Step 1. to Finding Your Soulmate...
...is finding your soul
Two weeks ago, my Mom and I attended my future sister-in-law’s bridal shower in Herndon, Virginia.
I don’t typically have much to contribute conversationally at events like this. Somehow, questions come up that I wouldn’t have even thought to care about, like “What’s your cake topper?” However, this was a little bit different as my future SIL is a marathon runner and her mother, who was also present, is a marathon runner.
When the conversation lulled from time to time, we talked about running.
Actually, cool story, the first time I met my future sister-in-law, we ran a marathon together. (Marathon = 26.2 miles.) She and my brother were only dating back then, and the three of us had plans to run a spring marathon in Milwaukee. My brother backed out after an injury, and then there were two… Two, who still talk about it as being one of the worst races we ever ran. 😂
I digress.
At one point, the woman hosting the shower asked me “How I got into running.”
I began to tell the story, which I’ll share with you:
I started running for mental health reasons back in 2014. Before that, I had absolutely no positive coping strategies for life.
At the end of that year, I had a bit of an emotional upheaval, and like a lot of people who weren’t raised with healthy habits, my “good ones” were the first to go out the window when that chaos happened. (Something I work on with clients to this day, keeping grounded in those foundational habits.)
I didn’t realize the importance, back then, of a healthy body. I still thought of everything physical as “for the purpose of an aesthetic.”
Cut forward to 2017, I was dating my ex-boyfriend, feeling terrible, grossly out of shape, overweight, and drinking so much whiskey that if I forgot to buy Omeprazole, I’d live in constant, excruciating pain.
The dude I was dating was going to be “the one who would solve all my problems.”
When I was younger, I had this belief that “a relationship” was going to do it. As soon as I found that relationship, I’d be set. I’d have “love.” I’d have “everything.” I’d have someone to come and take me away from all. of. this. shit.
Apparently, I thought this dude was that guy.
It was never going to work out. I knew that, but there was some part of me that kept thinking if I just became what he wanted, I’d be able to hang onto the relationship a little bit longer.
One day, we were driving … somewhere … when he got a text from his ex-wife saying she had run a 5K. (5K = 3.1 miles.) He seemed really proud and impressed.
My elitist ass was not impressed. And, my insecure self began to come out.
":: huff :: “That’s only 3 fuckin’ miles. I can run 3 fucking miles.”
(ALSO, sidebar, something you should know— 3.1 miles is very impressive. The running community doesn’t scoff at any distance or any person who has the courage to run. This was a previous “me,” one who had not yet joined such a marvelous culture of positivity, love, and support. I just had to give context to the person I was at that time in my life.)
It was very important for me to be impressive to this guy I was with, because he was the savior, after all, so I decided I was going to run my first race ever, a half marathon. (Half Marathon = 13.1 miles)
I signed up for the race, I trained for it, and I ran it.
At this point telling the story at the bridal shower, the woman asked “And was he proud of you?”
…and then I was taken back.
“I … don’t know? I think so?”
He was definitely at the finish line, and he said so. A stranger on the internet even sought me out with photos of us, ironically months later. (See below)
He also came to that horrible race in Milwaukee a year and a half later and was at that finish line too. So, yes, he was proud and supportive.
But being asked the question “And was he proud of you—” it wasn’t that I didn’t know. It was that I didn’t think of it.
The conversation started to move on, but I spoke up and halted it.
“Thinking about that question, it didn’t matter if he was proud of me…” I said.
It didn’t matter, because when I did that thing, I began, for one of the first times in my life, to know what it felt like to feel love from the inside.
It’s that feeling that you are complete as you are, that there are no missing pieces, and that everything that is you is completely perfect in the world as it is. It is wholeness, full and complete, missing nothing.
When I felt that feeling, I knew that for the entirety of my life, I’d been looking for love in the wrong places.
I had run a lot of miles training for that half, and with those miles came challenges. I was heavy, my body kept fucking up every other day, I psychologically fought hating the way I looked, feeling my rolls flop around as I tried to push forward through space.
I also had a misconception that running would make me lose weight (it doesn't do this.) Rather, I gained 15 pounds training for that damn half.
