Running the Wrong Way
Recently I was in Florida for a few weeks. Part of my daily routine included outdoor exercise. On this day, I decided a 4-mile walk on the beach would be the assignment.
After a solid morning of work, I walked a quarter of a mile to the beach. The sun was shining, and people were fishing, swimming, and playing in the sand while others were simply enjoying the beautiful weather with the company of friends.
I approached the water, took off my flip-flops, and tucked them into my sling bag. I cued up a good podcast and headed south along the shoreline. As I walked, I said to myself, “Whoa, the water looks really choppy. A storm must be coming.”
That, my friend, is called foreshadowing.
I was in a mental flow state, what some would call a zone. The scene was absolutely perfect. Everything felt right; the sun on my skin, the smell of saltwater air, and the sounds of joy had me smiling and feeling good about the day. Soon, my phone announced that I had walked two miles. This was my cue to turn around, and when I did, I was stunned at what I saw.
The sky was filled with a massive storm cell straight out of a horror film. A swirling wall of black clouds was coming right at me. I also noticed that everyone on the beach behind me was gone. There was not a soul to be seen.
I paused for a moment to evaluate the situation, and then I did the only thing I knew to do; I took off running right into the oncoming storm.
After taking about 10 steps, I cut my big toe on a shell in the sand. This meant I now had to run barefoot, limping with my toe bleeding into a powerful storm for nearly two miles.
At one point, I stopped to take a picture because the storm cell – while very scary – was also magical. I had seen images like this in science books and in movies, but never in real life. As I pulled out my phone, I heard someone laughing in the distance. I turned to see a guy standing on the patio of his condo. He used his hands to form a megaphone and yelled, “you are running the wrong way!”
I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “Yep! I’m screwed!”
He just laughed, nodded yes, and I took off running again.
The wind picked up as I ran. I was now being pelted with hard rain, and my hair felt like a toupee that was standing straight up. I considered stopping to film a “weather channel” video, but I decided I had already made enough bad decisions for one day.
When I finally made it back to my Airbnb, I paused to reflect on the experience.
I remembered that as I turned around and saw the storm, a negative voice in my head surfaced. I heard comments like, “You should have known a storm was coming. You should have checked a weather app before going to the beach. You should have known better. You should have been looking backward.”
That last one got me, and I had to take some time to process how I felt about it.
I can now say I believe that healthy people learn when to be forward-focused, when to look over their shoulder, and when to turn around and walk or run back into the dark places in their lives.
For me, facing a storm is often tied to an experience that I haven’t fully processed. These moments of darkness – these storms – show up when I need to revisit something and do some more work on myself.
Much like running into a storm, it is scary to revisit a dark place. There is so much unknown in a storm. It takes courage to choose to show up for yourself in this way. You don’t know who you will be when you are on the other side of a storm because you can’t fully anticipate how the journey will impact you. However, I also know that facing the difficult is often the path that leads to home.
It can be painful to return to a dark place, but much like my adventure on the beach, sometimes we have to walk – or run – through our storms to get to a better place.
We can’t move forward if we are only looking back, but sometimes we have to look back to be able to move forward.
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