My Kind of Self-Worth

There is a lot of talk going on right now about rape and abduction victims, and for good reason. It seems that nearly every week I learn of another child missing. Goodness, it takes a tole on my happiness! It makes me think that around every corner there is someone lurking and just waiting to jump out and take me away. As a result, I am a very paranoid girl. I always have been. In some ways, it makes me a lot more safe than some just because I am constantly expecting the worst, and at the same time it drains enjoyment out of life very quickly. I just need to remember that the amount of good people compared to the "corner lurkers" is much larger. We just never hear about good things being done. And yes, maybe there are more horrible abductions happening daily, but I strongly believe that as the bad gets worse, the good gets better. We can NEVER forget that goodness and love and progress are quiet occurrences that don't shout to everyone "Hey look at me! I'm here and making thousands of lives better!", while evil does that exact thing. In reality, the goodness taking place in the world is growing at an astonishing pace, and it will never die out.

Onto the topic, which I am no expert on...I am just a daughter from a family of six kids and two parents. A lot of people would say that's huge, but I would disagree. I've known bigger families. Yes, with six kids running around sometimes it is easy to feel left out, forgotten or ignored, but my parents did it right, and it didn't take long until I was involved, feeling loved and being reassured that I was a part of the coolest family in the universe.

Growing up in an extremely Christ centered home, our eternal and spiritual worth was mostly what my mom focused on. She always made sure that we knew our worth was not defined by anything we accomplished or what clothes we wore or who our friends were or who weren't. She made sure that we knew we were children of a Heavenly Father that knew us each individually and loved us. My dad believed and taught the same thing, but mainly focused on what we could each accomplish within this earth life. He made each of us feel as if we could do anything we wanted, and that no matter what, we would be the best at it. Life experiences have been what have shrunken my pride and ego. I always thought my dad meant that we had to be the best piano player, the best runner, the best team member, etc. for our efforts to be worth anything, but looking back on it, he thought we were the best no matter our ranking or position as long as he saw that we were working hard at whatever it was that we were doing. So, what he was really teaching was that if you try your hardest and do your best, then you are the best---to yourself and to the ones around you that love you and see the sacrifices you are making. And, it's a good thing that ranking and being the literal "best" doesn't actually matter, because I would be deemed "loser" or "the worst" my entire life. Truth is, I'm not the best at ANYTHING if that is how it is defined.

With my mom emphasizing my innate value and worth as a daughter of a loving Heavenly Father and my father always pushing me to do my best at the things I loved, I have always had a pretty strong sense of self-worth, and yet, I have done things I shouldn't have done and made awful decisions. Why would I do so many dumb things if I have always had a pretty good grasp on my self-worth? Because this is life---that is why. Life loves to take what you think you have a good grasp on and twist it and try to loosen your grasp, so that by the end of the day, you are dangling---barely hanging onto what you thought you had such a firm grip on. You start thinking you might lose it, let go, fall...

This is a point that every person hits at one time or another in various aspects of their life. And getting to this point does not mean that you do not value yourself or that you are not worth anything, it just means that you are human. I've had this feeling quite a few times in my perfectly fine, average and not trial-ridden life. When you decide to at least hang on to what you think you might be losing, or even pull yourself up---that is when you re-confirm your self-worth. When you decide to let go---just let it all go to the pots---that is making the decision to change. You are making the decision to change yourself and your view of yourself...expect less of yourself. I have also done this quite a few times, and even after you decide to let go and change yourself for the worse...guess what. You can STILL get back up and return to where you used to be.

I feel like society places so much value on what you "accomplish"For example. If you do track, unless you are going to state, you might as well not tell anyone that you run track. Or, the fact that when you come home from a game, the first question asked is "did you win?" Or, if you are in band, "are you first chair?", "do you get a solo?" ....at work: " Did you get a promotion?" at school: " What are your grades?" By no means do I mean that these are bad questions. I've asked these exact questions hundreds of times. All I mean is, why not FIRST ask, "how did you game go? Did you play well?" Or, "how was work? Have any interesting phone calls?" Or, "How was band practice today? You've been practicing so much, I can hear you getting better every day." This pulls the emphasis off of whether someone has won or whether their talents are being viewed and worshiped by society and puts it on THEM. Their feelings and their efforts. When this is something common within a child's life, it becomes a part of them. They learn to value themselves based on their own efforts instead of on society's view of them.

I believe that by doing this, you are giving a person what it really takes to get through any trial. You give them faith and respect for themselves. That way, even when life comes along and starts yanking and pulling something away that they thought they had a firm grasp on, they won't ever be able to get too far without remembering that they do have the strength to come back and that they are "worth it".

My family---My rock. This was taken about 7 or 8 years ago.

How to Fall In Love With Running---Proper Running Form

Keepin' it real with my little bro back in high school!

Falling In LOVE With Running

These are just a few thoughts of my own. I always notice that when people are trying to start running consistently, they have an extremely hard time with it for multiple reasons. Most of them being that things start to hurt...legs, lungs, side-cramps, shin-splints, etc. These are the reasons a lot of people hate running. The truth is, running is just like anything else you grow to love. I.E. your family, your children, playing the piano, painting, cooking, reading, whatever it is that you like to do.What do all of these things have in common? Time and SACRIFICE. We are always so willing to sacrifice our time for others and to help others, why do we pause when we want and need to sacrifice for ourselves? The more you push yourself, whether it is only one more block or one more mile or one more minute, the more you are giving up to gain something. You are sacrificing comfort in order to feel better about yourself mentally and physically. We need to learn to love ourselves, and when we learn to sacrifice for ourselves, having respect and love for ourselves becomes a lot easier. 

