Stay grounded… connect within. Find peace with where you are, and find hope in where you are headed.
You can eat the spinach, drink the water, track the calories, attend the meetings, buy all the things, wear the designer shoes. But not one ounce of that matters if we cannot connect to something higher or greater than ourselves.
Discard immediately what isn’t serving you. Hustle like you mean it… and rid the rotten. This new dawn can bring meaning, and you are capable of cultivating your purpose.
It’s not instant. Gratification is not always instant. Find what works for you… and when you do, hold on tight.
I’ve started my day with what fuels and serves my body the best. Grace and Gratitude today.
I’ve been asked about my personal journey with my food and booze addictions numerous times. I’ve been asked what stepping stones, forward movements, side streets, cliff falls, and rising ascents have gotten me where I am today?
One word I have studied… practiced… inhaled and meditated on is gratitude.
Despite my greatest challenges… despite the naysayers, despite ridiculous social norms, and heavy waves of intermittent mind chatter… I am somehow always able to see life’s gifts to me and fuel my quest for wellness and health with gratitude.
These gifts come in the form of people and their belief in me. They come in nature and the simplicity of a beautiful tree or body of water. They come in art, and what my eyes allow me see… and sometimes they present themselves even in the messy things.
The realness and rawness of disappointments and temporary setbacks… even amidst these moments, practicing gratitude within the chaos is what lays the foundation for the granulation of what you must recover from.
There will always be moments of nonsense. Find your gratitude anyway… onward.
~ From the Diary of What Running and Life Have Taught Me
Stay in Touch with Runner, Writer and Visionary Suzanne Swanson.
The older I get and the more time that passes… life continues to train and teach me.
It’s not always grandiose nor measured in lavish material “stuff”. It’s not what I can gain from you but what I can give.
As I move through my years… self reflection gets easier, not harder. I seek simplicity. I love my routines. I worry less about things I cannot control, and allow room for acceptance.
I am so grateful those who remain true and journey with me for light and strength… and have learned from those who pit stop in for their own benefit.
Today I ask myself… do my efforts match my words? Do my victories triumph over my defeats, and will I forever live to make a difference? The answer is yes.
Find a few good people… find a good routine… and find yourself back home to in wellness that’s waiting for you.
Run (or Walk!) With Us on the Path to Self-Betterment.
You’ll arrive at the place of finding purpose and fueling passion when you stop feeding the monsters of negativity and failure.
You’ll arrive at the crossroads of change when you rise with gratefulness and thanks, and seek more blessings… not count more curses.
But in the meantime… do not waste any further time wishing you were someone else. Do not wear jealousy of another’s success… or anger at the ignorance of what someone does not understand.
In the meantime, make sure you are loving with your whole heart.
In the meantime, set your standards high and keep your judgements low.
In the meantime, do the very thing that scares you to death, but brings you to life.
In the meantime, do some living… haven’t we punished ourselves enough for things we had little or absolutely no control over?
Set your goals, run your races, swim the oceans, climb the mountains, grow your business, make new friends, make new plans, cross out, scratch off, re-write, do over, release, repeat…
Just remember in the meantime… that person inside you is begging you to love them. You can be anything you set your mind to. But in the meantime… let’s start by being perfectly, wonderfully, no matter what you weigh, or where your scars are, or what you did, or what you couldn’t… YOU 💙.
In the meantime, just do your best. In the meantime say please, and thank you, I love you, and I’m sorry. Stay excited, and keep believing. In the meantime… the universe is watching… be ready when it shakes you 🌎.
As I end this Friday and welcome the weekend, I pause today to take a simple step in counting blessings.
We get so consumed day in and day out with work, with the rat race of life… we simply do not pause enough in gratitude for what we have.
Today, I was shown true kindness and appreciation from a patient and their family. I am thankful to be able to fuel my body with goodness, and come home to a place that feels both comfortable and peaceful.
Tonight I get to use my pen and my journal and release all that went well this week, all the pent-up nonsense that must be let go, and as fast as my hand will go… continue to create and manifest all the wonderful moments, challenges, and magical things that are yet to unfold.
It’s a simple but rarely done activity… because we merely lose touch with what is truly important.
Maybe you found a lucky penny, maybe a friend made you smile, maybe your coffee was paid for, or maybe you just simply made it through another day. Give thanks and celebrate whatever it is.
Life only comes once. We have once chance to break the seal of fear, and dance with possibility. Count your blessings… and lay your head tonight in victory. We made it through another day .
The day is only as good as we make it. I woke up… did my collagen shooter, laced my sneakers, and now it’s time to breathe in some wellness, and exhale some toxicity.
