Women's Empowerment Stories ...

Running Free
~ Kathie Sutherland

Have you ever had one of those dreams when you’re running, enjoying the wind on your face, you’ve got no particular destination and you feel like you’re flying? Like Forrest Gump, you’re running because you like it. When I was a kid, I loved racing with the wind trying to catch the leaves that skittered along the road. The wind pushed me along and I believed it was true when my father said I had to keep rocks in my pockets to keep me from blowing away.

Then there’s the other kind of running dream when you can’t get away fast enough. I once dreamed an ash grey Cookie Monster creature was pursuing me through the ruins of a town. All he seemed to want of me was peppermint chewing gum!

In my dream I ran to distract myself from powerful emotions that wanted to overtake me. In my waking life, I have tried to ease my anxiety with peppermint gum, but I’ve found that stopping to listen to my dis-ease, soothes me more. When I take a moment to listen to the truth of my fear, and allow it to flow through me, my anxiety becomes a friend.

Two weeks ago, I stopped running. I heard myself telling a lot of self-pity stories. When I really paid attention to the truth beneath the tales, I heard a lot of hurt. I heard myself telling stories about self-neglect. Those stories don’t help me anymore. So I asked myself why my tales are so full of drama, sadness and "poor me" themes. My journal answered that since I began to write my stories in 1997, I’ve got caught up in an ego-based identity I had come to believe. It’s not working anymore. It’s time to loosen up the stuff stuck in my heart. It’s time to unclutter and open the heart. To really and truly surrender in the bigger story of my soul.

On the day I stopped running from myself, I cried for more than an hour. Old wounds broke open. I couldn’t move from my chair because the weight of my despair was too great. Later, I felt as if a dam had broken inside me.

I must have cleared some heart space that day because I’m back to working on my memoir, more sure than ever of the healing properties of writing. I’ve recommitted to calling a sacred circle in which stories are teachers, healers, companions in conversation. I’ve returned to an open space in me, where writing leads to conversation with others and with the Divine.

I’ve begun listening to myself after a long period of inattention. I’ve been telling myself about all the times I tried to make a go of things and it didn’t work; when my business ventures seemed a failure and I felt my choices were failures too. I’ve been running for a long time, fearful of trusting my perspective in the present moment.

I’m making my way back home now, turning inward to what makes me happy, noticing what I notice; really seeing what’s important to me. I’ve been slowing down and paying attention to the mysterious orchestration of synchronicity in my relationships, the perfection of every challenge, and the sense of being carried.

In The New Diary, author Tristine Rainer names the intuitive voice arising from the process of keeping a diary, the "Silver Lining Voice." I love it. It’s a wise voice that I can trust. If I follow it, I return to that self that wants to run free.

~ Kathie Sutherland

© Kathie Sutherland
February 5th, 2010
Email: kathiesutherland@shaw.ca