Get A GriP! Finding Contentment in the 1 degree

 "You will make known to me the path of life. In your presence is the fullness of joy..." 

Psalms 16:11

The difference between ice and water is one degree. That little shift, almost unnoticeable, something minimum can create such a monumental change. 

I have been thinking about that a lot lately.

We live in a world that craves instant gratification, a world that we control nearly everything with a swipe or a click...until something happens that we can no longer control. Life on life's terms tends to show up and remind us how little we actually do control. A lovely place of humility. And when life stops obeying OUR timeline, we want everything to snap back to "normal" right away.  And sometimes "normal" wasn't that normal anyway....

One DEGREE

I am now over a month into this recovery and honestly, there are days I wonder if this lingering injury is my new normal. But then I remind myself- "GET a Grip Anita". 

One degree at a time. One percent shifts add up. Change often happens quietly before it appears obvious. 

Today, I was able to get in 10 miles at Independence Oaks, and even that came with it's own questions. I couldn't quite tell if the soreness I was enduring was from injury, elevation or the exercises I'm doing to climb my way out of this injury. Sometimes, the sacrifices we make to get better or be better hurt just as much as the thing we are trying to fix! 

But to honest as I have been thinking about all this-all the time, if we want real change in our lives, it is going to COST us something. 

We are going to have to sacrifice.

We are going to have to work hard. 

And we are going to have to be patient with the process, EVEN when the process feels so painfully slow.

I am noticing that buried in the slowness of my recovery are those teeny tiny almost invisible steps towards healing. I might need a magnifying glass to see them, but they're there. 

CONTENTMENT. 

A word that has been shared multiple times in the last week, I think it was God's free commercial to me. 

Even when things are not going my way, contentment brings peace to my current moment or my circumstance. I am reminded to find joy in the little things to help me through. Today, while running with a friend, we talked about exactly this-THE LITTLE THINGS. If I don't take time to locate them then I miss out on gratitude, and that is what keeps me anchored. Without gratitude and contentment, peace will always feel just out of reach. 

The RUNDOWN.

So, for now, I'll keep looking for the 1%. The little things that make a monumental difference. 

Because if I can be honest, "getting a grip" is just not taking myself too serious. 

Like when I'm doing my weekly workouts and adding incline to the TM and the numbers don't come near my Garmin's. My Garmin makes me look like a rockstar. If confidence was measured in treadmill/Garmin stats I'd be RECOVERED! 

But today, I was grateful for 10 trail miles. 

I was also grateful for a friend to run it with, Monday, I couldn't even find a soul to run with me and the voices in my head were awful encouragement.  

My ten miles got me to 20 miles for the week. Not perfect. Not pain free. But PROGRESS, 

one percent-at-a- time progress. 

And maybe that is what "getting a grip" means: holding tight to the little victories, the contentment, the laughter, and the small degrees of change that keep us moving forward, even when the process feels slow. 

Because right now one degree makes all the difference, and I am choosing to "grip" that tightly. 

Super thankful for my run today to get to talk all this out!

In peace, not pieces, 

Anita