For about the past 3 weeks, I had been in a slump… It had actually started somewhere around the 15th of December, but wasn't in full effect until sometime just before Christmas Eve, when my deserve level fell to a new low. I was not motivated to do a whole lot or anything at all.
As a regular reader (all 4 of you!) you know that I have run since Christmas Eve when I had a decent run at Lakeshore. Every chance I got, I chose to skip running and avoided it. Why would I do that? Why cut off running out of my life. Mainly because other factors in my life were causing me to avoid one of the things that I love. I had lost my passion for life, even my kids would not bring the joy that they normal do. I was in bad shape and even at Christmas time where we had plenty of family and friends around and maybe that made it not as worse as it could have been.
One of the things that is my therapy in this life… is running. Running recharges my batteries, clears my mind and gives me a chance to think about the big picture without having to stress about it at the time. Once I thought that I did not deserve to run, the whole I was digging was too deep for me to climb out on my own. And Jen knew that things weren't all that great with me and it didn't help that I wasn't communicating with her. And we all get this way from time to time. It's natural, in fact, it's universal law that we must feel and act this way, to what extent it affects us is under our control. This universe is controlled by equilibrium and cycles. Thermodynamics tells us that the thermometer is going to move until it becomes in equilibrium with our body temperature. The seasons cycle all through the year as we rotate around the sun. We can't escape it, but we can we do have some control on how it affects us… when we are upset small bad things have a bigger affect on us than we have just won the lottery, the bad thing still happened but we chose to not make it a bigger deal when we are happy because of our control.
For the past 4 days, I was at the Mary Kay Leadership Conference in Atlanta. Briefly, it is a 3 day event for Directors for training and motivation for the last 6 months of the Mary Kay Seminar Year. As a spouse, I get to go all the events that Jen qualifies for and am able to sit in on the training that other Directors attend. This way, I get the inside scoop on new products and promotions before most of the consultants out there! There were about 9,000 directors there and probably 100-200 husbands. I did see one male director and that was on-stage when he was picking up the keys to HIS pink cadillac!
While attending Leadership, I had a self-actualization moment (at the spouse specific class) where I learned something about myself and broke out of the slump. I probably leap right out of that pit I dug with Mary Kay kicking me in butt to help me up (She knew how to motivate). I'm thinking much clearer now, I can communicate to Jen more effectively now and now I am ready to run (literally).
I have a cut out Adidas ad taped up in my office that lists the 7 Stages of Marathon:
- 1. Ritual
- 2. Shock
- 3. Denial
- 4. Isolation
- 5. Despair
- 6. Affirmation
- 7. Renewal
and for those of you who have run marathons, you know that these are pretty much right on target. Well, I was definitely feeling numbers 4-6 and I very grateful that I have a way find my source of renewal. It's different that it's the values and training of my wife's business… I just hope that others can find their source that renews their mind and soul.
I am running today at lunch! It should be a train wreck… I'm going out for 3-4 miles and I thinking… hmmmm, I only have 10 weeks left until the Knoxville Marathon… better get started!
PLANET3RRY 