Author: Mina

Writer. Playwright. Performer. Citizen. Traveler. Enthusiast. Author of Run Like a Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives and Run Like a Girl 365 Days a Year, plus other stories, books and plays.
Learning to Be (more than okay) Alone
fitness

Learning to Be (more than okay) Alone

Mina4 Comments

Learning to Be (more than okay) Alone

As you may have noticed these past months, I’ve been exploring how it is to do various things alone—drinking champagne, eating dessert—and those explorations were, of course, really about doing other things alone—hiking, biking around a new city, lazing in a city park and so on. I’ve been thinking a lot about all the qualities and sensations of being alone. All the different things I do alone. How each thing feels different when I do it alone, from when I do it with another person. How some things, which I never thought could be good alone, are.

In fact, it is this discovery, that more things than I expected are actually quite good when done alone, that has provoked this current deep dive into the varieties of aloneness. It took me some time to get here. My marriage definitively ended about two and a half years ago, so I’ve had some practice at this alone business. And I resisted the potential for good in the experiences until quite recently.   

Sports were where I really learned how to do things alone. Specifically, training for ultra marathons was the first time I started clocking serious time alone. Now I do almost every sport, almost all the time, alone, except my occasional Saturday morning runs with friends. Before the ultras, I had multiple running partners. We kept each other company on long training runs preparing for marathons. When I got into the ultras, I didn’t have much company and began to figure out this alone-ness. Until I surprised myself by enjoying the liberated feeling of heading out for hours alone in the mountains or threading through different parks in the city.

In these last few years, I’ve gone through this same process with quite a lot of other activities.

An Incomplete List of Things I Do Alone (which I used to do mostly with another person)

All the sports, most of the time, including …

Run—on roads and trails

Cycle—on roads and trails

Cross country ski

Snowshoe.

Hike

Yoga

Cross-Fit

Also …

Binge Netflix

Go to the movies

Fix magnetic kitchen cupboard door clasps

Rehang the tricky, heavy mirror over the fuse panel

Grocery shop

Go to the farmer’s market

Cook meals

Eat meals

Go to a coffee shop for the occasional breakfast or afternoon macchiato

Go home after dinner with friends (including my own birthday dinner)

Take the subway home late at night

Plan trips

Fly on planes

Wake up on weekend mornings (well really all mornings)

Dance

Go for walks

Take naps

Sleep

An Incomplete List of Things I Haven’t Quite Figured Out How to Be More Than Okay About Doing Alone:

  • Go to the theatre, live dance performance or the movies. It turns out that what I love about live performance or seeing a movie in the theatre is diving into conversation afterward with my companion, to prolong the delight or bemoan the time we can’t get back.
  • Swim in a pond or lake. Partly because of water safety drilled into me at long ago summer camp. And I know that’s not the whole reason.
  • Cook an elaborate meal.

With each experience (on these lists and so many others) there is a process of acclimatization to aloneness, like what I went through in sports. A process of familiarization. Of figuring out how it (whatever it is) works alone. What works alone. How the experience is different. What are the pleasures. And the disappointments. Because to be sure, there are those too. Which is why the title of this piece includes the phrase, more than okay, and not some version of the word, joy.  Most certainly, some alone-ness is joyful. And I’m not fully emancipated from my deep-seated desire to be in connection with another human being while experiencing life. Chocolate cake is delicious, and it tastes better with someone I love (friend, family or intimate partner).

A slice of chocolate layer cake from Yiseul Han on unsplash

And then there’s last night, when I finally closed my computer after a disheartening study session for an exam I’m taking in a couple of weeks and, sitting on a chair to take a breath, I had a vivid and visceral desire for a light hand on my shoulder. A gentle kiss on the top of my head.   

The past couple of weeks my Saturday runs have been alone. I’ve gone up to the Cloisters Museum, a run I’ve been doing for more than 30 years. Every person who has ever been beside me on that run comes with me in my heart. And I’m there, at every age I’ve ever been on that stretch of road. Still here. In the company of spirits who lighten my step.

