*sigh*
There is one really bad thing about being a people pleaser and being afraid to say no….that is when you end up saying yes to something that initially sounded like it could be ok and then you end up dreading it.
I’m in one of those situations now.
Remember how one of my random acts of kindness was about volunteering to help my buddy O lead his run club at running room tonight? Yeah…well….unfortunately, so do I…and I’m wishing I didn’t say yes.
Why, well, it has nothing to do with my friend O. I actually like running with him and he helped me get through my first marathon so he is truthfully all good in my books. It’s more of the fact that the temps are going to be hot and humid today, I am relatively out of shape and my knees are bugging me rather fiercely since I decided to get full on back into running and such. Quite frankly I am afraid of sucking the joint out and the pain/discomfort I am likely to might feel. I’m also afraid of being judged by the other runners based on my speed, my body weight, etc. I was judged before at the running room and it’s hard to remove that stigma.
But…since this is fear conquering month and well, my fear conquering has been more or less pushed aside, more or less, because of birthday week awesomeness…well..let’s be honest, two weeks of birthday awesomeness…I think it’s time to put on those big girl panties and just show up because, well, at the end of the day, I’m still out there and I’m running, which is more that a lot of people will be doing.
There are a few other fears that I have managed to overcome during these birthday downtimes…I managed to set up a router at home and now I have wi-fi! I can’t believe it given my less then stellar tech skills. I also managed to track my spending over the last few weeks–virtually every dollar from parking, to my hair appointments, to parking money…it’s all been tracked. Why was I afraid you ask, well, simply put, it meant holding a mirror to my spending and being accountable–and sometimes that is a hard thing to overcome as it’s showing you your weaknesses (in my case, it’s been iced coffees) and mistakes (did I really need that lip liner–probably not as I tend to forget them and just grab lip glosses for the proverbial road).
I think what I like about the fear challenge is it allows you the chance to regain a bit of control…and since I’m a bit of a control freak about some things, I think that this allows me to be one about things that aren’t negative…if that makes sense. It’s not me drastically trying to control outcomes…it’s more about my actions and reactions to things that I’m uncomfortable with and in the end, hopefully provide a growth opportunity of some sort.
So…on that note, tonight’s growth opportunity will be that I can run outside in god forsaken heat and I can run with the running room without worrying about what they think of me or my way of running as my way works for me and all that matters. And yes, this will be my mantra throughout the 8kms we are running tonight. After the fear fighting, I will be going out for a belated birthday celebration between me and O. Can’t wait!
Much Luv,
Leesah
