Hard but not impossible
Big Feelers! Honor here. This issue:
So a couple weeks back I did something I never thought I’d do. A half marathon.
What an experience! I cried multiple times at the gloriousness of humanity during the run (my secret weapon for pain, but we’ll get to that).The whole thing was made all the more sweet by the intense journey that went into it…
5 years ago, I was laid out by a mystery illness that basically meant I was allergic to gravity (not the technical terminology but yes, really).
Back in 2019 my doctor put me onto a graded exercise therapy plan - apparently exercise (aka my worst enemy) was the solution to intense fatigue and other issues I was dealing with. It started with all I could consistently muster: a 10-minute walk a day.
Fast forward to today, five years later, 21.1km of sweet delicious pavement behind me as proof that over time, slowly but surely, in fits and starts, shit can change.
As my guided run app (thanks Coach Bennett) said near the end: “the prize is the journey and this journey is now a part of you that you can take into the rest of your life”.
And what a journey it’s been.
This has been the culmination of a very circuitous road filled with potholes, restarts and lost toenails, as well as gloriously foggy mornings, curious snake encounters, and some of the most delicious (almost spiritual) experiences of my life.
It has also turned out to be one of the most caring, loving things I’ve ever done for my own mental wellbeing.
Even aside from the illness stuff, I’ve never been a particularly sporty adult (I treated the concept of “runners high” with deep suspicion). But I decided early on that I wanted to approach this most recent half marathon goal as an experiment in whether something like this could be, not just doable but… enjoyable?
Um, so what does that look like?
As I looked at the running program laid out in my running app, I decided to try to use all the many hours of training as an opportunity for huge slabs of gratitude, loving kindness, curiosity, acceptance of pain and suffering and of being in very close contact and communication with myself…
In other words, all that stuff I’ve been literally told a hundred times before by various therapists, friends, and mindfulness apps, but which had never truly felt all that relatable until now.
I found running to be a beautiful sandbox for this. It’s a supremely difficult task broken down into little tiny pieces. So each piece is clear and straightforward, laid out for the taking. And you have to figure out a way to work with your brain to get you to actually do it. And that last bit, that’s the *actual* hard bit. Everything from there is easy.
A few things I learned along the way:
✨I can endure suffering, in fact, letting it hurt and relaxing into pain makes it hurt less. Who knew?
✨ There’s nothing wrong with running slower than you think you should be running. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with running even slower than that. Despite what the voice in your head says. (It helps to have another voice on offer here, like Coach Bennett, the guy on my running app, saying more helpful stuff like: ‘you run slow now so you can run faster later’)
✨Curiosity is stronger than bravery - getting curious about pain/the struggle makes it easier than telling myself “you’re so strong, you can do this”. It’s easier to go “oh interesting does it hurt more in my left leg or my right? Where exactly? What shape is that sensation? Etc 🤔” And somehow, more often than not, that helped me relax even more into whatever was happening
✨ Loving kindness is a secret power source. In fact I made my own “loving kindness band” filled with names of special friends and kept it on my wrist for when the runs got real hard, when I’d cycle through and send loving kindness to each person on the list. I still can’t get over how useful this was, throughout all my training runs, and especially in the last 4km on race day.
Loving kindness wrist band. (Patent pending?)
✨ A good soundtrack will carry you FAR. What’s ‘good’ for running is very subjective, but I learned that for me? It’s songs that make me cry. The surprising discovery I made was that grateful-for-the-aspects-of-life-to-be-grateful-for crying while running helped me forget how painful whatever was physically happening was, by distracting me with the weight of emotion I felt for my loved ones. Even thinking about how perfectly my friend roasted those carrots she made for me the other day + just the right life-affirming song could power me for a kilometre or more.
(Side note: I wonder what my neighbours think about that woman who keeps running slowly past their house in tears?)
✨ You don’t have to approach exercise like an “athlete”, my goal was simple: to keep going. When I first started running, in the middle of my illness, I had to do it for my physical health, so the main goal was just “don’t stop”. This took comparison out of the equation (largely) and helped me focus on developing my own positive internal “coach” and removing roadblocks instead of beating myself up when I couldn’t do something. When I shifted to the harder goal of running the half marathon, this same approach was key to keeping going when it got hard or I had a setback.
Running a half marathon is hard, but IMO mental health recovery is harder
These lessons made me think of how I can approach other challenges in a similar way. And of course, I thought of my own mental health recovery, where the road is also circuitous, suffering is inevitable, and showing up daily and consistently is the only way to shift things and live a life you might not have previously thought was possible.
Since the race I’ve thought a lot about how something like a marathon is glorified (a chosen physical endurance race), whereas lots of other discomfort (mental suffering, illness, etc) is pitied / stigmatised.
For example: I did this half marathon and at the end of it I got to be part of an awesome event with 42 THOUSAND PEOPLE (community), I got a MEDAL (accolades). I got to post about it on Instagram (glory) and have friends and family with pure hearts say “AWESOME JOB!” (praise).
