Positive Results by Sabrina

My first thoughts after finding out a friend was laid off? “Oh, now I see why he was out of it last night. Glad I was able to give him a hug.” My second thought, “OOO. He lives close. That means we can finally run together.”

The Me of five years ago never would’ve even invited him to take this run together because back of the pack people don’t run with front of the pack people. The Me of five years ago wouldn’t have even considered that he would accept my invitation because why would he want to run with me? I’m so much slower than he is. What do I have to offer him?

But over this last year especially, we’ve been working so hard to create community. We’ve been working hard to open ourselves up to new people. We’ve been working to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones. And he’s one of the friends who has also been working to push himself outside of his limit.

When I was training for my marathon, he offered to run with me multiple times and the timing just never worked out, no pun intended. I never once questioned his ulterior motives or that he really would run the miles with me and enjoy the time with me.

So of course when I found out that he was available, why wouldn’t I want to run with him today? I figured he’s faster than me. He could hold the phone and record content of me running with Luna, but we had so much fun talking that I didn’t even remember to pull out my phone. I had to intentionally pull out my phone once or twice to record a video because I had forgotten to record while we were talking. We had so much fun, covering so many different topics, and different conversations that we could’ve easily gone on for another hour if I didn’t have an athlete waiting for me on a zoom call at 10:30.

Amazing things happen when you finally relax and open yourself up to new people. Amazing things happen when you finally heed your own advice, relax and open yourselves up to the experience that you’ve been telling everybody else to open themselves up too. There are so many wonderful people out there who can be our friends, who can be our community, who could be our collaborators. And if we never take the time to talk to them because we’re judging ourselves by our covers, we’re judging them by their covers too. If we don’t take the time to open up, we never really get the chance to get to know them. 

Over the last couple of years, I’ve learned so much about myself and others by slowing down and giving people the opportunity to get to know me, even if I was afraid that they wouldn’t be as receptive to who I am as I am to who they are. I’ve admitted my own short-comings and acknowledged ones I couldn’t even see at first. I’ve exposed parts of me that were long ago hidden away and I’ve gotten to know some of the most amazing people. Cheers to many more sMiles with amazing friends of all paces and abilities. 

Who are you inspired to reach out to today for a workout? Have fun!!