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Yes, No, Yes…ugh boundaries

It seems like it should be so easy to maintain healthy boundaries in relationships.  But, not so much, it’s a lot trickier than it looks, especially for me.  I think a lot of the time, I’m have an internal fear that doing so will cause rejection – and goodness knows I would do anything to avoid that.  The trouble is, not speaking up, not setting or maintaining boundaries, leaves me cranky…with others and myself.  With others because I resent feeling pushed to do or accept something I don’t want to do.  With myself, because I didn’t express how I really felt about the matter.

I think part of this too is because I tend to be a people pleaser, yeah, I’m admitting that.  It’s that wanting to be a good girl thing.  Now, I can guarantee you, I don’t please all the people all the time, but if I can, I usually do.  What I’m learning is that when I’m trying to please others – or live to their expectations – I usually fail.  I sell myself short and in the process don’t live true to myself.  Not my greatest strategy.  I’ve read a couple books on the word YES.  One by Lysa Terkhurst “The Best Yes” and one by Shonda Rhimes (creator of my favorite guilty pleasure, Grey’s Anatomy – yes I still watch it) “My Year of Yes.”  Both spoke about saying yes to the right things, not everything.  That takes a lot of practice for someone like me so that I don’t feel guilty.

How does it show up with boundaries? Hard to keep boundaries when you say yes to everything. I say yes to people, I say yes to adventures, I say yes to half marathons, big swims, half ironmans, without always thinking it through.  Sounds fun? Heck yes – I’m in!  Oh wait…busy…expensive…not trained…well I’m not backing out soooo…not always my best yes.  Doesn’t mean I don’t usually have fun, but it comes with angst and anxiety.

What am I learning?  I can’t always say yes, I will disappoint people in the quest to be the best version of me. And sometimes I might initially feel like I’m disappointing or letting myself down. But the truth is if I’m the best version of me, I’ll be the best for me and the best for others.  It’s a journey, one that will force me to slow down, to consider boundaries, consider if my yes is a good one, and then? Well then I’m the person I’m really meant to be…the happy girl.

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On Slowing Down

It occurs to me that I tend to set my sights high as far as what I expect from myself athletically.  Walking-wise, if I’m not doing a half marathon, or training for a half marathon, why bother.  What I’m coming to realize is doing that can lead to missing out on opportunities to connect with other women who still want to get out there, but for whom going long isn’t part of their plan.  So earlier this week when my co-worker/friend asked me to do the local Run for Mercy, I was wishy washy about it – yes, no, ok I’ll sign up.  Only a 5k, geez, what’s the point (in my head, not out loud).  I fought a cold all week so I had a good excuse but decided to ignore it.

Yesterday morning was beautiful as I rolled over to the event.  The Run for Mercy is a fundraising event that benefits Mercy Multiplied, a nonprofit Christian organization dedicated to helping young women break free from life-controlling behaviors and situations.  It was inspiring to hear testimony from young women whose lives had changed because of the residential or outreach assistance from Mercy.  I saw a friend I’d been thinking about just last week and hadn’t seen in a while…things were looking up.

As we started the walk I realized it was going to be a time of connecting, not training.  While at first the driver in me tried to get my friends to walk a little faster, I settled in to their pace.  The thing that I was reminded of is that although I basically do “couch to half marathon”…but don’t always do the hard core training part…and don’t really think about the difficulty of the event…everyone has different.  That’s a good thing and great gut check for me.  I got to talk with my friends and as we walked through the beautiful park I also got to talk with a girl who told me she was 30 days sober.  WOW – that is an accomplishment.  To have the courage to change your life, to rely on God and then get out and walk a 5k…it gave me chill bumps.  She walked in with us and I saw her on the way out, thankful to have finished the race.

What’s my “so what” about all this?  For me, the so what is the reminder that I need to slow down at times or I’m going to miss the connections God puts in front of me.  I can get so focused on driving for the big goals in life that I ignore the beautiful rest stops along the way.  And if I want to be an encourager of others, I have to go at their pace, whether it be athletically or through other connection points. The same is true with my own life – that idea of slowing down and listening, experiencing, just being – I don’t take time to do that and I need to.

Turns out I did achieve a goal yesterday, it just looked different than I thought it would, but that’s how God works sometimes, it’s a good thing.

