Your body gives you so much, sometimes it’s good to give back.
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The Good Men Project Sports asked Why We Run?
In this feature series, we share your answers.
This is reader, Amy B. Scher’s:
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Thirty thousand feet in the air is when I have some of my most pivotal emotional moments. These kinds of moments, maybe inspired by the hiss and hum of a 747 jetliner, are of a magnitude that I cannot seem to capture on land.
I was listening to Jack Johnson’s “All At Once” on my iPod, reading Redbook magazine on my short flight from Boston to New Jersey, when my running epiphany hit me.
Realizing that I forgot my running shoes in the trunk of my car at home, I became surprised over the deep upset I felt, especially in spite of my normally euphoric above-the-clouds state.
But there is something about running that I love; and not being able to during my trip felt like a slicing disappointment. I’m not a person who loves to exercise or who participates for the cultural landscape.
I have come to a place in my life though, where I want exercise to be a part of it, even if it’s not 30 minutes a day of absolute joy. That’s why each day, with the same slight resistance as the day before, I choose to run instead of not.
On that plane, in the middle of a Redbook article about overcoming cancer, I connected the dots of why running is import to me. The author of that article, a 24-year-old that had gone through five cycles of chemotherapy, tells her story of running a marathon to support cancer research. One line in that article brought me to tears:
“Running made me forgive my body,” she wrote.
That made me realize why running was not just a choice, but a necessity in my life.
During my eight years of suffering with late-stage Lyme disease, I would literally want to cut my legs off because of the intense nerve damage induced pain. It sounds dramatic and irrational now, but it was so unexplainably horrendous that I wanted no part of my own body. With chronic illness, it is so easy to be disconnected from the body you live in; because that body causes such suffering. My mind-body connection seemed to fall apart with my health; but a tiny bit at a time, as I healed, the running put it back.
It’s been years now that I have been deeply well. I have transformed my life from days of endless pain meds and hardly walking without assistance — to running. I still have flashes of marvel, amidst my now normal life, at what my body came back from. And there is no time it is more clear and palpable than when I’m propelling my body forward with nothing but the momentum from within.
That’s why I do it; even though I am often lazy and don’t have undying love for the sport.
I run to thank my body for coming back to me. I run because I can.
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For The Good Men Project Sports’ Why We Run feature, we are looking to collect YOUR comments, posts, Tweets, and emails that answer the questions: Why do you run? What are you running from? What are you running towards, if anything?”
Please send us your submission via email to myself at mkasdan@gmail.com or via Twitter @michaelkasdan #WhyWeRunGMP and #GMPSports. Submissions can also be made through the below comments section or on our Facebook page.
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#17: Reclaiming My Life << >> #19: To Be Present
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Amy B. Scher is Amy B. Scher is an author, energy therapist, and leading voice in the field of mind-body healing. She has been featured in publications such as CNN, Curve magazine, Psych Central, Elephant Journal, the San Francisco Book Review and was named one of Advocate’s “40 Under 40” for 2013. Most importantly, she lives by the self-created motto: “When life kicks your ass, kick back.” www.amybscher.com
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Photo: Flickr/Jeffrey