Eating Dessert Alone
fitness

Eating Dessert Alone

Mina

Eating Dessert Alone

Last month I wrote about drinking champagne alone. And the piece wasn’t really about that. It was about hiking alone. Afterward, friends kept asking me if I did have a glass of champagne alone after the hike I described, I didn’t. I don’t drink alone. Consuming alcohol alone is one of my personal taboos. I thought my full-body-no was about a fear related to the slippery-slope-ness of drinking by myself. Instead, what began to surface as the question was asked was a deeper fear related to a generational history around drinking and the consequences. What if I fell and hit my head and no one found me until morning, too late?   

So champagne is not a solo activity for me. And I’m discovering other new solo activities. I’m currently on a steep learning of how to do all sorts of other things alone, after a lifetime of sharing almost every experience with someone else.

I was just in Amsterdam on my own for a few days, before facilitating a retreat. A city I don’t know. Not meeting up with a partner or friends or colleagues. No agenda. I rented a bike and wheeled around the city. Twice, I went to the most beautiful yoga studio I’ve ever been to (Die Nieuwe Yoga).

Connecting to my body on the bike and in the studio recharged my feeling of self-sufficiency (as with the hiking), calling me home to my strength and freedom. Not just my physical strength, of course, but also, as a friend said, the strength of recognizing that I am a vessel big enough to contain the awe and terror of my experience without needing to share it with another person. A person who is present, I mean. Since yes, I did share with friends via text. Though much less than I normally would have. Most often I found myself just wanting to savor the pleasure of the moment, a breathtaking view, a charming sight, an oddity, without any documentation. I exist and my experience is. Beautiful. Devastating. Banal.  

Other things I did alone: I lay around (a lot) on the grass in Vondelpark and alternately read a novel and people watched. I ate all my meals alone. In other parks and at lovely and delicious restaurants. I ran. Of course.

And on my last night I broke my own rule. I drank a glass of wine alone. As if the recognition of the source of my taboo in this past month released its hold on me. That wasn’t all. I don’t eat dessert alone either. For no generational reason. Unless you count the careless things that mothers can say to daughters about their bodies. Until now. On the same night I drank that risqué glass of wine, I was sitting at the chef’s counter and the dessert chef insisted I try her tahini ice cream with shredded halva and other delights. If you’re ever in Amsterdam, go to Neni for deliciousness. I ate the whole dessert. With pleasure. As another friend said, when I texted her a photo of the wine glass and dessert, you are pushing the boat out to sea now. Indeed. The boat of my being.

Yes, I know that many of you reading, and my fellow bloggers here are much more intrepid women than I am. You are wondering what the big deal is in any of this. It’s freedom. No big deal. Enjoy it. For those of you who, like me, have spent less time alone, I’m guessing you understand how overwhelming that freedom can be. How daunting the spaciousness can be, when we are used to a cozier (or more restrictive) environment. What do we do with the space? Are we allowed to be happy without others? Is our experience real, if there’s no one to share it with?   

Explore it. Yes. And more yes. Words that are easy to say from the outside, less evident from the inside. Being at ease with being alone is a work in progress in my life and it’s good to know that, for me, one of the surest portals to that permission is through moving my body. When I’m truly in my body, I can find my way to the ease I seek.      

Drinking Champagne Alone
celebration · challenge · femalestrength · hiking

Drinking Champagne Alone

Mina

I’m just back from a glorious month of playing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Trail running. Mountain biking. Hiking. And just plain soaking up the titanic rock energy. While there, I spent time with a woman I’ve known for a long time and thought I knew most everything about. Only to discover a new side of her. I was surprised and inspired. She was more intrepid than I’d known and more comfortable in her own company than I’d understood.

The first glimpse of this new side of her came when she headed off to do a hike with a somewhat heart accelerating crux involving a chain bolted to a cliff face, with a sliver of a ledge to tip toe across. She had some idea of the challenge, from having been there in the winter with a friend. They turned back. This time she was alone. As she approached the crux, she coached herself to step onto the sliver ledge without so much as a pause. And that’s what she did. It turned out that the crux was not the end of the exciting bits. She joined up with three other hikers a short while later and they told her that the scree field they were descending was the site of the greatest number of helicopter rescues in the area. Oh.  

