When a Run/Jog Becomes an Existential Crisis

Oh sure, that's a little click-bait'y. Truth is, I did feel like I was going to die (5 miles!) and I'm about to tell you why that matters and what it has to do with the Egyptian Feather of Ma'at!

We just got back from a family wedding lakeside in Vermont. It was delightful: cream-colored Chinese lanterns bobbing in the breeze, wildflowers poking out of glass vases, light-hearted speeches ribbing the groom and complimenting the bride who glowed in her satin gown and wavy jet black hair, the lake placid while fireworks tore through the sky. . . It was our first time back in thirteen years.

Vermont was my husband’s family’s summer get-away. Josh and the kids and I had been there as a young family at least three times before. Each time I would run around the lake — five miles in all — and think myself quite the athlete. It was challenging, but not insurmountable.

Cut to 2026. 13 years since our last visit. I’m somewhere in my 50s (but who’s counting) and haven’t “run” in years. Yes, I’ve done the treadmill in a Mexico timeshare; hiked my rump off when we lived in Lions Bay; and, up until a year ago, did semi-regular power, flow or Bikram yoga. I also walk my dogs, do occasional weights, jump on the trampoline and surf here and there. . .

I’m not unfit. But I’m not “run” fit either.

Note: I put the word run in quotes because what I do should absolutely, under no circumstances, be called running. It is a very light, slow jog that barely qualifies as a jog.

Way back in university, a very trim-fit runner friend (Hi Karen) said to me, “You want to get in shape fast? Run. Nothing else will get you fit — or drop pounds — faster.”

So, when we landed at our lakeside rental two weeks ago, I told myself, “It’s only been thirteen years. You’ve done it before you can do it again. Let’s do this.”

That was one voice. There was another voice.

“Um, seriously? You haven’t gone an actual run (anything longer than ten minutes) in a decade. Your hip hurts and your knee hurts and your feet ache just from wearing running shoes through the airport (slippas ok tho).”

I went with Voice #1, squished my toes into my runners, con custom footbeds, and began a slow jog around the lake sticking to the shady spots. Which meant criss-crossing the road every lake house or two, surely adding another mile to my route.

Twenty minutes in, while hoofing up a hill as steep as Everest, I ex-nayed the jog from my jog and began a walk-limp. An older man passed and said, “You got this!” The look on my face must’ve read: Save me. Everything hurt.

Ten minutes later, after some heavy-duty self-badgering, I began to “run” again. My body protested. Here’s what it said:

Both feet: I can’t breathe! What is this obnoxious plastic sleeve you’ve smothered me with? I’m bone on bone here. Let me out!
Right hip: Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I tell you over and over and yet you persist.
Right knee: You call this complaining? I’ll make it so you can’t kneel for a week.
Left hip: I usually don’t say anything, but this is a little much.
Piggy #2: Piggy #3 is all over me. I’ve got a bloody blister now! I’ll kill him!
And all the little Piggies cried wa wa wa all the way home.

After an hour of jogging and walking but, yes, mostly jogging, I made it full circle, clomped down three sets of very steep stairs, stripped off my shorts and dove headfirst into the lake, my face the color of a New England raspberry.

Elatedly, I declared to Josh and my boys, who were fishing peacefully, “Pain is just weakness leaving the body. I shall do this every day for the next week and get my sorry ass into shape!”

A-hem. (clears throat)

The week, and the family, had other plans for me. But I did run/walk/jog the lake four whole times. And because I apparently can't experience anything without trying to make meaning of it, here's what that ridiculous little jog taught me...

1. My body has become a far better teacher than any doctor I’ve ever had.

Now before anyone gets their knickers in a knot, hear me out. I’m deeply grateful for emergency medicine. If I get hit by a bus, please don’t hand me a tincture and tell me to meditate. Wheel me into surgery.

But most of us don’t wake up one morning with dis-ease. We drift toward it. Quietly.
A little more inflammation here.
A little less movement there.
A little more stress.
A little less sleep.
One more reason to ignore ourselves.
One more reason to push through.

Until eventually the body says, “Well... if you’re not going to listen to my whispers, I guess I’ll have to yell.”

2. Symptoms are information before they become disease.

The interesting thing about that run wasn’t that everything hurt. It was how it hurt.

My feet weren’t saying, “You’re getting old.” They were saying, “Can we find a happy medium please?” And “How about a massage at the end of the day? Just five minutes. Easy." My hips weren’t saying, “Give up.” They were saying, “You’ve stopped asking us to do this. Please go slow. Let’s find new ways to get the blood flowing again?”

That’s the difference.

3. We are treating body parts while forgetting the person.

That got me thinking about a friend I care deeply about. Over the past couple of years her body has become a medical Whac-A-Mole. One symptom gets treated and another one pops up. Shingles. Heavy bleeding. Exhaustion. Low iron. Constipation. The list keeps growing.

Every practitioner has an explanation and many of those explanations may be right in some way-shape-form. But I can’t shake the feeling that everyone is looking at individual trees while missing the forest.

What if the body isn’t breaking down? What if it’s breaking its silence? What if decades of over-giving, chronic stress, grief, guilt, self-abandonment and nervous system overload aren’t just emotional experiences, but rather, biological?

Trauma begins in the biofield. To me (and countless other natural practitioners), the body is the unconscious made visible. It remembers every season we’ve survived, every resentment we swallowed, every boundary we ignored. . . The body keeps score; but more importantly, the body keeps trying to get our attention.

4. Maybe the Feather of Ma'at isn't waiting until we die.

Which brings me to the ancient Egyptians. I know. I can’t help myself. They believed that after death your heart was weighed against the Feather of Ma’at. If your heart is heavier than the feather — poof, you’re turned back to dust in an instant.

This is your heart they’re weighing — not your accomplishments, or income, or follower count, or cholesterol, or volunteer hours in the community or at the church — your heart. And it must be: lighter—than—a—feather!

This got me thinking... what if the feather isn’t just waiting for us after death? What if it’s here now and every symptom is a tiny weighing?

Every sore foot (hip, lower back, tooth).
Every sleepless night.
Every panic attack.
Every migraine.
Every run around a lake.

Quietly asking, What are you carrying that no longer belongs to you?
And perhaps more importantly: Why are you still carrying it?

The guilt. The shame. The resentment. The anger. The grief. The need to prove. The need to rescue. The impossible expectation that somehow it’s our job to hold everyone else’s world together while quietly letting our own hearts become heavier and heavier.

When this is all over, I don't want to turn to dust -- do you?

Maybe that’s what healing really is. Not becoming stronger so we can carry more rather, becoming lighter so we don’t have to. If that’s the case, I have a lot to learn:

Not every problem is mine to solve.
Not every person’s pain is mine to carry.
Not every symptom needs to be silenced or done away with before I’ve listened to what it has to say.

As a holistic nutritionist/teacher/healing guide . . . my job isn’t to grip tighter. It’s to loosen my grip and empty my hands and heart of everything that was never mine in the first place.

Wisdom doesn’t arrive when we’re thinking harder. It arrives when we’ve made enough room to hear it. Whether you call that God, Source, Consciousness, doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is that something deeper finally has room to speak and we best listen.

I don’t know if I’ll ever become a runner again. But I do know this. I’d love to become someone who doesn’t wait until her body has to shout, where every symptom a listening, and a conversation.

Because if my body has spent fifty-something years trying to keep me alive, the least I can do is return the favor and finally start listening.

With love & light,
xx Shannon

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