Haven't taken it off since (of course)
Yet there’s many people out there every day doing their own quiet mental marathon training. Getting up every morning to put in the mental work (exercise, meditation, journaling, therapy, whatever it is) to move towards that version of themselves that is more calm, kinder, at peace, in tune with themselves, confident, productive.
And that’s a training program that doesn’t have a clear end point. You most often do it alone (no community). There is no trophy waiting for you at the end of the race (no accolades). You can’t brag on Instagram about how you handled your last panic attack way better than previous ones (no glory). Friends and family will say “great job” with some note of concern in their voice (uncomfy praise).
So I want to shout out to all the people training for their own mental marathons. Because while some of the skills are the same (daily practice, sitting with discomfort), my take is, running a half marathon is way easier than mental health recovery!
I was telling boyfriend Graham about all these post-race thoughts, and he put it this way: maybe along with all the usual ‘just ask for help’ messages we have on days like Mental Health Day, we should also have another message, for all the people who’ve already been asking for help and putting in the work for years, but still don’t feel like they’ve worked it all out yet. Grey says he'd make the key message this:
‘We see how hard you’re working.’
I love that.
And I just wanted to say it again, louder for those in the back thinking ‘well she doesn’t mean ME’.
We see how hard you’re working.
So I leave you with this: showing up will move things. Finding out how to relate to yourself so you can show up day in, day out, and learn how to run that mental marathon with yourself is the work. And it’s real work. And it does work. Just not all at once. It’s a little by little thing. Way more than even training for a marathon, healing happens over time.
And again, we see how hard you’re working. (It’s why we made this club!)
To everyone out there facing their own impossible mountains: keep climbing. The view from the top is worth it, even if you have to take the scenic route. 💖
(And remember, there’s all of us out there on the trail with you, even if you can’t always see us.)
#FromBedroomToFinishLine #ChronicIllnessWarrior #PlotTwist
Big announcement!
We are very excited (read: nervous as all hell) to announce a new chapter for Big Feels, in our ongoing quest to help people who the ‘standard’ mental health advice hasn’t quite worked for yet. And it’s something you may be able to help us out with, if you like the sound of it?
Big Feels Club will soon be launching a series of talks and workshops to workplaces across Australia and beyond.
The big idea? Workplace mental health supports that don’t suck.
From the many messages we get from you, we know that the ‘work + big feelings’ equation is one of the toughest parts of dealing with long term mental health issues. Yet most workplace wellbeing supports remain focused on the early part of the mental health journey: the ‘just ask for help’ stuff, or tips and tricks for mild anxiety and depression.
All that’s useful, but it’s only half the story. For those of us who have been asking for help for a while now (and it’s a lot more people than you might think!), the standard RUOK Day / Mental Health Week type stuff can ring hollow, or worse, leave you feeling even more depressed, as you think to yourself: god they make it sound so simple, I really should have worked this out by now.
We have a theory. That there’s room for a different approach.
Something that can serve both needs at the same time: encouraging people in the early part of their mental health journey, while also helping our many fellow long-haulers feel seen and better understood.
More on the content of our talks and workshops soon, but in a nutshell, we’ve realised that the thing we do best - the thing our readers most consistently single out - is this. We tell the truth about mental health, in a way that’s still encouraging.
And we’d love to do that in your workplace, if you think we could help! Through our talks and workshops and other goodies we’re working on right now.
What we need now is warm contacts, as many as we can muster.
Introductions to people who might be up for a chat about ways we could support their staff with ‘real but uplifting’ mental health resources.
Maybe your manager at work is looking at who to book for their next event. Or maybe you’re a manager and have been looking for some more realistic (but still encouraging) mental health resources for your team. Let us know here?
We'll talk to anyone who's interested. An exploratory chat around: what are some ways we might help your organisation better support big feelers in the workplace?
Work in mental health yourself? We’re also working on supports specifically for mental health professionals struggling with their own mental health. Click here to learn more about that.
Just have thoughts on this idea that you want to share? Go ahead and fill out the survey even if you don’t have a specific contact in mind, it’s all useful feedback and we're in curious learning mode! :)
Other stuff
Thanks for reading. I've not spoken about this journey much before and this one took a few tears to get it on the page.
Thanks to my boyfriend Graham for his magical editing hands. The Big Feels Club is Graham Panther and Honor Eastly (hey that’s me).
Want more of this type of ‘real-but-still-encouraging’ mental health content in your life? Sign up to our newsletter below, or check out the further reading :)
Yours,
Honor.
Want more? Try these…
What if there’s more to life than just surviving? What would that even look like?
The Power Of Imperfect Progress
Grey writes about his own brush with chronic fatigue / Long Covid, and how he slowly clawed his way back, step by imperfect step.
If you’re reading this thinking ‘marathon? dude I can’t even get out of BED’ you might like this piece. What to do when EVERYTHING seems too hard.
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