Running.

I always ran. From an early age, I ran until I had a runner’s high. I loved the rush of not being able to think, a way to get myself out of my head. I started running as a way out of my overthinking. I ran my way directly into unsuccessful knee surgery. The shock of not being able to run altered my processing. How was I to stay active and hold my growing anxiety at bay? The answer presented itself, yoga. A way to seek inwardly what I was otherwise craving from the outside world.

I remember early, maybe in 4th grade, my Mom sitting me down and explaining I don’t have to do every extra-curricular activity. It was a foreign concept. That was my social hour, my time away from what felt like chaos being the middle of 7 kids at home. These activities gave me a sense of purpose, responsibility, and discipline. It was wild for me to think I would otherwise be sitting at home. Those were my options - school or home. Perhaps that was when my black-and-white thinking began, this or that. Good or bad. Accepted or rejected. Love or unloved. There was very little where I felt I could linger in the middle, the gray area of life was filled with uncertainties.

I believe my anxiety sprouted early in life and took root after a failed teenage relationship. A first love ended in deeply painful judgment. Through countless hours of talk therapy, I learned coping mechanisms to continue wearing the brave girl mask and still look like I had it all. A perfectionist bloomed. Staying composed, together and most of all, under control. Maintaining the facade with professional success, intelligence, impeccable people-pleasing skills, and of course, always with a smile. I wore the words of others like a badge of honor, a plate-spinner, a go-getter, a jet-setter, brave, courageous, and determined to succeed. I was labeled the one who would figure it out, self-supporting, independent, and self-made. The pressure of having it all was my slow drip of cortisol that would bring me to my knees. Failing to connect with my soul, I learned to run from my emotions, fears, self-doubt, self-criticism, judgments, ego, and insecurities. By running, I blurred by the years in my life without any pause for self-compassion, self-care, and self-acceptance.

In a learned sense of lack, I participated in the "club" of public acceptance, admiration, and approval. It looked like perfection. Through yoga, learned I could bend, I could morph my body, and pretzel myself into sacred shapes. All a physical manifestation of my people-pleasing skills. It became my identity. Endlessly seeking outside validation for my achievements and exhausting myself to control the public narrative. As an entrepreneur, I was showing them I could do it and show up for anyone who would fuel my dream. Just keep running. Somewhere in that, I quit listening to my body and intuition. I had become soul deaf. Feeding my hunger from their approval and still not satiated. This was burnout. This was years of my own emotional neglect and lack of self-love, which made me prime for a narcissistic relationship.