Past my gut

There was a Spring that my sister and I practiced running together. We ran around the church parking lot near our home and we ran up and down the little town road passing our neighbors house. And we noticed that there was this moment in the run where we felt more refreshed than the moment before. Our side stitches became less painful and our breathing steadied.

It was such a weird experience that we thought of a name to describe it - “getting past the gut”. The instant our lack of fitness transitioned into a healthy momentum. It only existed as one part of each run. It was not an enduring physical improvement, it was a gift of perseverance.

I grew up and moved away from home. I stopped running and I forgot about this experience until I was one year into parenthood.

Last week I was exhausted from the nights with the baby and 11 long months of learning to be Dad. My job was wearing me out and my boring afternoons were leaving me unrevived.

One day, with no one reason, my emotional load lightened. The work I had done became a warm wind of encouraging accomplishment. The patterns of every long day entered a flow state. I was just as tired as before, but everything seemed more manageable. I was living some blessed and mysterious reward to persevering.

You are in the middle of at least one big project, maybe 20. Take a breath and ask yourself if you have felt the relief of persistence. If it has not arrived yet, it is on its way.