The summer I was 18, I worked at the fancy restaurant in London, Ontario.  Once a week, on Friday nights, an attractive woman came in alone and had dinner, including a glass of champagne and dessert. To my young eyes, she seemed to be about forty, and who knows, she could have been younger or older. What she was, was an icon of female power and independence. I couldn’t imagine a woman going to a restaurant alone. This was before mobile phones. So alone really meant alone. For fine dining? And champagne? And dessert? All those treats just for her own pleasure. How could she even enjoy her own company so much? Let alone have the courage to be seen alone in public on a weekend night? Such insouciance. Such confidence. I wanted to be like her.

When I strode back into the parking lot at the end of the hike, I felt like my version of that long ago woman in the restaurant. As you likely guessed, that was me setting out alone and me coaching myself through the crux. I didn’t think I could do it. I’d lain awake part of the night filled with fear. I had already given myself the grace to turn back. When I didn’t turn back, the elation started to build over the course of the next couple of hours. By the time I finished, I felt like I was champagne. I could not only make it through the crux, but I could also enjoy being in my own company. I felt insouciant. Confident. I felt like I was taking my own world by storm.  

View from Tent Ridge, Kananaskis, Alberta

I did several more hikes with crux-y bits and other challenges that confirmed this woman’s existence inside me. I’d always thought that I needed company for such adventures. To discover that I could enjoy them just as much alone was a revelation. Though I would do well to have a satellite device of some kind for company. That’s a logistical issue. Meanwhile, I’m still feeling the fizz of meeting this new part of myself, with unexpected capacity.

I don’t know yet what we will do together.  I am curious indeed.  

Rock and Root Therapy for Being Here Now
self care

Rock and Root Therapy for Being Here Now

Mina1 Comment

Last week I had a major work setback. I submitted something that was not up to snuff, and it got sent back with scathing commentary. I can resubmit. And, I am, unsurprisingly, worried about whether I can do a better job, because now I’m in the vicious cycle of doubting myself.

So, I woke up on Saturday morning weighed down by the blues and decided the antidote was to do the hardest mountain bike ride I did last summer. As my second ride of the season this year.  A trail that starts at the far edge of Canmore Nordic Center and plunges into dense forest on its way to Banff.

The blues-fighting ride I decided to do is rocky and root-y to an extreme. Last year, it was raining and cold (4C/40F), so the roots were all the more slippery. I walked my bike. A lot. My phone went into SOS mode from the cold. When I decided to do it this past Saturday, my reasoning was this: Physical effort aside, the trail requires the particular intense mental focus that I love about mountain biking. That dance between laser attention and allowing the bike to flow with the landscape. The dance of vigilance and letting go. The ride would be an exercise in trusting myself, just at a moment when I wasn’t. Also, I had barely gotten reacquainted with my mountain bike the morning before. So my bike and I were still re-establishing our trust.  

No matter. I needed some rock and root therapy. I needed something that demanded my attention and, as a double and triple bonus, passed through breathtaking landscape and wrested me out of my looping thoughts and into my heartbeat.    

When I finished my morning meditation, the mountain outside my window was sun gilded. Auspicious. The weather was a balmy 7C/45F. No rain in the forecast. Long story short. My bike and I found our mutual groove. The drier trail meant more grip over roots. Together with a more aggressive mindset, the kind of mindset that seeks to purge toxic thoughts and relocate in the here and now; I rode 80% of what I walked last year. Okay—that’s a wild guesstimate. And it sounds so official, I couldn’t resist. I walked my bike. Very little. My teeth were not chattering, my phone did not retreat into its SOS mode, and I was mostly dry when I arrived in Banff. Plus, quadruple bonus, the shuttle back to Canmore was sitting at the stop, as if waiting for me.

When I got home, I sat on the front porch in the sun and bathed my spirit in the rocky mountain filling my eyes. I thought about how hard it can be sometimes to enjoy the moment, to be here now. What more did I need right then? A mischievous part of myself chimed in that she could make a list of things I needed. Then she quieted. And let me just be. I spent the better part of the afternoon lying on the couch reading Samantha Harvey’s transcendent novel, Orbital. Yes, from time to time I thought about the work setback and what I needed to do to rectify. The challenge felt more surmountable after several hours of dancing with the forest terrain. The setback was not gone, of course not. Simply mitigated. Reframed. The shift in perspective offered by rock and root therapy, bringing me back to the here and now.

