The Running Thing

What it means when someone else's yes makes no sense to you

Some family members of mine just got back from Disney. They ran a 5K and a 10K. On Purpose. On Vacation.

I want you to really sit with that.

They intentionally scheduled time, in a place built around magic and churros, and not having to be anywhere in particular, to run kilometers. Plural. And they came back happy about it.

Every time I encounter this, someone choosing to run when no one is chasing them, something in me short-circuits. Because running, for me, feels like being punished by myself, and having no one to take it up with.

My bones jar. There's a grinding quality to it. A friction that my body registers and immediately rejects. It. Does. Not. Feel. Nice. It has never felt nice.

Here's what's funny about that: I ran the 4x100-meter relay in high school. And the 400m hurdles. I think I liked the team aspect of one and the jumpy aspect of the other. And I dunno, maybe I was fast. Maybe, even then, it was fun. But somewhere it stopped being pleasant, and I have made peace with that.

So I look at someone who loves to do it, and God love them, I admire them. Still, I go: Do they know they're allowed NOT to?

And that made me laugh. Because it's such a ridiculous thought to have. They're adults. Of course, they know. But then something in me goes, BUT DOOOO THEY? And that made me laugh harder. Because the second laugh also goes: ok, you're borderline arrogant right now. Knock it off.

And I go. OK. Fair.

But then the fair side asks: Why? Why does someone else's yes compute as impossible to you?

I don't like how it makes me feel. So I assume everyone else must hate it too. I made my experience the default. And that's not curiosity. That's not relationship either. That's one-sided-ship. That's just you living in your own world.

I caught it in myself over something small enough to laugh at. And that matters. Because seeing the mechanics of something small and silly can teach us how to check ourselves when those same mechanics are running something big and important.

Elevate the example. Swap running for church, or therapy, or access, or inaccess. What's funny to me at the level of a 5K could translate very differently somewhere else. What looks light to me could be deeply heartfelt to them. Ritual is a sacred thing, particularly the ones we have with our bodies and our nervous systems. My funny is not the measure of someone else's meaning, nor vice versa.

And that's where it stopped being just funny and became something worth sitting with. Because there's value all around. Specific meaning and understanding per experience, and it all matters. It's all very complex. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's NOT.

Complex isn't always heavy. Funny isn't always light.
Sometimes they're the same shit, different outfit.

All we can do is TALK about what's true for us: what's in our hearts about it, what it actually means, and with some consciousness and accountability for how personal that meaning is. And then...? Then, we do our best to RELATE through heart, where what's true for us is related to differently, or maybe not even at all.

When we're willing to be grateful for noticing the smaller life things, integration allows us to transmute that awareness into application with different or much larger life things.

Some folks in my family love to run. I LOVE THAT FOR THEM. Hate it for me.

They love it so much they scheduled time to run two races on vacation and came home smiling. That's data for them. How I respond to my self-awareness, about my relationship to it, is data for me.

No one is right. No one is wrong. And that's just peopleing.

I write about this concept of secure attachment, and as a form of regulated leadership, in a story called Swan & the Bendy Flower. About what it means to stop fighting what's true about you, and what becomes possible when you relate to it instead. It publishes on my birthday, June 19th, 2026!

More soon...

By Your Side,
Shannon