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“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Viktor E. Frankl

 

 

One of the biggest changes I have made over the past year has been in the way I talk to myself. Last summer as we made the first trek across the country I got tuned into the world of podcasting. For hours and hours everyday I listened to spiritual teachers and entrepreneurs speak. It filled my head with what truly felt like a second education. Spending all of that time outside my regular patterns of thought, simply consuming information was a huge relief for me. I feel like it broke a lot of bad habits. Emotions and experiences that used to just repeat themselves were put on pause. And the thoughts that simply reinforced the story I would tell myself about my life were silenced. Somehow just putting my thoughts on hold and listening to people who had found success and happiness (as defined by them, not media) was so helpful. And the one common denominator that I heard again and again was their ability to be kind to themselves. All of them at some point or another had choosen themselves.

 

My first introduction to this concept was in school. I read about Dr. Viktor Frankl who had not just survived the holocaust but thrived afterward. Dr. Frankl shares about the way he continued his work as a psychologist even while imprisoned by the Nazis. He continued to watch people and engage himself in learning. He shares in his book that the people who often died in the camps had let their context dictate who they were. They were imprisoned so they became prisoners. Dr. Frnakl recalls realizing that many continually relied on the past to inform their present and their future. And that human beings in general tend to constantly go back to past experiences to make decisions in the present moment. But he found the people who survived the holocaust, were people who used the future to inform their present. A future or a dream based on what they wanted kept them going through hard times and made them resilient.

 

Using a desired future to inform my everyday life has changed my life. I used to spend so much time hoping to “work through” or “heal” some part of myself and somehow the simple act of giving myself permission to only look forward has been all the healing I have needed.

 

What precipitated this blog though, is how quickly I lost that focus recently. My first ultra-marathon felt like a physical manifestation of all that emotional work and growth I had been experiencing. And I think a part of me had hoped for that same result from this race. But instead, this ultra sent me right back into old habits. Comparing myself to others, repeating stories in my head about how I am not an athlete, and a general sense that maybe things weren’t going as well as I previously thought. And a short spike in my business followed by dead silence really exacerbated it all. Suddenly all those emotions of not being good enough and the collective voices of colleagues and media telling me how hard times are and the impossibility of a successful cash business became so loud.

 

So, I find myself seemingly at the starting line once again. Making time to think and dream about the desired future instead of the unwanted past. Setting intention each day to be present in the moment and that this inner work is imperative to providing effective therapy to my community. It is part of what makes my therapy hour worth $100. I don’t just blindly ascribe to “standard of practice” but instead I tune into myself and help others tune into themselves. I believe when we all tune into that deeper part of ourselves we are far more resilient than we realize. We live in a culture today that is constantly bombarding us in hopes that we forget that inner-self and instead buy something we can’t afford.

This weekend has been a great success in the Long family household. We rested.

If you have read any of the previous blogs about moving eight times in three years (or ten moves since we got married seven years ago…) or our continued desire to seek out adventure, you know rest is hard to come by around here. Michael and I love to passionately go after nearly everything we do. We aren’t just plant-based, we are active in the plant-based community! We aren’t just therapists, we are passionate about ethically sound therapy and educating the community along with developing a new model of practice! We aren’t just married and in love, we are working on aligning our careers so we can work together everyday! I discovered a deep LOVE and passion for trail running exactly one year ago and what do I do?! Run two 50ks in one year!!!! Michael loves drumming so what does he do?!? Starts two bands and makes money on the side recording drum tracks for other musicians!

…. ew…. seeing all of that typed out is quite confronting…

The truth is, we are incredibly passionate about all of those endeavors, but over the past few months  it has become painfully clear we need to balance it with some movie nights and less invested activities… or some solution I have yet to come up with. All of this has been exacerbated in the past month by me training for the Smith Rock Ascent and Michael working long hard hours with some of society’s most oppressed and hurting people.

So this weekend we slept, cooked incredible meals, watched two movies, and talked about the future. It is so funny to me as a therapist because I had been complaining to Michael over the past week or so, “it feels like we are so disconnected from each other. I don’t like it.” Well no shit we are disconnected! Where is the time or space to reconnect??? I love catching myself in the same woes as many of my clients. I think if anything Michael and I push ourselves harder thinking since we are therapists we will see the warning signs of burnout… when just like everyone else, we are equally blind to them in our own life.

Anyway, what prompted this blog was sitting here, reading and writing in a journal (not on a laptop which I haven’t done in like a year) I was struck by two seemingly opposing feelings. One feeling says “it’s been eight days since the race, it’s probably time to run a couple miles. I want to be out on the trails again!” The other feeling says, “man, this rest feels like it is working. I am starting to dream about the future again. Maybe I should make it 10 days or two weeks off from running.” Both feel so true.