Saying Goodbye to My High Heels
fitness

Saying Goodbye to My High Heels

Mina1 Comment

I have a bunion on my right big toe. Also, arthritis. Same toe. Poor little digit. A first cortisone shot, disappeared the pain. For about 18 months. Then it came back last summer after a sprained left ankle wobbled my gait, putting more pressure on my right foot. A second cortisone shot provided short-lived relief. My doctor warned me about the diminishing returns. I didn’t expect them to be quite so diminished. Now the pain has flared to a steady, yet manageable level. I’m allowed to run. Even moderately long distances.

What I can’t do is wear heels. And I love heels. I used to be able to not only wear heels but also walk miles in them. Ridiculous. Vertiginous. Platform. Spike. Precarious. I felt sexy and kick ass. I loved them all the more, because I wore the heels after running miles. I loved the crackle of the contradictory footwear coexisting and all the meaning they contained about who I was.  I wasn’t only girly. I wasn’t only a runner.

Of course, the heels weren’t truly comfortable. My feet would be sore at the end of an evening. Well, my feet were sore at the end of a long run, too. I was thrilled when Citibike (the shared social bike system) came to New York. Less walking in heels. More riding a bike in heels (so fun). I’m not sure which one caused the bunion—the running or the heels. I have my suspicions, based on which one has become inaccessible. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The pain is.

I would look in my closet and long to wear the heels so neatly aligned on my shoe rack. Every once in a while, I would try to put them on, searing myself with the pain. Why couldn’t I just get rid of them? After all, I’ve been in purge mode these last couple of years. I left my marriage with almost nothing from our joint home. I moved around a bit, trimming down my life. I shaved off my long hair.

Yet, I’ve never parted with my heels, even as I knew I couldn’t wear them. Then, a month ago, I thought, now is the time. I sent a little video tour of the shoes to a friend who wears the same size. I brought her a giant bag of heels on the night of my birthday. I am so glad she’s going to enjoy them.

I also felt an amount of grief that I judged to be inordinate. They’re just shoes. Yes. And they were a symbol of a part of me that I don’t want to lose. Insouciant. Bold. Attractive. Now I have to find that in myself, without the shoe-assist. Or maybe that sense of self is already there, if I can just find it. I felt good in heels, because I was strong. A runner. An athlete.  Not was. Am. Because I’m still running (and biking and dancing and cross-country skiing and, and …). In the choice between running shoes and heels, there’s no contest. My running shoes are soulmates.  

The night my marriage blew apart, I went out to meet a friend in desperation. As I walked out the door of what would soon no longer be my home, the high heel on my patent leather boot from Paris snapped off. Total destruction. No chance of repair. It’s been just over three years since that night. A few days ago, I learned that my divorce was final. I had dinner with the same friend a few hours later. Wearing sneakers with glitter. She was wearing fabulous, crazy platform sandals. I felt a pique of desire for her shoes. For that feeling. And then I caught a glimpse of that sparkle inside of me. Waiting for me to see myself.

What Does Less Is More Really Mean?
mindfulness · Wordless

What Does Less Is More Really Mean?

Mina

Lately, I’ve been receiving the same message from various quarters in my life. The message is this: I can do less, in a less is more way. I can push less. I don’t need to try so hard. I can trust the universe. That all sounds almost dangerous, especially the trust part. Also, how can I be less-is-more without diminishing myself? The message is hard to receive, because, at first blush, it seems to align with a long-held, not-so-happy belief—that I am too much. I talk too much and laugh too loud. I am too bossy, too excitable, too energetic, take up too much space, too, too and too. You get the point. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been getting this too-much message since I was born (at a sub optimal moment that I was told negatively impacted my father’s career).

Yet I know (in that deep knowing way) that this time the words are not coming as criticism. Rather, they arrive as an invitation to be more myself, which sounds paradoxical, since the message is about less. Do less. Yes, and…be more. Less noise. More presence.

