A friend of mine asked me for how long I have been running from myself. I thought for a moment, and then I answered: “Well, for the first 33 years!”. I used to judge myself that 33 years was too long, but recently I gave up punishing myself for waking up (so) late. It was the usual way of running: I used to always keep myself busy, especially with my career, rushing from one meeting/project to another, postponing the meetings with my friends for months/years and becoming like a stranger to my family. I didn’t want to stop because I wanted to avoid to look at some things I thought I didn’t like about myself/my past/ my life. I did not know what it meant to love / to be loved. I very rarely stood up for myself. On the other side, I was very harsh with myself (or should I say bitchy?) and the same with  people very close to me. I still do that from time to time, but not all the time, which is a progress! What was the trigger that made me stop running all the time? Well, that is a long story… Anyway, that moment is something different for each of us. I decided to write about this because this is not only my story, it’s about most of the people I meet every day. The bad news is that, sometimes, if you are not running, that doesn’t mean that you are not asleep.

a different kind of running