And then it occurred to me. Whose race did I run? If I am truly honest with myself and look at the past year of running, I have run more in the past twelve months than I have in my 30 years of life! I may not be winning races but 40 mile running weeks were inconceivable to me a year ago! I am realizing I have all these trail running pros I look up to and read about many of which I can hardly go a month without seeing in person around town. I think sometimes I start to think I am running their race. Which made me realize, it is easy to do that with everything today! With social media infiltrating almost every part of our lives these days, not to mention the news and television, how often are we running someone else’s race? How often are we placing standards for ourselves based entirely on someone else’s life circumstances?! Number one, I don’t have some super competitive race schedule, I am not even signed up for another race, does it really matter if I take 10 versus 14 days off? Nope. And how much of my time this morning was spent debating that instead of just being grateful for the quiet peaceful Monday that Michael and I have off together? And how many other things am I doing this with?! 

Whose race are you running? What standards have you placed on yourself based on someone else’s life? Or even harder to identify but worth asking, what standards has media covertly placed on your life?

I think I will go ponder a while longer today….

Wow. 31 miles and 4,100 feet elevation gain…. Although my watch says it was 5,688 feet elevation gain.

It was the most difficult endurance event I have ever done and also the most rewarding. Having completed my first 50k just 7 months ago, I felt mentally prepared for this one. It also helped to have my mom and hubby tracking my run and encouraging me along the way. I kept visualizing that finish line the whole time.

Here are some pictures of the day:

I set out for this race with three things in mind. One, I had seen this race just last year and had thought to myself, “I could NEVER do that. Maybe I should try a half marathon some time.” Two, I had a goal of finishing faster than my first ultra even though the terrain was much more difficult. And three, what a beautiful course!!! There is something so magical about Smith Rock. I have felt so blessed to train there and live so close. It was incredible, after all the detours of the past year, to be there in that moment in that place.

In four days I will be completing my second ultra distance marathon. 31 miles and 4,100 feet elevation gain to be exact….

Blogging about this before it happens is very unlike me. I prefer to keep my hopes and dreams shut away in a closet protected from judgement and best of all, guarded against others knowing what I have yet to complete or what I am taking on. But after talking with a friend of mine about this I realized, doing that encourages others to do it. Let’s face it, in the end, how we treat ourselves is reflected in how we treat others. And I want my clients, friends, family, acquaintances, everyone, to dream big and to see the power in connecting with others about those dreams.

The shedding of our perceived limitations strengthens us individually and as a community. And that is what this race is about for me. Sometimes with my runner friends I start to get fixated on times or the training I have completed (or haven’t completed). But as I ran today I was reminded that these races fuel my spirit in a unique way. It is about challenging the limitations I have placed on myself in the past, the mental fortitude to continue when my body asks me to quit, and most of all, these races remind me not to make excuses or wait for permission from others. I noticed it after my first ultra marathon in September. I would start running and think “ugh, I feel tired, maybe I’ll just do a couple miles.” Immediately I would respond to myself, “a feeling is not a legitimate excuse. I ran 30 miles. I can do this.” Or when I started back up my business and started looking for ways to bring more continuing education to therapists and counselors in the area I thought, ” who could teach that?” then I to my surprise responded, “why not me?”

The more I have done this the more joy and acceptance I have felt. It has made me realize just how much of our world is internal. It really is as simple as the thoughts you think and choose to believe. There is no special organization or gate keeper keeping you away from your full potential. In fact, after these past few months of openly sharing about my practice and how I want to expand it, I believe the Universe openly wants us to reach for our potential and is there to support us when we do.

There is just something special about turning thirty and running thirty miles. Life has become more about going after what I want and a whole lot less about reasons why I shouldn’t.

I recently listened to an episode of This American Life in which they were exploring the old adage, “you will understand when you are older.” In the final act, they are talking to a man in the early stages of dementia. He describes what it is like to go to his doctor and be asked questions like “Who is the president?” and “What day is it?” and worst of all, they ask him to draw a analog clock depicting a particular time.

The man, a former engineer professor, is bothered that he struggles so much with this task. His life before was centered around numbers. He sits down one day and deconstructs the issue. He figures out and later articulates to his wife, the difficulty is that they are three layers. The hours, 1-12 (even though there are 24 hours in a day), the minutes (which correlate with the numbers 1-12 but represent 5’s) and on top of that, the larger hand tells the minutes while the smaller hand tells the hour. No wonder I am 30 and still have trouble reading an analog clock!

Anyway, this was an amazing story but not what fascinated me the most. What caught my attention was that his wife of decades kept feeding him words and prodding him along. It reminded me of many therapy sessions with parents and children. This constant need for your loved one to achieve in a way that society can recognize. It broke my heart. Here are people, young or old, trying to find their way in their own words, as fragile and disjointed as it may be, and we as a society have lost our ability to simply wait.

The evidence of this impatience and obsession with boiling every part of a human into a number is all around us. The survey of your doctor, what stories post in your Facebook feed, or what makes me most sad, the number of smiley or sad faces an elementary child comes home from school with.