What does this mean in my day-to-day? Well, in the learning groups I facilitate and the 1:1 coaching I do, it means—ask one question, without refining it fifteen times to get just the right word or adding seven more layered questions, with icing flourishes in between. Ask one question. Then wait for the answer. Literally.

And metaphorically. Trust that the energy I want to share with others will be felt without me doing a jig, standing on my head and waving a fiery sparkler. I am enough, without needing to push my energy out into the world. This feels like the difference between authenticity and personal brand.

As you can see here, I am still very much in the wrestling phase with these ideas. I haven’t corralled them into a coherent narrative of how I will be going forward. I am exploring a new equilibrium between my exuberance and trusting my presence.

Enough.

Finding Ground When Home Is Elusive
fitness

Finding Ground When Home Is Elusive

Mina

Yesterday the home I lived in for 28 years was sold. I will likely never call another place home for as long.

In the past three years, I have moved three times, finally landing where I am now just over two years ago. Still, this place I am now, while it is nice, it is not home. Knowing that I will have to move again, I have resisted many elements of settling in-ness. Because, you know, that would just be more stuff to move. For example, I don’t have measuring cups. Or serving bowls or platters. I don’t have a lasagna dish. Or obscure spices for Ottolenghi’s complicated dishes. Things that used to make me feel like a grown up. A person who has groups of friends over for dinner. Plus, given the current state of affairs here in the United States, where I’ve lived for more than 30 years, I can’t help wondering if I should move home to Canada. Or elsewhere.

All this is in direct conflict with my strong nesting inclinations.

So, how do I find ground, when I have no nest? Okay—that’s a complicated visual. Nests are high in trees. The ground is, well, far below. Still, you get the picture of settling, of nestling after a long flight. Parts of me feel in constant flight and they are tired.

Nest in a pine tree by Luke Brugger on Unsplash

Getting into my body offers my most reliable respite—running, hiking, skiing, biking, yoga, dancing, crossfit, pilates and so on. Of all of these, running outside offers me the most solace. With each step, the earth beneath my feet brings me home to my very physical existence.

For that moment of footfall, I land. Rest my wings. Find ground. Come home to my body. May that be enough. For now.    

Should You Watch Apple Cider Vinegar? –Notes from An Alternative Medicine Fan
fitness

Should You Watch Apple Cider Vinegar? –Notes from An Alternative Medicine Fan

Mina8 Comments

Here’s the picture: I’m on my couch. Tucked into my sauna blanket. A device that looks like a combination of a sleeping bag and weighted blanket, that heats up, as a sauna and emits far infrared light, the benefits of which are numerous (and possibly exaggerated) and boil down to—anti-inflammatory and promotes cellular regeneration.

I’ve been tempted into buying this device because the functional medicine practitioner, with whom I’ve been consulting for about a year now, recommended that I would do well to add red light therapy to my protocol, to support my immune system and overall health. My ultimate goal is healing my Addison’s Disease. A pipe dream, according to my medical doctor. Though he was surprised I still had functioning adrenals in a recent blood test. So, I hold out hope of surprising him further in the future and red light therapy is my newest effort in that direction. As many of you know, I also follow a protocol of vitamins and other supplements, with the same goal. In addition, my functional medicine practitioner has recommended a variety of meditation and mindfulness practices and programs, some of which I’ve followed and some of which mapped to my existing practices. And recently, she suggested that while I was applying a glutathione cream intended to remove heavy metals from my body, that I imagine a golden light healing my adrenals, which I am doing.

Back to the picture. I’m on the couch, sweating out toxins (maybe healing my adrenals), watching the show Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix. A show, based on a true story, about hucksterism in the alternative medicine (aka functional medicine, aka wellness) space.  A show about the dangers of disdaining western medicine and falling for all the extravagant healing claims around juicing and coffee enemas and supplements and veganism. The show doesn’t mention far infrared light therapy. And that’s likely because the events in the show took place a decade ago, before red light therapy became all the rage it is today.

