my hands into my running shirt. With clenched fingers, I pulled my winter hat down. I knew, without a doubt, that today would be my last run in capri pants for the year.
My body felt ridgid, stiff, awkward. The first half mile of the run was clunky at best. The moment I recognized that I was resisting allowing the run to flow through my body, I relaxed. Almost immediately I felt more whole, I felt more fluid, I felt more balanced.
It wasn’t for another half mile that I realized I was holding tension and resistance in my hips and through my sacral chakra. Like much in life, acknowledging it was enough to make me let it go. As my stride extended, the reality of how resistant I had been set in. I truly didn’t realize it until I let it go; and as soon as I did, I realized the magnitude of what I was resisting.
Just like that, I found my stride on the run. I found the pace that my body wanted to be at, which happened to be much faster than I had been running. Funny how releasing resistance speeds things up. Not only did energy flow freely through my body, it flowed through my mind, through my soul.
My hair bounced on my shoulder, it flowed and shifted like the wind. It has been years now since I have washed my hair with shampoo. My hair used to be pin straight. Now, there is a flow and wave to it. I used to wash it with shampoo but then realized that I didn’t have to subscribe to societal norms and started using baking soda and apple cider vinegar. As I lost the drive for societal norms, I also lost the rigid and pin straight hair. As I embraced myself, I accepted flow and waves into every part of my life and my hair was no exception.
Life is much like a run. Sometimes, you hit your stride on day one and sometimes it takes you a mile or three to hit your stride. You can spend your time being sorry that it took you time to reach your stride, or you can enjoy the run and be grateful as you relax into it.
