True Strength

So, now that I'm home from my visit to Indiana, and moving back toward some semblance of structured healthy living, the idea of strength keeps coming to mind.

The last few months have been emotional and hectic and frustrating and one thing I kept smacking myself with was, How come it was so easy to stay on track back at the beginning and now it is so hard to get back there?

The reason?  I have a FAMOUSLY poor memory.

I went back and read my former blog from those days and realized that it was even HARDER then than it is now.  Back then it wasn't a habit, everything was new, I had a heart and a mind full of fear and a mass of doubts so thick I could walk on it.  I beat myself up for every perceived backslide and mistake.

Out of the last few months of desiccating in a desert space, what has carried through is the quiet conviction of my own true value, the ownership of my own life, embracing my true strength.

Strength is not about what you can do, but about what you can do now that you once thought you couldn't.

When a desert place strips you of everything you were hiding behind, what is left is what is true.

As I discussed my upcoming hike in Spain and my prep hikes here in Flagstaff, I mentioned that I was telling myself to do these hikes every single weekend, whether or not someone could come with me.  My friend tilted her head and looked at me and said, "Remember, this is not about your social life here in Flagstaff, it about getting your body and brain ready for a very long hike all on your own.  Learn how to be okay in silence, in your head, with nothing to entertain or distract you."

Then I realized that these last few years have been leading me to this process, which will inevitably lead me to some other journey.

I had seen this pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago as a destination of sorts (I don't know why I should do this, but something tells me I must...) and it came to me, silent and strong, that it is simply the road to the next space.

The true strength isn't in simply the physical walk, but in embracing everything that lifts me there.