As I got off my bike this morning and took a minute to upload the ride on @strava, I chose to take a sneak at my “progress” since the wheels fell off the bus a number of weeks back. I knew I had ridden 60km yesterday and 20 something this morning, but somehow the number staring me in the face felt more meaningful – 150km for the week.
I like to think of myself as a glass half full kind of guy but I couldn’t help but notice the disappointment. 150km for the week? I was thinking…. That was originally my planned daily mileage only a few months ago… and for 50 straight days to boot.
I took a deep breadth and suddenly realized the importance of my weekly therapy sessions where I have been talking about, amongst many things, the concepts of distancing myself from my thoughts and the practice of acceptance.
Now I could have gotten straight on that hamster wheel and used a ton of energy ruminating in the thought of disappointment, or I could celebrate the fact that not only I realized I was thinking about being disappointed, but I noticed that I was thinking about it. All of this because of the good inner work I’ve been putting in over the past few weeks and that I’m going to continue to need to do in the upcoming months.
In yesterday’s session, my therapist reminded me of my unrelenting standards in response to my concerns of letting myself, or worse, others down given where I’m at.
In today’s session, I was reminded to lower my hands, read “anxious thoughts”, gently away from my face where they were getting in the way of enjoying life, read “important things in my life”. A bit of an extension of the “I notice that” “I am thinking about” “feeling anxious” work we’ve been completing together.
My take away from all this? My bike ride across Canada is going to look different than I had originally imagined and I need to continue to work on being ok with that. #JourneyWithJonathan is about connecting with others to better see myself, a vital component to my mental health and overall well-being.
Carpe Diem