I only had cotton tee shirts and cotton socks. I got horrible blisters.
I was often hungover.
Those training runs made me face myself as a person, waking up and having to choose “me” and all I had created of myself until that point. I had to show up, despite the heat, the pain, my relationship with my body, and my disordered one with alcohol.
There was the chafing, the embarrassment, the late night hours at my job… the “not having contact lenses…” (The latter seems simple, right? “Go get contacts.” Except the “me” of that time didn’t make medical appointments, or eye appointments, or dental appointments.)
This was what my life looked like when I hated myself.
So of course, I thought something external would solve the issue. Vacations, men, cigarettes, experiences, alcohol, new food, new toys…
I thought “more of that” was going to do it. And, I left big meals starving and slept next to humans, completely alone, disconnected.
But then, I ran the Staten Island Half Marathon, on Sunday, October 8th, 2017…
This is one of the few races I remember running in my life, my very first race.
It poured rain for the first bunch of miles. My glasses were covered and I could barely see as the torrents of water splashed down on my face.
I remember the course and the people around me. I remember losing my friend Zubair pretty early on, foolishly thinking I could keep up a 10-minute-mile pace with him.
I remember going out on Bay Street and then the turnaround point halfway. I remember the way the water looked when we neared it and the warm mist in the air that made my skin clammy.
But the moment I remember most vividly was passing mile 11 or so, because that was the longest distance I ever ran during training. It was this feeling of breaking a new psychological barrier, and thinking “I can run just two more miles… I can do it. I’m going to do it!”
And when I crossed that finish line, the first of many finish lines I’d cross in my life, I sobbed out an uncontrollable wave of emotional upheaval.
I had never felt a pride or a love like that in all of my existence.
It was a love… for me.
That love I now call “the God feeling.”
I can’t tell you what it is; you can only know it.
It’s as if there’s a burning light inside of you, and that light is so powerful it wants to expand so far that your physical skin bursts away from your body so the light can illuminate the entire planet.
And you stand there, a ball of light, and people can’t help but be mesmerized by your radiance.
If I had to get close to describing it, that would be it.
So, didn’t matter if my ex was proud of me. It was nice that he was there… But I didn’t even remember him as part of the story, really. Not until I was asked.
I see a lot of people thinking “If I just find a partner, I’ll be happy.” I can assure you that’s not the case.
Partners are nice.
They’re just nice.
They’re nice to hang out with. They’re nice to eat food with. They’re nice to talk to at the beginning and end of your day. They’re pleasant.
But they aren’t a source of love that will bring you wholeness. That comes from inside. The type of love you have inside will be reflected outside.
The title of this piece came from a mentor of mine, Sean Smith. He said it at an event I attended last April.
“The first step to finding your soulmate is finding your soul.”
I remember the days of always feeling incomplete. Even when I was “with someone,” there was something missing.
AND- I don’t want anyone to be confused: running will not give you this thing either. Loving yourself will.
Having the courage to love yourself so powerfully, to radically choose you over everything… That is when you get the “God feeling.” That’s what I did at that race, maybe for the first time in my life.
I got over my little self— the drunk, angry, competitive, sorry, loathing little self… and I showed up and did one of the most loving, caring, radical acts I could do.. for her.
It doesn’t have to come to you via endurance sports. That was the first time I experienced it, and I continue to experience it powerfully when I show up so presently in that way.
But it can come any way… Any way that connects you to the light. And you know what the light is because it’s in you. Once you touch that… you won’t struggle to feel “complete” without someone else. You’ll know… you are everything.
There’s a reason my marathon mantra continues to be “Show me where the light is.” ✨
When it gets hard, I repeat it silently, and I remember …
I hope you have a great week!
Here’s some MONDAY REMINDERS:
You are a bright light.
If motherfuckers wanna go, let ‘em go.
Today is a great day to put in your two weeks.
And if anything in this piece made you feel things, and you’re at a place where you want to experience more of your light, or, if you’re an “away-from” person and you just want to stop being in pain, chasing people and things that leave you lost and lonely, write to me andee@getthefuckoff.com. (Or go here.)
You are the light.
Stay beautiful,
Andee
