Running downhill is so much easier than running up.

I realize I’m stating the obvious, but it’s something I thought a lot about recently while on the Mountains to Sea Trail near where I work.  Sprinting down hill the nice lady inside my shuffle informed me I had completed 20 mins, and my current pace was 9:23.  I’m rocking!  I never run close to a 9-minute mile, and I wasn’t doing it then, but like a scale that errs 3 or 4 lbs in my favor, I’m not going to argue.  So I was cruising along, listening to Slave, feeling happy, hip, and healthy as I reached the bridge that marked my turning point.  In no time I was climbing what I had bounced down just moments before and cursing the effort it took. Don’t wanna be your slave.  Why is it so hard to run uphill?  I cursed my legs and my lungs for their scorching response.  All these years of running and I’m still a slave to hills.  Yet I will tell anyone who asks, and more who don’t, that I love running them.  Really, they ask, you don’t like flat courses?  No, I like hills.  You go up, you come down.  You work hard and you get a reward. 

Hmm.  That’s a little like life, isn’t it? It is, and it reminds me of graduate school.  The struggle to balance my children’s needs with my need to read 100 pages before the next day and write a reflection on it.  Trying to give my family, my professors, my employer, and my friends something resembling perfection and reconciling that I can’t.  Uphill battles.

But I crested the first semester hill, with good marks and hard-earned confidence.  I had a wonderful break, moved into a new home, and felt like I was on top of the world.  I cruised into the second semester buoyed by my success, certain I knew the rules of the game and better yet, how to win.  But there were more hills I had not anticipated.  I walked into Children and Adolescents with my head held high, ready to embrace whatever challenges awaited me.  I walked out angry and deflated.  The professor hadn’t asked very much.  She wanted us to create a timeline of significant milestones from birth to 18.  She warned us to include only that which we were comfortable sharing with the class, but explicitly encouraged us to consider that which made us uncomfortable, for whatever demons lurked in our closets would seek us out as counselors.  For example, if you had an alcoholic parent as a child, you would find yourself working with the child of an alcoholic.  His or her experience could trigger emotions surrounding your experience, and your ability to help that child could be seriously compromised by your own unresolved issues.

Do we have to do this again?  I spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating my story last semester.  I had already dug around my closet and written about it at length.  I thought we were finished with that. 

Is your closet clean?  No.  Then get busy. 

At that point, I became not only angry, but also resentful of my non-counseling friends.  She doesn’t have to examine her skeletons.  He can leave all his baggage at the door and that’s not fair.  All of this bounced around my mind like a pinball as I ran.  Then This Head I Hold came on.  I was more or less oblivious to it, so consumed with sour thoughts, until the following lyrics jumped out and caught my attention:

           

See the answer is this

If I wanna be free

I gotta stop playin’ round and runnin’ from me

Wow. I was reminded of a Pema Chödrön quote Brené Brown included in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, which I highly recommend by the way.  In her book, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, Chödrön cautions “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.  It’s a relationship between equals.  Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.  Compassion becomes real when recognize our shared humanity.”  It caught my attention when I first read it, and as I recalled it, while fearing my own darkness, I was amazed.  Though I was heading uphill, I wasn’t a slave to the slope.  I felt strong and inspired by the revelation.  If I am to sit with others’ pain, I have to become comfortable with my own.   We all struggle and often dodge that which causes us discomfort, but if we could acknowledge it and cultivate compassion for it, for ourselves, we all could become more compassionate with one another, recognizing our common vulnerability.

Running hills is like navigating life.  Introspection and personal work can be grueling and exhausting, but it doesn’t have to last forever.  You climb, and as you do, you grow.  You reach the summit and you descend with more confidence and compassion than you had before.  Yes, I like running hills.  I'm reminded of a quote from Brené Brown’s blog, Ordinary Courage, “Only when we’re brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

I’m inspired and I hope you are too.