Letting go of outcomes

Some days I really just feel the urge to talk and often I’m quiet for days, weeks, months at a time and then it comes all at once. I try not to force it but when it does come I try to get my ass out there and see what I can do, see what I can say, see what comes through.

It is middle of November here in Providence and afternoons are getting a little bit darker, a little bit chillier.

Yeah I wanted to come out here and talk about, a little bit about my process because I’ve been trying to respect it more and more. I’ve been trying to respect myself more and more, trying to take care of myself, trying to not operate from unconsciousness and it is a pretty tough thing to do given that the rest of the world and I operate from an unconscious place most of the time.

So this is an attempt at not only doing the right thing for me but also trying to find a new way.

And beside this beautiful stream, the Woonasquatucket, I figured that this would be a good time to talk about my running as well. So over the last five years running has been a huge part of my life. It has been a home for me, a place that I can go to when I need support.

Running has also been a tool that I’ve used to push myself, to bring a certain amount of drive and energy into my life.

But recently I’ve lost touch with it. So it went from being the biggest part of my life to something that I don’t really need to do every day. Running is a really beautiful sport. It is a simple, heartfelt thing and recently I’ve not been feeling the heart of it. It’s been feeling pretty forced and I’m struggling with that a little bit.

I’ve learned a lot about my body, I’ve learned a lot about my mind, I’ve learned a lot about my spirit through running. Moving across the land and pushing effort is not something that everyone has the privilege to be able to do. So it’s something that I do not take for granted.

Just the other day I was out on a run in my hometown of Seattle and was really recognizing all the ways that my body had been sort of forcing certain movements. I was all locked up in my back out of tension and all sort of dumped out in my front and my hips were not under me.

And when I think about what that means—when my back is all tensed up I’m protecting. I’m protecting the back of my heart. I am holding tension in my back as a way of making sure folks don’t get in.

It’s really important for me to try to loosen that up and try to relax my back and sort of lean into the motion of running.

And I wonder why would I give up on this thing that’s given me so much? Why would I stop running when running has been just like an essential source of life and well-being for me?

And it’s not so much that I want to stop running. It’s really that I want to change my relationship to it. I really have no desire to get faster. Being fast is nice. It really is pretty fun to run fast and run hard and push your limits and to get better week over week and month over month and year over year. But I just don’t have any desire to do so.

Yeah I’m gonna likely race tomorrow. I last raced around six months ago in June. And I just didn’t have it. Of course I was still using then so hard to trust a mind that is clouded by drugs and alcohol.

But yeah we’ll see what tomorrow is like. I feel like I can’t race with anything less than 100 percent. My coach told me to give my best shot but also go out conservative such that you can pick people off in the end. I think he wants me to experience this as something that is confidence building.

But I don’t know if I need confidence to run hard. I think I need confidence to speak my truth. I need confidence to open my heart. I need confidence to stay upright in a world that wants me to fold.

Folding looks like a lot different things to different people. And so just understanding that we all have different paths to take. I feel very lucky about the path I’ve been able to take. Moving out to Providence with my partner. Committing to being true to myself, expressing myself. Being of service to my community. Being of service to the world that I live in. And ultimately to surrender to the path that life takes for me.

I feel so blessed to live the life that I do. And sometimes it feels like utter nothingness. I can’t imagine what folks are feeling that are dealing with a lot more survival stresses than I am.

I have a big support system. Lots of people that care about me and would go to bat for me and have supported me financially, emotionally, intellectually—even though I’ve not always been at my best.

I want to make this video to remind myself that it’s okay to be in withdrawal. It’s okay to be experiencing periods of challenge. There’s nothing wrong about taking a step back and just protecting what little life force I have.

Today though I felt that life force return. Partly due to having completed step five in AA for the first time. I’ll likely do it again and again.

I realize that a lot of my hurt, emotional pain and physical pain really sits below the surface of my conscious mind. I am not always aware of the things that are going on within me. And it’s only through interacting with other people and being in containers and processes that I can really come into awareness about what’s going on with me.

And through sharing with a camera, sharing with the world, sharing with God—whatever comes to mind—I can really shed some tears and let go of some things that I don’t need to hold on to. And when that process comes through me and I’m able to share with another human being, that’s when the energy flows. That’s when I can have the inspiration to share.

Because it’s not easy. It’s not easy to be a human being. It’s not easy living here in 2025 even with all the privileges that I have.

And I just wonder—what can we do here? And is doing even the right thing to ask? I feel like maybe the right thing to ask is: who will we be? Who can we be now?

With all that’s going on I can’t narrow my perspective to just take care of myself. That would be the wrong thing to do. I have to broaden my perspective to not only include what’s going on with the socio-political landscape but also to include what’s going on with me. What’s going on with the world around me and what exists outside of what I can see.

Because it’s a pretty crazy world out here and I think I need to remind myself that a lot more is going on than I can see and that I really need to trust the process.

Because I have no idea what’s going to happen. I can only really have faith that just by doing the next right thing and trying to take care of myself and the people around me and my community, reaching out to folks when I think of them—that’s all I can do. And showing up for my community when it matters.

This is the work.

So I’m getting cold. It’s chilly. I’m going to show you all the scene that I’ve been filming in so you can take it in. But yeah just going to upload this, do a quick grade on it. Do a quick transcription. And post it because there’s really nothing left for me to do here.

As I’m walking home, I just want to thank this place, the place that I live, for taking care of me and just want to thank it for the time that we’ve spent together. And I hope that I’ll see you again soon.

Leaving any place—it’s just so important to thank it because it held you. And land and place is so important because it really is the bedrock of the world that we live in.

So next time you’re out somewhere talking to yourself, talking to a camera, make sure to thank the place that you’re in. I swear it’ll make a difference.