TV has lost its allure. I no longer want to binge on Netflix shows.

Sleep has become a finicky series of disturbances. I am constantly jolted awake by what I should be doing.

It is interesting how when you begin one positive, soul-hungering thing in your life, it kind of opens up the pandoras box of your soul. That is, when you do one thing that is authentic to you, the rest of your authenticity wants to come out and play as well.

And so, the last few nights, during my endurance ramp-up period of physical training, I have had “trouble” sleeping. What I really mean is, I have been feeling guilty and going crazy over all of the ideas I have locked inside of me, how they might get wasted if I never act on them, and the gazillions of books I should be writing/can be writing.

I have topics that strike me and I feel compelled to leap out of bed and write away like a madwoman, but then I try to justify to myself the same story I have adaptively woven into my default thinking in recent years: stay calm, resist the urge, you know that if you start you will not finish and then that will just drive you crazier.

Am I afraid of beginning what I do not finish?

That kind of scared little girl, small person thinking is not in line with my character! But maybe it is in line with my nature?

I admit, the disappointment I have felt from not materializing ideas — at least to the extent that I once saw fit in some vision in my mind, hurt like hell.

Maybe I am just reliving old wounds and I am afraid of not even the hurt itself but the anticipation of the hurt. I think they call that meta-fear (fear of fear itself).

Whatever it is (and I am not too much a fan of labels anyhow), it isn’t something that I want to live by or live with.

As for living by it, that is a choice.

As for living with it, I think that is not so much a choice, but something that I must accept in order for it to lose its power.

I am reminded of the visualization I employ when meditating, here.

While seated in silence with my eyes closed, whatever thoughts or emotions decide to arise from the subconscious, well, will arise. How I respond, however, can dictate the experience I have being with them.

A black-and-white type thinker as I am, I see two main ways of responding to these thoughts:

a) push them away

b) invite them in

If I push them away, I actually give them more power, the opposite of what I want. Like a bow and arrow or rubber band wound up with tensile force, the more energy I give to it, the stronger and harder and sharper it will come back at me. In other words, I am creating more resistance in pushing my thoughts and emotions away.

If I invite them in, there is more wiggle room for more favorable outcomes. For example, they come in, blab away until their jaws are tired and their brains are begging for a break, and they go to sleep/leave. For example, they come in, decide they don’t like the environment in my head, and take off. For example, they come in, have a short conversation and get out the short list of things or a single thing they needed to express and are on their marry way.

You see, what I am highlighting is that, often times we create more internal struggle and pain for ourselves by resisting the thing that we deem to be so bad that it must immediately be pushed away, forever, stat.

A better option might be to do the exact opposite of what we have been conditioned to do — run right at the thing you are resisting or at least open your arms, heart, mind, and ears to it.

I think that the more that we resist and push away that which we hate, loathe, fear, or can’t stand, the worse we make our experience of life for ourselves. And what sucks is that, in the end, we are the culprits of our own “unnecessary” pain if we resist what persists to bother us.

It would be so much more liberating and freeing if we could accept everything we fear and let it affect us.

I aim to do this on a daily basis.

Whether it is by opening my hands and outstretching my arms when I notice my hands in fists and my chest closed. Whether it is meditating on the thing or person that I am literally hating — allowing it to fill my body and asking myself to find, cultivate, and release compassion to that person.

Why in the world would you give love to the thing that hurt you? You might be thinking.

I have two reasons:

a) It is too painful to hold onto hate for any more than a minute (actually, less). It is just like how holding onto anger is like holding onto hot coals — in the end, you are the one who gets burned. We can free ourselves by choosing not to feel hatred towards anything or anyone. (Additional note: in books/studies I have read, people who have felt some anger or hatred or regret that made them have a “heavy” or “boiling” heart were correlated with those who had heart diseases/deaths from heart attacks. In my personal experience, I can feel the dis-ease in my heart when I feel hatred or anger. I do not like it one iota, and it is a sign that I must forgive immediately).

b) Somewhere deep in my soul/spirit, I really do believe that no person deserves to be completely hated or deemed worthless. Just going to leave that one at that for now.

Anyways, I wanted to circle back to the two main options for responding to our thoughts and emotions, as I think that there maybe is a third option, (c), for how to deal with “unpleasant” thoughts and emotions: welcome them in and firmly tell them that there is a curfew. Herein, you look out for your own health and happiness and well-being while also catering to someone else/others. I think this is called ‘having boundaries.’

