Kerri On Down The Road

As the days tick by I am starting to feel like I am ready to lean into this new normal to see what learning and development can be found.  I feel like I spent the first week or two subconsciously fighting what was happening.  Feeling like it was happening to me, and I know that I was not alone.  The overall sense of being slowly stripped of our ability to control how our days and lives were playing out felt scary and unfamiliar.  We are so fortunate to live in a society where we have so many freedoms and rights that up until lately, were being taken for granted.  This has been demonstrated so very clearly by the large numbers of people who despite the warnings about going out and socializing have been actually fined now for doing so.  I feel like this is happening as a direct reaction to being told that we can't. The term "unprecedented" has been used so frequently now in the media and in most communications that have been shared that it has lost its impa...

For as long as I can remember, I have been a person who has seen things as black or white, right or wrong, good or bad.  It has been a struggle for me to sit in the middle ground, that grey area between the two extremes, as spending time there felt uncomfortable and often felt like I was taking a position of weakness.  The indecision or lack of definition of the grey areas felt weak because there was no real decision being made, it was like giving up and being nowhere in my stance or beliefs.  (Having said all of that, it is not like I am never indecisive...I can be very indecisive at times - just ask me where I would like to go for dinner or what I would like to do.  Being someone who likes to please others, I find myself often answering a question with a question instead of making a decision.  Work in progress...) What I am starting to notice and appreciate is the value of sitting in the grey areas sometimes.  Instead of being a place of weakness, I am ...

As the boys and I celebrated Easter weekend together in our home, I couldn't help but reflect on what Easter weekend last year was like.  Easter came a bit earlier and it was one of the first weekends when I was on my own in the new apartment.  I was still working on wrapping my head around the changes that were all around me, and also adjusting to not being able to run due to injury, and just generally trying to figure things out.  I had been invited to a family gathering and decided that instead of using the invite to avoid being on my own, I would take the opportunity to actually sit on my own and let all of the thoughts and feelings come and stay with me for awhile.  I knew deep down that no matter how scary the prospect of opening myself up to what may come was, I needed to take this time to do just that.  "Sit in it" as my counsellor so wisely advised.  What I discovered was that despite some sadness and moments of feeling lonely, I was actually okay...

To say that the past three weeks have been surreal, unreal and like nothing that many of us have ever experienced before would be putting it mildly.  As we move through each day, with a barrage of bad news, scary headlines and uncertainty facing us, we are also having our daily routines altered by forces that are out of our control.  Although we can all recognize the need for these drastic measures, they don't necessarily sit any easier and aren't always easy to adjust to.  Allowing ourselves to feel all the different feelings and experience the honest thoughts that we are having right now is so important, and to do this without judgement towards ourselves is even more so.  There are no wrong answers when it comes to feelings, and giving ourselves time to make space for the emotions that come, even the uncomfortable or unwelcome ones, is the only way that we can move through them.  As week three came to a close I started to realize that I have managed to find m...

The past days and weeks have provided more than enough opportunities for pause and reflection.  Between all of the updates, changes and pivots taking place and the new realities that we are facing on what feels like an hourly basis, it feels hard to have any sort of handle on where we are at and where we are heading. I decided to take some time to write in my journal, to try and find a way to capture what I was feeling or at least get some thoughts down and out of my head.  What quickly became apparent was a sense of being lost.  I have felt like I was dangling or at loose ends for the last week or so, and was having a hard time figuring out what that really meant or where it was coming from exactly and as I let the words flow, a picture came into focus.   Between the cancellations, closures and move to working remotely, I have in essence "lost" many of the aspects of my life that have defined who I am.  I know that these losses are not permanent and ar...

I will be honest, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to write about our current state of affairs.  On the one hand I felt like we are being bombarded by information and perhaps adding to the noise wasn't a very helpful or productive thing to do.  On the other hand I also felt like there are so many feelings, thoughts and emotions happening that it might be helpful to share what I have been noticing as it might resonate and resemble the experience that others are having. First and foremost despite all of my best efforts to not worry and feel stressed, I am doing both.  Not on a large scale but I can definitely feel the undercurrents there and have stopped fighting these reactions as they are totally natural and to be expected and there are no wrong answers when it comes to feelings.  They just are.  I noticed that I have been more tired, more prone to feel distracted and at loose ends these days.  I find that although I am able to focus on things for...

This morning I was getting ready for my usual Sunday long run.  Doing these long runs has been something that has been in my calendar for some time now and with the Toronto Marathon coming up in May (fingers crossed) they have become more and more important.  These are not something new to me as I have trained and run two other marathons and I know enough about being prepared and respecting the distance to know that these are very necessary. Lately I have struggled with a lot of mental garbage, for lack of a better term, that I have carried with me through the first 5 - 6 kms of these runs.  It feels heavy and sounds like a lot of negative self-talk and doubts that circle in my head.  This baggage came along at the same time as I started to notice some pain and stiffness in my shins that would also last for the first 5 - 6 kms and as that subsided these voices of doubt and worry also faded to the background.  After some detective work I came to the realization ...