Belle, from Apple Cider Vinegar (on Netflix), striding through a throng of groupies

In other words, I am deep into possible huckster space with my own health. As I watched the episodes spool on, I was keenly aware of the irony of each droplet of healing sweat pooling on my body and the hope that droplet contained and the potential chimera of everything I’m doing outside of taking my pharmaceutical medication three times every day.  Still, I persist with the alternative protocols. Why? Because right now, I believe that I can heal, and I want to do everything in my power to reach that star. Just there, I hesitated between writing “I need to believe” or “I want to believe”. Neither need nor want captured my state. My belief is not a need or a desire. It is.

Am I believing blindly? Am I giving up on western medicine and putting all my chips on alternative solutions? No and no. I am expanding the range of healing modalities that I include in my life. One of the hallmarks of most alternative healing practices is the need to believe in your ability to heal.  I’m on board with that ethos.

The trickster part is that the alternative practitioners depicted in Apple Cider Vinegar are also pitching exclusivity. Show your fidelity to my wisdom by abandoning all other ideas, including traditional medical modalities.  An approach that proves mortal to several characters in the show. I am not doing that. I tried ignoring western medicine right at the beginning of my own health process and my potassium marched quick step upward into unpleasant territory.  

I was devastated. I spent more than a year in a state of psychological resistance to my medication. Believing it was bad, I was bad, something was bad, because I was taking little white pills multiple times a day. A large part of that mental model was influenced by the pervasive influence of the kind of people depicted in Apple Cider Vinegar. Then a couple of months ago my doctor consented to do some tests with the levels of my medications. And while he was surprised by my level of adrenal function, I was disappointed that function was not enough to reduce my doses. At the same time, the tests created a shift. I relaxed into gratitude, true gratitude, not gratitude mixed with resentment, for my medication. I need my medication and that’s okay. My condition is not a failure to believe in myself (or to consume enough freshly juiced fruits and vegetables).

I am continuing my alternative protocol, adding things, as they seem interesting. The sauna blanket is an example. Is it healing my adrenals? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, I feel good in many ways when I use it—my muscles recover and I sleep better, among other things.

Given all this, I might have found the show a vindication of the approach I’ve chosen. Because, in the end, that is the message the show tries to deliver. A balanced approach is best. Instead, I was frustrated with the show. By focusing on an extreme case of hucksterism, the show denigrated alternative modalities in a way that is as exaggerated as the hyped-up healing claims. They subverted their own message at the end with garbled scenes that lacked clarity. I only realized what the scenes were meant to portray in the Netflix write up about the show (spoilers!). I was left with the feeling that all alternative wellness is fraudulent.

The show was unsatisfying in other ways. The story was told in loops, circling back to the past and forward to the present in disorienting time jumps. I had trouble hanging on to who was who among several of the characters and could not always catch up with when was now in any particular scene. Instead of deepening the character arcs, I got lost and stopped caring. I was waylaid by small details like Belle drinking from single use plastic bottles, when she was preaching for the environment in other scenes. Was the plastic bottle meant to signify her treachery? Or was it carelessness on the part of the showrunner?

As you may already suspect, I do not recommend Apple Cider Vinegar. Unless you just really enjoy shows about grand scams.

As for my wellness tips to myself—I have work to do on self-love and self-acceptance. Will they heal my adrenals? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, they are essential to my wellbeing, ease and joy. The true bottom line. Top line. And every line.

The Sun in My Eyes Will Get Me Through
mindfulness · motivation

The Sun in My Eyes Will Get Me Through

Mina

I’m leaving January feeling bruised by life. My word of the year, ease, has gone and hidden in a deep underground cave. I’m worn out on coming to this blog with my woes. What’s happened now? Among other things, the home I lived in for 27 years with my ex, will pass on to other owners on March 1st. I haven’t lived there for 2 years, and I thought I was over it.  Apparently not. Somewhere in a hidden corner of my psyche, I imagined that I might live there again. Recover that sweet feeling of security and home. Finality is crashing down, bringing with it all the scaffolding I thought I’d put in place to manage the grief of so many other losses these last three years. Mother. Cat. Marriage. Home. Health. And more.

Amid the dusty ruins, I have still managed to drag myself outside in my running shoes and put one foot in front of the other. Someone recently pointed me to the research around sunlight in the eyes first thing in the morning—good for regulating circadian rhythm (i.e. sleep), boosting mood and such like. And yes, some of the sources are questionable, so I’m offering no links. A quick Google search turns up a trove.

