You Always Have A Choice by Julia Armstrong

As an international marathon runner through the 80s and early 90s, I always said that when I was 50 I would start running ultra races – that is any race further than the marathon distance of 26 miles. I am 50 next May and have had my heart set on the Comrades marathon in South Africa for almost 2 decades now – it is 52 miles long and I felt running it at 52 years old seemed fitting! Last month I took part in my first ultra race, a cross-country race from London to Brighton, and to prepare for that event and the subsequent ones I plan, I find myself running further and further (I would like to say faster and faster, but that would be poetic licence!). I am finding it exciting having a new challenge ahead – to run further than I ever have before – and my running is more enjoyable than it has ever been.

I am finding it easy to stay in the step, to just do the training I perceive necessary and to allow my body to adapt to the increased load – gradually.

You can always do more than you believe you can. I am not suggesting that everyone should start running miles and miles (I popped out into the world running, it seems!). However, you do have limitless potential. It comes down to choices and to discipline, wholesome self discipline. This can mean taking rests just as much as it can mean running that extra mile, and it means saying ‘no’ occasionally as much as finishing that report at midnight to ensure you deliver it when you said you would. Doing more than you believed possible is about noticing the choices you make every minute of every day.

You always have a choice – of how you act, react, or respond to an event or situation, even when you did not appear to have any choice over what happened. There is always another perspective, another stance from which to look at a situation. Your reality is derived from the angle you take.

Really loving others and really achieving something takes a lot of discipline. To really love others takes an ability to truly listen to their position, to validate them, and with this amazing things happen: it really does become possible to walk that mile in their shoes. Once you can do that, it is possible to see that no one is actually doing anything to you as such, because the actions of others come from their own pain. If you are able to embrace this state, as exemplified in the ideas of Buddha or Christ passed down to us, no one can hurt you.

The discipline to really live comes, in part, from acknowledging your own pain and from seeking to heal emotional distress – either in the immediate, or pain that is unhealed from the past. And with this healing comes the chance to regain the energy to live fully.

Any achievement takes discipline, day after day. It also takes faith; faith in yourself, and maybe in a higher power or in what you have set out to do. With faith comes commitment and with commitment comes the energy to keep going when there is not yet tangible evidence of success.

Observe nature, and right in front of your eyes you have this process demonstrated day after day, watch how a flower opens at a pace that brings it to its full glory. It is not attached to the end result – its perfume, its texture and colour, the comments about its beauty. The process happens from the inside out, from its very core, from the seed of the plant.

Focus on the area in which you want to achieve and then go to the core of your being to access the motivation for what you do. If you find it within, then the flow will be clear and the manifestation will happen as it is meant to. If you chase chimeras such as money or fame, comments from others on your achievements, or security, you will never feel fully at ease. By going from the inside out, by listening to your heart and to your true inner calling, you will find that the security, the status, the fame and the money will come as a result of you following your soul. So many people do it the other way round, chasing chimeras in the hope of security and the ability to do what they want and so know who they are. Wrong. Know who you are. Do what you love, use discipline to keep going day after day, week after week, month after month. Rest when you need to, take action when required and you will find that you can let go, trust yourself and the flow of life. There really is a place inside that is always safe and secure, from which everything flows, and where you will find abundance beyond your imagination.

Copyright 2008 Julia Armstrong. Julia has worked with people for over thirty years as a relationship coach and therapist. Her skills lie specifically in enabling people to have healthy and happy relationships with themselves and others. Julia's work leads others towards real connection, healing and personal growth, allowing relationship to become a place to experience living with more joy and creativity. Please see her website for details.