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Sometimes soldiers get broken

So I like to think that I do a pretty good job at soldiering on – that art of being a trooper and moving forward despite the fact my life might be falling apart.  Trouble?  Keep moving forward, it’s only a blip, this too will pass. I subscribe to this theory all the time.  And it’s ok, sort of, sometimes, but not really.  The challenge to soldiering on is that it causes me to roll past experiences in my life that hurt, a lot, and I don’t really deal it.

When you’ve been at this game for as long as I have, you’ve rolled past a lot of stuff and you think it’s gone, but it’s really not.  No, it’s actually lurking in the background, it’s like a cloud hanging over your head.  And then it starts to leak out, well, really is leaking out.  You don’t want to acknowledge what’s happening, so you don’t.  But other people start to notice, and you start to notice.  Things seem off, or you’re irritable for no reason, and then you’re crying again.  Crap.

So here I am, feeling like I’m in a washing machine, tumbled around, beat up and dripping out parts of me that no one needs to see. Not sure where I’m headed, but knowing that I can’t stay here.  I know God’s got a lot more in store for me.  I have the whole second half to live and I want joy, I want happy, I want fun! I’m reminded of what a friend once told me, “You’re not a good soldier when you’re injured.”  I think it’s time to get healed.

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I earned this one…

Integrity, doing what I say I’m going to do, is a BIG deal to me.  I’m quite sure I hold myself to a much stricter standard than anyone else would expect.  So when I said I was going to do the Shamrock half marathon today, I was in.  But then it rained, a lot, for days leading up to today.  Doubt didn’t just creep in, it full on body slammed me.  Had I trained enough (no, not really), was I healthy enough (hmmm…debatable…had walking pneumonia about 6 weeks ago), who did I really have to prove anything to? No one was the answer to that last one, except to me.  I said I was going to do it, I laid out the cash, and didn’t really want to give myself permission to flake.  Yesterday, I’d gotten myself psyched, it wouldn’t rain much I figured, it was only a few hours of my life (I walk these, not run, so it takes a little longer), game on.

Then I woke up this morning to pouring rain and wind.  Waffling set in, big time.  My friend messaged me with encouragement and said she’d see me there.  I not so secretly had hoped she was texting to bail on the race, which I may have taken as a sign to roll over.  But no, an hour later I was headed downtown, thinking how it wouldn’t be that bad, the rain would stop, and I’d be with 3,000 of my friends out there running through Sacramento.  When I got into the venue, I ran into a few friends from work, and that always peps me up plus it gave me company while I waited.

When the race finally started, I was good.  Really, these things are great for people watching.  Because I walk, I’m usually with folks for whom it’s a BIG deal to run a half marathon.  I find that so encouraging.  They are all shapes, sizes and ages and they are gutting it out on a Sunday morning to get a finisher’s medal and a bag of chips – ok, there was beer at the end, I just didn’t have any, would’ve if I could’ve but beer is no friend of my tummy.  They are moms, dads, friends… and everyone is so encouraging of each other.  I love that about these races.  And there was rain, a good amount of it, and a lot of wind, but folks kept on going.  There were lots of people on the sidelines cheering for the friends and family and I’m pretty sure some of those signs were meant just for me.  Seeing the finish line was a spectacular feeling, I even ran the last hundred yards.  Funny thing was, it was the fastest race I’ve ever done and I definitely felt like I earned that finisher’s medal.  Rain and wind are great motivators to walk faster.

What holds true about a half marathon, or for any endurance type event I complete (not compete anymore, just complete), is that I persevere.  I run through a million excuses in my head, but I still do it, and quitting is never I choice I even consider.  It’s mental toughness training as much as anything.  Did it hurt? Yes, it hurt.  My stump killed me (I don’t have a left foot) for the last 5 miles, I prayed and breathed through that.  But really, a lot of things worth pursuing aren’t easy, there are ups and downs and then there’s the glorious finish line.  Or maybe there’s no finish line, just the joys and the lessons learned.  I truly believe each of us has the ability to get out there and push ourselves harder than we could have imagined.  Some do it in races, like mine today, but others do it by getting through life circumstances that seem insurmountable, and I’ve had those too.  I know God is with me through all of it and that gives me strength and encouragement.  And now I think I’ll go have a treat…I earned it after all.

