Tag: brave

You are an adult

janko-ferlic-174927-unsplashIn my daily life I run a small library. This summer there is a conference lasting a few days held at a college just a few miles from my house. They are asking all participants to stay in the dorms. But it is just a few miles from my bed. I’m not sure I really want to stay in the dorms. My bed is just a few miles down the street.

I was talking with the consultant from the Commission for Libraries (that is a state agency that helps the libraries in Idaho). I told him about having to stay at the dorms and I’m not sure I wanted to go.

That is when he told me “You are an adult. You can leave if you want to.” It felt like a light bulb went on in my head. I am an adult I can choose. There are so many things I can choose instead of just letting it happen.

I can choose the way I act instead of just reacting. Yesterday my youngest was upset because he had a horrible day. No matter what I said he was upset and determined to stay that way. Instead of getting upset myself I backed off and let him have some time to work through his feelings. Once he was ready we talked about his day and his feelings. Because I choose to act I felt better and we were able to connect.

I can choose the way I think. For too long I believed that whatever thought came into my mind was true. I entertained way too many negative thoughts that I should have challenged. Now I know that a thought is just a thought. I choose whether that is something I want to keep in my life or if I want to get rid of it.

I choose the type of life I want to have. I get to choose what I focus on and what I work towards. I get to choose to be grateful for what I have or focus on the lack. I get to choose if I enjoy the time I have with my family or feel sad because it is all changing.

Guess what? You can choose your life also. You don’t have to wait for some magic moment. You don’t even have to wait until tomorrow. Today right now you can choose your life. What will you choose?

Keep being brave!

Yesterday I did something super brave.

Next month we are running the Wasatch Ragnar and I have not been training.  I haven’t really worked out all winter.  Ragnar is a relay race of about 182 miles over the Wasatch mountains.  You have teams of 12 people, 6 in 2 vans and you take turns running.  Each person runs 3 “legs” of varying distance and difficulty. Even before looking at the legs I knew that I would be having a hard time because I haven’t been training.

Then I looked at what we would be running and really started to stress!  Not only do we deal with the ups and downs of the mountains but we have to handle the elevation.  The starting elevation is 4525 ft.  Here in Idaho where I live the elevation is only 2730 ft.  Then I looked at the distances and difficulty of the legs.  It looked like everything was hard!

I told my awesome husband last night that I new physically I was the weak link on our team.  It was awesome because my kids were there and they totally disagreed!  Yay for kids that have your back no matter what.  Anyway I told him that I should probably take the first leg which consists of 2 easy legs and a moderate leg.  I said that it wasn’t fair to give that to someone else that had been training just to make me feel better.

The reason that this was so hard for me to say is because I always want people to think the best of me.  I want to be seen as perfect and never making a mistake.  Yes you have read about that before.  I am working really hard to be honest with myself and with others about what I can and can’t do.  So even though I really want to be seen as super strong and able to handle anything I had to be honest in what I can do this time.

Besides it has been freeing to be honest.  To not pretend that I am something that I am not right now. Being honest allows so many more good things into life. There is room to learn and grow when you let go and be yourself!

Of course, this just made me want to work harder to be in shape for the Hood to Coast relay race we are running in August!