Let Go of the Created Self to Reveal the True Self
The mountains are so raw and unyielding; and yet so embracing and inviting…
This is our fifth visit here and we have more measure of them now… We know how to 
work in harmony with their energy and presence; to get up early in summer months before the sun has risen over their peaks and to run in their shadow, to appreciate the shield they provide from the burning sun…
We have learnt to walk stretches of the steepest parts, to flow with the incline… To stand and stare at times, over the expansive views and enjoy the clean, transparent air…
Sucking it into our lungs when we run fast up a hill, to watch our beating heart, pounding in our chest and to feel fully alive…
Today Anadi and I ran around a five mile loop; we used socks for the very ‘ouchie’ stretches and took them off when we could; but even with the ‘skinners socks’ my feet are still tingling now from the rough sharp, hard grey flinty rocky dusty terrain… One week here… My feet will adapt to another level! She says ?
I scrubbed them clean in the shower, donned my ‘foot pearls’ and then Anadi and I walked through Bubion for the Spanish breakfast that we have become accustomed to; cafe con leche y tostado con aceite y tomate… Delicioso…
A las 11am, I drove down to Pitres, the village below us, for the first of the five 2 hour Spanish lessons I have booked while I am here…
The lesson was meant to be an hour of Spanish conversation and an hour of grammar and more organised work… We did more of the conversation bit than the grammar bit! So I said to Maricarmen… ‘Tomorrow we could start with the ‘work bit…?’ And Maricarmen said… ‘Yes we can do it that way, but let’s see what happens, because you and I, we cannot really plan… We’ll do it in an alive way…’
I am definitely with the teacher that is a fit for me!
During our lesson today, we had been speaking about ‘waiting and seeing’; about relaxing and letting things unfold; for the necessity of believing that this is ‘the way’…
When we truly believe that relaxing, clearing the tension, letting go of holding on to how we ‘want’ things to be or ‘think things should be’ then it is possible to live this way…
However, because often that seems impossible to do, then the reverse gets proved… That life continues to unfold in a stressful way, so it ironically confirms that ‘holding on even tighter’ is necessary…
And so it is possible to get ‘stuck’ on the ‘merry go round’ and be too afraid to jump off….
It takes great courage to leap, because there is no going back once we have leapt from whatever we were holding onto…
And the only person who can take that leap of faith is you…
When I arrived today Maricarmen took a photo of my feet, to show her son, who is a musician. He walks barefoot too and so she took a photo of the tops with their pearls and then the unseen ‘dirty soles’!
‘Elegant on top, with the dirt hidden’ she laughed…’Life is so often like that…’
And yet when we reveal the underside, acknowledge the aspects of ourselves we don’t usually like to embrace, the shadow self we hide from ourself and others…. Once we look at these parts fully, bring them from the shadows, then we can truly become whole, fear nothing within us and so trust ourselves…
And this is the only leap we need take…
Let go of the created self to reveal the true self…
I have been running all of my life – it feels I was born to run. In the running step I experienced freedom and my true expression. I came to see that I needed to ‘get out of the way of myself’ and let my energy flow through the running step; allow it to express itself in the dance and the motion of running. I ran for England and GB for some years. My first international was in 1979, a three mile cross country race; and I continued to run at international level until 1993. Two of my best results were first place in the Dublin City Marathon in 1985 and 7th place woman, 3rd British woman in the 1986 London Marathon in a time of 2.36.31, which gained me selection for the Commonwealth Games.
As a little girl I ran barefoot for many years, and then I put on shoes to race around the world. Fifty years later I am travelling the world as a nomad with my husband Anadi and I have taken off my shoes and I am running barefoot again….
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