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Go…ready…set

So a little over a year ago, I did an obstacle race with some girls at work, the Rocklin Ramble.  It was silly, and fun, and wet and I even ran a little.  So what, right?  Fun day, sunshine, girl time, yay Lisa.  But after, my mind, being what it is, thought the running wasn’t so bad.  Oh yeah, there was the fact that I’d run in the past with bad results.  I have a prosthetic leg and running about near killed my stump (there were tears folks, pain and frustration).  But I got it in my head that I walk pretty fast, so hey, maybe I could walk an event.  5k seemed like nothing, 10k, not much better…oh yeah, so I’ll just do a half marathon. I throw it out on Facebook, asking my running friends if I’ll be mocked for walking a half.  They assure me no, go for it.  Fast forward two weeks…no I did not stutter…and I’m at the start of the Avenue of the Vines Half Marathon in Lodi.  By then, I’d managed to lay out a good amount of money because, of course, you have to have all the right gear, and have to look cute…duh.  Gun goes off and so do I, running at first because I still worried about looking like a dork, but quickly settling into my fast walk.  I know its fast (or fast enough) because my new fancy Garmin multi-sport watch tells me so.  I manage to keep a decent pace all the way through and run into the finish because, again, the dork factor.  It was AWESOME!  Endurance events suck me in so I knew there’d be more, and there were, one a month the rest of 2015. But for that day, my achievement dial was way, way up.  AND, major bonus, my foot didn’t really hurt – ok maybe a little, but it passed.  Looking back, I’m reminded that some of my greatest joys come from not overthinking, from acting spontaneously and just going for it. If I planned for that race too much, got too much in my head, I probably wouldn’t have had as much fun. Definitely need to dial more not overthinking in, all part of that just start thing.

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Where am I going with this?

That’s a good question.  Anyone reading this might wonder about my random thoughts. Honestly I wonder about them too.  Sometimes, I’m going to write about them.  Other days, most days, I might write about my journey as a 40-something, often faking it but having fun, athlete.  No science to what I have to say, unless I claim otherwise, but I’ve been fortunate to learn a lot over the years and have a lot of random thoughts (yes…more of them) about it.  Mainly, I think that anyone can do it.  No, really, that simple.  The deal is, you just have to set your mind to it.  It’s not that hard.  You might think it is, but it’s not.  You just don’t start doing marathons day one, half’s maybe, but not full – kidding – or not – if you’re me.  I figure I only have one life and I’ve spent an awful lot of it doing what everyone else wants me to.  I love my sports, swimming, biking, walking (I want to say running but that’s not what I do).  They make me joyful, even when they hurt.  And I let someone slow me down from them for a while, and I got depression, seriously! Meds and all.  I’m done with that.  I want a balance between doing them as much as I want but not being a slave to training – that’s just a drag.  I would love for others to join me in this crazy journey, to tell me what they’re up to, there’s definitely more fun in numbers!

So I’m probably going to write about my adventures, and past adventures, and a lot of other stuff too, so thanks for your patience!

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Today’s Journey

Thinking about how life is just one continuous journey.  There are ups and downs and I think I just pray the downs become dips instead of valleys.  Some days, I feel like I’m about to burst with possibility.  Then, I’ll hit a dip, the voices in my head start screaming all the fear triggers I have and I feel like I dissolve into a crying mess.  Even when I can see it happening, I’m often not able to stop it.  Gotta work on that.  I feel like I had a tiny victory though.  When someone recently made a comment to me that was a dagger to my heart, I let myself be sad.  I didn’t dismiss it away, I sat in the space for a time.  But I was also sad for that person.  Sad that they were living in a negative space.  Praying they can move away from that space.

I think that what is helping me work through these feelings is that I have no time for being a victim and blaming.  What’s the point?  Say you think you’re a victim.  Wah, wah, woe is me, I certainly didn’t do anything to cause this situation.  Ok, so life did you wrong…you think.  The thing is, you can stay in that space or do something about it.  I tend to feel like in any situation, I had a piece of it, whether small or large.  Sitting back feeling like a victim doesn’t force me to look at my part.  That’s what I need to focus on.  Otherwise, it’s a huge time suck of crankiness that doesn’t resolve anything and doesn’t move me forward.  Blame or excuses are just lies I tell myself so I don’t have to face reality.  So I’ll accept my part and move forward…ok, maybe after I lose a few hours of sleep, but I still move forward.  It’s a journey, after all.