Habits and routines are a critical part of my day. The quiet of the morning, the ink of the pen, the blank page of my notebook paper come first. It is here where I set my intentions for this day.
I let go of what I can’t control, I do my best to forgive my shortcomings, and I let the gentle strike of my felt tip pen ease me into my day.
Seek to create habits that start your day without disruption. Seek approval only from the depths of your longing soul… not the opinion of others. Strive to make the words on your paper a reality, not just empty promises.
My sneakers are part of my story. The answers, the solace, the discipline, and the gratitude they have taught me continue to not only amaze me, but keep me aligned with my purpose… and steady me when I stumble and sway.
Simplicity and contentment are often in the lost and found. We always crave, uproot, and hunt more… for bigger or better. Today, let joy be found in something simple. Find contentment in the ordinary. There is plenty of goodness for you and for me. Go find it.
It is true what they say… that in years to come, the dynamics of your home will change.
This morning, the house is eerily quiet. The kids are grown and out of the house, and as loved ones have passed on… the flood of golden memories flashes through my mind of “how it used to be.”
My heart was broken this morning as this was the first Christmas my beautiful Oreo boy wasn’t heading up the charge to see if Santa brought him his doggie bones… wagging his tail excitedly.
It’s a damp, foggy, drizzly, gray morning here in the Northeast. The kind of day you wish you didn’t have a circadian rhythm that has had you up since 4… but nevertheless, I rise.
So I head out to do the thing that I know will make me feel alive. I lace those sneakers, let the cold drizzle hit my face, and set out to leave it all on the pavement. The pavement who knows the interior of my heart so well, and always has the unspoken answers, or the subtle way of showing me… “it is well with my soul.”
At the top of the hill, I approach a sudden reflection of such beautiful color and shimmer so bright it almost blinds me. I stop for a moment of think of the mess swirled together. It’s a mixture of oils, waters, light beams and refraction… just like life. Even with our chaos, and change, with its messiness, and shortfalls, with our deep heartaches or branded memories, serendipity always shows up at the greatest moments of need to teach us magic, and joy still exist… even on a foggy, dismal day.
As I turn the corner to finish the last leg home, I hear the echo of my father’s favorite song… “and I think to myself… what a wonderful world.”
Merry Christmas to all my beautiful friends and family. Find the serendipity today. It always shows up when you need it most.
I know waking up and seeking joy on purpose isn’t always easy. Obstacles are thrown at you all day. Meteor showers of other people’s crap will rain down upon you and make you question if your path is right or crooked.
You will never have control over others’ opinions, ideas, or thoughts… the solution is to create your own. Do what works best for you. Seek out blessings, harvest joy and happiness, and work to become your greatest self.
The world wants you to compete. It wants you to swim in waters of fear. It wants to slowly inflict hate, and it wants you to carry burdens that have already been lifted from you.
Today… find joy in the simple. Find one thing that makes you smile. Do one kind thing today for someone, and above all wake up and be present for yourself.
Drink more water. Put something good in your body, and give thanks for what it carries you through.
It’s a beautiful, abnormally warm morning here in the Northeast. My legs move as I ask them to, my heart beats fast, and my lungs gracefully take me around all the turns and hills of these roads and my life. It’s simple today.
Wake up and pour yourself a cup of gratefulness. Drink it down and go!
Need More Peace? Write Your Way to Christmas Calm. The Holidays can feel like you’re going non-stop. But the introvert in you is screaming… no, actually whispering politely, hoping to be heard.
Once a upon a time… this crazy girl from a little farm town had a dream. A dream of telling, sharing, and using her personal story to help others overcome their personal struggles and travel down a road to their own personal greatness.
She dreamed of using her words to describe and tell her tale of how alcohol nearly broke her, food addiction shamed her, and low self-worth almost crippled her into further darkness.
She found a love of running. She found joy. And she finally found a way to feel completely loved and open to endless possibilities.
As I type this my heart is full. The tears of happiness to see my blog name, and my Facebook support group that is filled with beautiful people come alive with my logo is unreal to me.
I am so grateful to my nephews, George Yurkovitch, and Jacob Scully. To George for putting my ideas to paper with his amazing artistic talent… and to Jacob for making it come to life with his graphic design talent.
This logo is deeply personal. It’s a beautiful reflection of how this girl crushed her demons, and ran through all the broken pieces to reach her destiny.
I am forever grateful for all of my friends and family who have supported my journey… dream your biggest dreams…don’t let this world tell you you can’t… and never forget: “YOU MUST RUN BEFORE YOU FLY.”
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