Day 8/100 Run Challenge

Things Are Not Always As They Appear

Mondays are always difficult for running. I have patients starting at 8:15 a.m., and then an afternoon gap, but I hate taking two showers a day -- too time consuming. Plus, I always find afternoon runs harder than morning runs. I wasn't particularly motivated, and told myself it would be okay just to walk. Then I thought I'd at least try a slow jog, and sure enough I made it. It helped that a nice man (who passed me) said, "isn't it a beautiful day that we have?" I sputtered back, "yes. lovely," given that I was on the hardest part of the run. But just that simple kindness kept me going longer somehow -- though I did make up that he was older than me -- which made me feel "out-of-shape." Who knows? Things are not always as they appear.

I run into this notion all of the time in my professional work. I started noticing it just as my business got started in 2003. Hugely successful people would come into my office and say, "I feel like a fraud." While I have not heard that for a long time, I notice that people who seem to have it all together are often compensating for not having it together at all. This is such a common theme, I sometimes feel that the better the package, the more challenged the person. That may be extreme, but it's what I've experienced over-and-over.

In my own experience, I have experienced appearing to be more confident than I am. I have spent considerable time jumping off cliffs (metaphorically speaking), and taking risks that put me way in over my head. But, I would just fake it, and then be really anxious, and angry, a lot of the time.

This is an issue that I've been working on for years. The goal: to become genuinely confident, not superficially confident. The hardest part of taking the defense of "image" away, is that one has to come to terms with, and truly experience, vulnerability, weaknesses and inadequacies, which is what the "faking" was a defense against in the first place. Let me tell you how much that sucks. I went through a period of feeling so lousy and incapable, it was awful. Really, I thought it would be much better to continue faking it. But, over time, I noticed that facing my vulnerability was much more courageous than strutting my talents (or pretending I had talents that didn't exist), and disowning the parts I'd rather not acknowledge. Ironically, that was the path to feeling more powerful. Go figure. And now, I'm less angry, more tolerant, more connected to people I love...that's peace. I still have drive, it's just less important.

Another funny thing about it: I was in a group, and people said to me, "I like you much more now that you don't seem to have it all together."

"Wow. That's just about all there is to say about that. Wow." (I think that's a quote from Lily's Purple Plastic Purse.)