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Hey! What are you doing?!?
Silly, what are you doing?
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Can you read the difference?
My older daughter, Katie, has been struggling for some time now with many of the quirks that come with Brooke’s autism.
Brooke likes to script things, and though we work very hard to move her away from them, we know that they are a comfort for her when she is either anxious or going through an unstructured period (i.e. school breaks).
Katie will very often play along with the scripts…that is, she will play along until she won’t play along. And when she is done, she is DONE!
And that’s when it happens.
Brooke tries to start a script with Katie, Katie snaps and all Hell breaks loose.
I’ve been trying to arm Katie with a few deflective tools that can help her – one of which is simply changing the tone in her voice while still getting the message across that she doesn’t want to play anymore.
Same message, just slightly reframed.
***
A friend of mine on twitter recently asked if she could “just run away?”
I answered that it depended on whether she was fast enough to outrun whatever it was she wanted to run away from.
***
Some people do run to “get away” from their problems.
I can understand that. I am sure I have been guilty of doing it on several occasions. But I like to think that running as therapy actually takes a different approach.
Much like I am trying to teach Katie that stopping and then reframing can make a huge difference, I believe running can do the same thing.
If there is something troubling you or you have a problem that you just can’t seem to wrap your brain around, there is a good chance that a nice long run can help you find the solution. Notice that I didn’t say that running is the solution or that running will give you the solution. Rather, I think that running gives you the uninterrupted time for your brain to roll over a problem in a less stressful environment.
Sure you’re breathing hard.
Sure you’re sweating a ton.
Sure you’re possibly focused solely on how much your quads and calves hurt.
But while all of that is happening, you’re brain is working, and possibly, quite possibly, you come home with a slightly different view of your problem. It might not even be a different perspective, just simply a change in tone or vocabulary.
Same problem, same solution – simply reframed.
***
Try it. 90 – 120 minutes of heavy sweating – running, biking, swimming…or however you get your sweat on.
And in the end, even if you don’t find the find your way to the solution of your problem, at least you will have got in a great workout!
Run Luau Run 