Running in silence

And being a better friend — to myself

My partner is away on a work trip this week. After dropping him off at the airport early in the morning on Monday, I returned home, walked our dog, and then laced up for a run. I was awfully proud of myself for committing to running even when I only had 4 and a half hours of sleep and felt like shit.

I should mention that I am a newbie runner. Actually, I still don’t really enjoy it. But since I started running about 2 months ago, what I’ve noticed and enjoyed is its positive impact on both my physical and mental health.

Usually, before I leave the house for a run, I’d put on my Aftershokz. This time, I forgot — maybe because it was too early and I was sleep deprived as fuck.

I realized it as soon as I left my house. But I was like, whatever, I’ll just run without music today, I’ll survive.

Without music, the first half of that run was hell.

Some (maybe unimportant) context: When I’m doing something I don’t particularly enjoy but should do — working out, running, driving — my go-to music genre is trashy hip-hop and rap, and the filthier the better. I’m not sure why. It keeps me motivated somehow. This context is potentially relevant because going from trashy hip-hop to silence is a big change.

I felt anxious, not knowing what I should be focused on as I ran. Where should my eyes look? What shapes should my hands be forming? Is that kid staring at my ass? What should I be thinking about while I run? Why did I think running without music was a good idea?

I was also a lot more aware of my physical experience. I felt the air rushing into my lungs and escaping. A sharp pain in my lower abdomen making my movements awkward and uncomfortable. Deprived of the beats and rhymes that usually distracted me from my sensations, I felt like a terminally ill patient suddenly taken off of morphine. You mean I’m just supposed to… experience this?

When I hit the halfway mark of my run, I began to turn toward the silence. The silence, it turns out, isn’t so silent. I listened to the wind, birds, distant cars, and the rhythmic sound of my sneakers touching the gravel trail. I let my eyes soften and land on the sunrise on the horizon. I breathed a little deeper, and felt my lungs fill with fresh morning air. I found myself in awe. How am I just experiencing this?

The next time I went for a run, I deliberately didn’t take music with me.

I think silence is underrated. Perhaps I should be in silence more.

I think it’s uncomfortable for most people because we are used to overstimulation. So we get bored. But boredom is a gift. It’s only through boredom that we get to think more lucidly.

To be inspired, we have to turn outward. We open ourselves to the world, to activities and news, to other people, to perceive and experience.

But to transform what we’ve perceived and experienced, we have to turn inward. Towards ourselves.

And we rarely do that in the modern world.

That’s one of many reasons I’ve found morning pages such a powerful habit. (I wrote about this a bit earlier this year)

I don’t often just sit alone, with my own thoughts. For a long time, I feared sitting with my thoughts. My own head felt like an inhabitable, cruel, and uncomfortable place to be, and I avoided it whenever I could.

Slowly through my morning pages, I learned that some of the thoughts in my head weren’t mean, hostile and trying to sabotage me. If I just stopped to notice them, some of them are trying to help me. And they have.

Over time (and hundreds of pages), I built a better relationship with my own thoughts. I learned more about my thinking patterns — both the good and the bad. I’m kinder to my thoughts, and they’ve reciprocated. I’m finding inspiration within me, which made it easier to notice inspiration external to me.

I understand myself better. And being understood feels a lot like being loved.

I suppose I am now a better friend to myself. And that started because (almost) every morning, I showed up for myself. I showed up — that in itself is a love letter that says: You matter. You are loved. And consistently. On good days and the bad, I showed up. On days when my thoughts are racing, raging, bleeding. On days when my thoughts are so bland and boring, writing feels pointless and every word feels excruciating. What’s the point, I thought. But on those days, just showing up is the point. It sends me the message that no matter what state I’m in, no matter what outputs I create, I am always worth showing up for.

I believe that our relationships with ourselves impact our relationships with our loved ones, our surroundings, society, the earth, the universe. Okay, I think I’m getting too abstract here.

The point is, how we treat ourselves matter. How we talk to, show up, and tend to ourselves matter. And they’re reflected in how we show up for our partners, family members, friends, and communities.

Be a better friend to yourself today. Show up, listen, ask questions, and bear witness to your discomfort. All the ways we wish we could be loved. Give that to yourself. Because you deserve it.