Research and dubious sources aside, how good does it feel to be blinded by the sun first thing in the morning? So good. Right? Especially (especially!) on a cold winter day, when we are sun starved.

Soaking up apricity

My last few runs have been a battle royale to get my body out the door. And the grace of that sunlight in my eyes has saved me. I run with my eyes half closed, head turned toward wherever the sun is coming from, soaking in its faint warm breath. Like a fireplace that puts out almost no heat, until you get right up close, the winter sun warms only my eyelids, its touch not even reaching my cheeks. There’s a word for this delicious, precious feeling: apricity. The warmth of the sun in winter. Having that word now to describe the sun’s solace in my eyes enlivens the experience. And it is these tiny shifts in consciousness that will get me through. And my runs. And family. And friends.  

Stop Resisting Ease: My 2025 Challenge
Fear · mindfulness · new year's resolutions · WOTY

Stop Resisting Ease: My 2025 Challenge

Mina2 Comments

Every year I choose a WOTY, as many of you do, no doubt, and many of us here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue. I was having so much trouble choosing my word for this year, that I couldn’t even contribute to our group post. I kept saying to people, I want a word like ease. Something that captures the lightness and flow of ease. The way we can be more present when we are at ease. And I kept not wanting to choose the actual word. Ease. One friend sent me this fabulous Japanese expression, ichi-go ichi-e, which basically means for this time only or cherish this moment. It’s a version of Marcel Proust’s madeleine or the Heraclitus’ line about never stepping into the same river twice, with a dash of gratitude added, for the beauty of the river we are stepping into or the deliciousness of the madeleine we are eating. As beautiful as all these ideas are, ichi-go ichi-e felt heavier than what I was looking for. I try to make a practice of being grateful for as much as possible in my life. And that gratitude does not necessarily bring me ease. Gratitude demands attention and intention, especially in hard times. I was looking for a word that captured a feeling of less effort, if not full-on effortlessness (if that’s not a contradiction).

As I was effortfully trying to write this, pushing words and ideas around on the page, as if they were one of those sleds people push in CrossFit, I came across this quote from Norman Fischer, a Zen priest, poet and teacher: In the full intensity of the present moment there is never anything to fear—there is only something to deal with. It is a subtle point, but it is absolutely true: the fear I experience now is not really present moment based: I am afraid of what is going to happen. So, maybe ease is less about gratitude and maybe more about finding a way through fear. Not that that is simpler. Yet softening around all my myriad fears feels like it just might be a route to ease.  A few days later, while writing something else, I came up with this formula:

What I was wrestling with was the idea that if I can move into the future with trust and find the grace to dance with what the universe delivers, then I will be able to move through my boat load of fears. And there, on the other side of fear, is where I will find ease.  

As I headed out to meet a friend for a run on January 1st, in a cold winter rain, which turned to snow just in time for our run and then switched back to rain as we took our last steps (thank you, universe, for that opening gift of 2025—an easy gratitude!), I realized that I was resisting the word ease, because it felt so impossible, or like I don’t deserve it. Here’s a sampler from that voice in my head: It’s coming up on 3 years since your marriage started falling apart and you still can’t find ease? What’s wrong with you? Why are you not over it already? If you can’t find ease by now, you never will. Also, that’s your fault. The inside of my head is not always the most cheerful place to be.

When I realized that my dis-ease with the word ease was about resistance (my fear!), and not my usual, there’s-a-more-perfect-word-to-describe-what-I-mean, I knew what my word of the year had to be. EASE. Sometimes my word is aspirational and other years it is a beacon. This year it is the former—an aspiration, which I will try to hold lightly, mindful of the paradox that if I aspire too hard, then I will surely not find ease. What will ease look like? Less time in my head, worrying about the future. More time just being (trust!). Making choices rooted more in pleasure and less in financial fear (grace!). Less fighting against what is, like taking my medication (grace!). More noticing the gifts on offer, like how well my medication works (trust!).

This year I will trust and dance with grace. Aspiring. Letting go. Moving through fears. That’s where I’ll find ease. If I do. Not that I’m attached to the outcome. Okay, maybe a little bit. Here goes.