Run outside as much as you can. Running is not JUST about being healthy, losing weight, staying in shape. It is about time to yourself, which is vital in a balanced life. It is about nature. It is about noticing that there is so much outside of yourself that is breathing and thriving every single day. When you run outside, you get to be around the things that you normally never have a second thought about unless you are on a "nature hike" or "camping". Why not feel that connection to our mother earth every day?


I'm in love with running. I'm absolutely addicted to it. If you know me, you know that if I don't run for a while I'm a grumpo that you don't want to be around. This all started in middle school. Oh, running. Why do I love you so? Let me state the ways.
I love how you make my lungs burn
I love how you make sweat drip into my eyes
I love how my legs burn on the up-hills
I love that you know I can always improve
I love how I always have to pee before and RIGHT after a race
I love that you let me eat a lot of carbs
I love that you gave me 3 hairline fractures up my shin bone and countless painful runs from shinsplints.
I love how you make my arch cramp up....

Okay, so I'll stop counting the ways. The point is that I am a running addict, and that I actually don't have that good of a body for it. Yeah, I am kinda small which helps out and yeah, I am pretty good at endurance (which is something I've worked hard for over the years), but the fact of the matter is that my joints are terrible and my bones are extremely sensitive! Do you have that same problem???I find myself asking "How can I go on!?!" Has my healthy addiction somehow become unhealthy and actually damaging to my body?
NO.
Well, it could be. But, that's what this post is about. Knowing your body and how much it can take is vital to maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle. I consider myself "a runner"---whatever that means. Right now I am running four days out of the week and I always run a minimum of three miles. Sometimes(like during finals) I totally slack and it will be a couple of weeks before I get my runs in consistently again. There have even been times when I haven't run for months, but I am still a runner. I feel like most people think you have to do a marathon or at least a half marathon to really be considered a distance runner. Well to them I say, "You're wrong." I know my body and I know my time and my goals. Running a marathon is not one of them. It is not worth the damage that I know it would do to me. I'd rather stay with my 3-7 mile runs 3-4 times a week for my entire life then put my body through something it tells me daily that it would have major problems doing and then be told I'd be better off biking or swimming. Don't get me wrong, I like all physical activity and working out in many different ways, but running is my buddy, my life-long friend, my confidant....you get the picture. Since I have this addiction, I have discovered I need to make it healthy and okay (balance in everything!). And for someone like me, form and technique means the difference between shinsplints and bone splits and pulled muscles. I went to a "Running Class" (a.k.a. Running Nerd 101) at Runners Corner in Orem, UT, and people, this is a great store! Customer service is amazing and the knowledge these people have is unbelievable. You won't be disappointed. You can go to their webpage to check out their merchandise or even check out the page that talks a little bit about what I spent a few hours learning and actually physically doing(they had us all run and recorded us so that we could see our form at a stand-still).
Proper Running Form
-Your entire body should be slightly at a slant...leaning forward a little bit if that makes sense. In practicing this for myself I've realized that this helps lengthen my stride, in turn improving my pace.
-Your shoulders should be slightly pulled back and your chest pushed forward. This does not mean to run like a duck. These are all very slight adjustments. By making sure you are not hunched through keeping your shoulders back, you are doing your lungs a big favor by letting them fill up with all of the air that they need instead of cramping their space.
-Your arms. I learned in my cross-country high school team that they should hang below a 90 degree angle as to help save energy. This is WRONG. You should keep your arms at about a 90 degree angle...like the corner of a square. I don't want you going and getting stiff arms from clenching your arms into 90 degree angles though. It is still important to relax! Your elbow should never go beyond your torso. Instead of thinking to push your arms further forward, think of pushing them backwards further---since your legs follow the cadence of your arms, it should help lengthen your stride as well.
-Your torso. When I would do long, hard runs I would purposefully slow down and twist my torso a bit when I was taking a break. I liked working out my abs like this. Don't do it. Just work out your abs when you get home. Besides, it gives you side-cramps. Keep your torso firm and still.
-Your legs and your feet. This is what everyone is talking about lately with this new barefoot running fad going on. I actually got into an argument once with a kid I worked with about this. He was trying to tell me why barefoot running is better, and me being the stubborn know-it-all that really knows nothing at all, said he was wrong. He was RIGHT. Surprise surprise. As KG Harper states it on his Proper Running Technique page, ". The upper body should carry over your foot leaving your feet to push off and extend behind your center of gravity." I think that is the best way to put it. So, your foot should be flat when hitting the ground. This is hard to know if you are doing this, but what has helped to do better at planting a flat foot is by kind of just flopping my foot forward and against the pavement. It makes it pretty loud when I run, but that is what has helped me. So no, loud running is not bad.

So, to all you runners out there, the one mile once a week runner, the marathon runner, the 3 times a week runner, to any person that feels connected to running and to nature, let's keep our bodies healthy and strong and do our best at doing what we love!