I wish I could remember who said this, but I heard someone say that the true tragedy of our society isn’t what law has been or will be passed or the absolute joke of candidates in this presidential election, but instead the loss of humanity. The loss and oversimplification of the infinitely complex experience of being a human being. Our children are not numbers and our loved ones are not defined by the words they struggle to find. And each one of us deserves patience and quiet loving support to find who we are today even if it appears to be drastically different from yesterday.

So next time you feel like filling in a word or take a test score to mean something about you or a loved one’s intelligence, ask yourself, “does this really mean something or do I just feel a general pressure from society?” Or if you are really up for a challenge, “what is it about this score, lack of ability, or mistake that makes me feel uncomfortable enough to correct this person?”

I had imagined finding the perfect combination of words to express all that has changed in the three years following the fire. Some poetically written expression of the experience I have lived and the gratitude I feel. As if a summary of human growth and development is even possible.

Instead, I looked around that day and reflected on where I am. All of it a result of the fire that shook me awake and begged me to rebuild. And I realized the perfect representation was right in front of me.

Nature has a way of reflecting the past and at the same time keeping us present. This plant, once scorched almost to death has begun in the past two years to regrow. Despite 4 moves in the past year and a half, it continues to thrive once again.

Here is another Vegan What I ate today 🙂

 

Keith was the owner of the Renaissance Cafe on Pacific Ave in Tacoma. Michael and I became regulars (or the irregular regulars as he called us) eating there at least once a week for 5 or 6 years.

We loved how Keith on quiet mornings would just come sit down with us and start chatting. The three of us would lament over the direction of our government, technology, and the general problems plaguing society today. It became this little alternative safe haven. The three of us toying with ideas and potentials for change. We admired how Keith operated on a cash basis and hated debt as much as we did. We watched as his business expanded and contracted with the season or economy.

His battles with Starbucks, while infuriating, were quite hilarious. Every now and then, the employees at the Starbucks next door would put their coffee grounds down the sink drain and it would overflow into Keith’s cafe. We watched as he went head to head with them until they fixed the situation. Some days we would count how many people would come and go with their stupid red cups. “Their coffee tastes like burnt shit, but people can’t stop paying $8 for it,” he would state emphatically.  When he was feeling particularly spunky, he would put out a sign, right by the entrance of Starbucks, that said “50 Cent Espresso!” or “$1.00 Lattes at Renaissance cafe” and we would laugh all morning that literally NO ONE would come in and redeem the offer. People are conditioned to hand over hard earned money to that huge corporation.

Keith always joked that his place was “like a bed and breakfast only you supply the bed and I supply the breakfast.” Keith’s was the place we would go to disconnect. Most of the time when we left, we had no idea what time it was. We would feel as though we had been gone for hours, or when life was really stressful, like we had been gone for days.

When Michael decided to become a therapist after the Army he was cautious about who he told. When he would tell military friends they would scoff, “Oh captain Long is going to talk about feelings all day.” His own family were “concerned it wasn’t right” and laughed it off. But when Michael told Keith there was nothing but respect. Keith encouraged Michael in a way that I couldn’t.

Keith and his cafe were so much more than a friend and place to us. It held a space in the world to embrace ourselves. Seeing Keith be so authentic and passionate made us want it for ourselves. As we spent more time there being our weird selves, dreaming our unconventional future got easier and easier.

“I am retiring somewhere warm where my hard earned money will go a long way,” Keith declared. We responded, “we are sick of having to go on vacations, we wanted to live where we vacation.” At the time these felt like more of our whacking idea exchanges. But as time went on taking steps towards these ideas became more and more of our conversation. Keith started to share he was growing tired of the cafe and of Tacoma. Mostly he was tired of how cold society has become. That young college kids would come in with their computers and cell phones and be “like freaking cyborgs!” The three of us longed for a slower life with less concrete. “Tacoma has become sterile. How many birds have you heard today?,” he asked one day as I came through the door. I began to feel the same. Must we pave everything?

And finally, in October 2014 when Michael and I returned from Europe and were in the process of moving to Bend we visited Keith. He announced, “I’ve sold the cafe. I can’t believe it.” It would be owned by someone else by January 2015. Though Keith didn’t like technology, he agreed to a family photo (pictured above).

Michael and I left that day with equal parts joy and sadness. We were so happy that Keith was going to retire and we were going to live where we vacationed but we all knew it was possibly the last time we would see each other.

And it was.

Keith’s final lesson he left us with was a reminder that life is too short to do things you hate or to pretend to be something you are not.

We are so grateful to have met Keith and to continue living out some of his truths.

 

It has been a common response since going plant-based for people to ask, “what do you eat?” Of course this way of life took some adjusting too, but now it is so natural I don’t know why I ever hesitated.

So when I saw one of my favorite bloggers, Ashley’s Green Life was doing a blog post titled “Vegan what I ate today” I thought I should do the same. Plus, this way I can share some of my favorite recipes with my friends 🙂

What I ate yesterday:

 

So there you go. A day of plant-based food. See, I am not just eating salads or lettuce!