I am admittedly laughing out loud at myself here: epiphanies while writing, eh?

One other thing I wanted to mention is something I typed in my notes today:

“Looking forward for posterity’s sake and looking back to shape your present actions can be powerfully helpful.”

While listening to Rich Roll interview his father today, I burst into tears, thinking about how special it was that he was so seriously and deeply interviewing his father on his show.

But more deeply, it poked at a wound that I opened up, you could say, a few weeks ago by daring to increase my endurance volume again.

You see, (this is where that fear of the fear kicks in, afraid of the physiological blood-boiling response I have had in the past…deep breathe “, yes, I can”), the last time I trained for a marathon/ran long distances and made running a main feature of my workouts, I was deemed anorexic.

There is a whole novel that should go here and maybe the fact that I am not pouring out all of the details and emotions right now will wake me up again tonight, but I am going to leave that at that and let what feelings come, come ;)

And realized today that, every time that I had really went for it in any athletic pursuit, I have either developed anorexia or appeared to develop anorexia.

The pain the people around me felt in those situations combined with the weakness that I felt could be enough to stop me from ever daring to train that hard again.

But something in my soul is saying “you have to do it. there is a lesson — even plenty of lessons here. this is something to run towards.”

I have to say, although I do think it is crazy — and I do think I am good crazy for wanting to run an ultramarathon of 100+ miles, it is such an enticing opportunity to finally do it without becoming anorexic in the process.

This past week, I felt my old thoughts and old patterns creep in — not feeling hungry…being super selective about the foods I would put in my mouth…kind of feeling averse to the whole discussion of nutrition while also caring immensely about nourishing my body.

I felt snickers of Doubt creep in, suggesting that the same patterns were resurfacing and I was a fool to think that I had the willpower to stop them from congealing into habits again.

I don’t know who that voice is talking to me, but I have to believe she is incorrect.

Beyond incorrect.

If I believe in one thing, it is in the power of humans to transform and to turn their lives around. I would not be living in accordance with that belief if I turned and ran the other way here.

I am not saying that this itself has to be the reason I decide to run 100 miles or more in a single go (or maybe it is).

What I am definitely saying is that I see this grand opportunity handed to me by g-d or whatever higher power is out there…or by my clearer conscious…or by my heart’s depths, illuminated in plain sight: the opportunity to prove that I can fuel myself sufficiently for good health while also running long distances.

Simply reading that last embedded (potential) statement is a wild feeling for me.

Could that be true? Could that become real?

The thing is, I have failed to show that I could do that, time and time again, so why would this time be any different?

One of the hardest things about ‘recovering’ from any disordered behavior is that the people around you, who care for you the most, are always on the lookout for little crumbs of evidence that your behaviors are resurfacing. It kind of sucks, and I am also beyond grateful for those people and those feelings in them. But what it also does — or can do, is make you believe that they no longer trust you.

If the people outside of you no longer trust you, how can you trust yourself?

Or does it work the other way — have I had it backwards all along? You must be able to trust yourself in order for others to trust you? That sounds right.

If you have ever experienced both an eating disorder and intense athletic training simultaneously, I imagine you will be able to relate (and some other combinations, of course).

Anyways, I am going to continue to train hard for endurance shape and pursuits because it is what lights my soul on fire.

Weaving this back in with the thought of my legacy and posterity and the future, I gave some real thought today to what I might need to do in order to prevent another eating disorder from happening. Here are my ideas:

• hire a therapist (found one who lives in Boulder who was anorexic, was a professional long-distance runner and triathlete, and started an organization for athlete anorexics in recovery specifically)
• hire a nutritionist so I am: a) held accountable for eating/drink what will keep me thriving in all ways, b) know exactly what I need to eat/drink
• Open my eyes and really study the exact nutritional intake (from calories and macros to micronutrients) I need to consume to stay not just healthy, but well, for a long, long, long ass time.

Some other questions I am pondering now:

*1. What’s beyond the ultra finish line? This was presented by a spin teacher today. We often visualize the finish line as a motivator to do the work and put our noses to the grindstone, but how often do we think about what it will feel like when we get there? What we will want when we get there? Where that finish line is leading to? Do you still want that finish line?

2. What has my family’s impact been in this world?

3. What do I want my impact to be?

Reflection. Psychosomaticism. Life, man.

Here is to never giving up and to loving yourself,

Abbs