It’s a question I often ask myself. Perhaps the tone for my life was set when I was born on Christmas Day in a Catholic Hospital and named Mary even though both of my parents were Jewish. After contracting paralytic polio at age 5 I had a vision and a meeting with one of my guardian angels. Despite the precarious predicament I found myself in with a drug addicted mother who would glare at me while smoking a cigarette, I chose life. I made it through 9 years of unrelenting violence and neglect from the age of 8 until 17 when my father suicided.
Last night there were torrential downpours that I would hear as I’d come out of a deep sleep. Early this morning before my alarm went off I heard a gentle rain and allowed that to be the soundtrack for my meditation. When my alarm went off Tom and I looked at one another and then out of the window to see misty rain and a soaking wet ground with lots of puddles.
“It’s going to be sunny tomorrow,” Tom said to me. “Do you want to strength train today?”
I thought for a minute. “I already did two days of strength training and I need my muscles to recover….Let’s just do this.”
The misty rain stopped and the sky began to clear. It was a balmy 50 degrees - highly unusual for December 15th in Boston.
By the time we got to the Reservoir, blue skies emerged and we were blessed to witness this glorious scene:
Off in the distance we saw a troop of ducks gather. “It’s a reunion,” Tom remarked. Without any cue and with a seeming expression of unbridled joy, they all flew and dove into the water. “They think it’s Spring,” I commented to Tom and a woman passing by. “This is the kind of day that lifts the Spirit,” Tom remarked.
You would never have known that it had rained all night long and into the early morning hours except for the pattern of puddles that provided us with a fun little obstacle course. Many of the puddles were heart shaped.
As I ran strong and healthy running negative splits and a consistent tempo pace, I had the realization that I have changed my body through thought (image below from Dr. Joe Dispenza's You Are The Placebo):
As different sensations arise in my body I am mindful of how I interpret them and bring healing thoughts and energy to whatever areas of my body need attention and TLC as Candace Pert teaches us in “Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d.” I am no longer afraid and can trust in my body's ability to meet the challenge and go the distance.
Who would have ever believed that this girl who started out in a family rife with substance abuse and violence having to overcome the ravages of paralytic polio and trauma would turn out to be one of the good guys; to be running around the Reservoir training for the Bermuda Half Marathon happening in just a few weeks. Who would have believed that I would have found the courage, strength and perseverance to come back after a devastating knee injury last year and work my way back to the half marathon distance. How do I do it? What keeps me going? Perseverance and the knowledge deep within my soul that I AM one of the good guys and have a message of hope and healing to share with the world.
Love this.
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