Are you a walker or a runner? My answer to this question is not literal, although I have been a runner and a walker when it comes to my physical exercise. Today this question has a different meaning and a different answer.

I had an Aha! moment while spending quality time with a wonderful friend who has the gift of listening and the gift of sharing her perspective in a loving and non-judgmental way. As I have shared in previous blogs, if not in all of them, I have been and still am on a journey of reclaiming my true self. It sounds like a heroic adventure doesn’t it? It is! Because what this heroic journey requires of me is not easy to embrace at times.

So back to walking or running. I have been a runner most of my life — running from me — although I haven’t always seen it this way. At times I believed I was leaving a situation because I felt threatened by it, and in so doing, I missed the opportunity to face my fear and to learn the lesson I was being presented with … again.

Life has a way of providing us with opportunities to learn the lessons we must learn until we learn them.

Whenever I found myself in a relationship or situation that felt very familiar, this was my cue to run. Run away and don’t look back. Blame the situation or the person I was in relationship with and move on with my life. The thing is that no matter where I went next in my life, there I was. I couldn’t see that there was something I was doing that kept attracting the same situation, different place and different people, but the same non the less.

I have found that by running away from situations and relationships hinders the reclaiming of my true self. When I run away I don’t get to face whatever it is I’m running from, or to peel the layer of the artichoke that needs to be peeled.

Life has a way of providing us with opportunities to learn the lessons we must learn until we learn them. Once we learn a lesson, whatever that is for us at the time, we come to the awareness that it’s not the situation or the relationship we need to blame, but rather it is an opportunity we are given to learn a life lesson. Once we are aware, and accept the part we play in things, we can then choose to walk away or stay in the situation or relationship. We no longer need to run and find ourselves in a different classroom needing to learn the same lesson.

So, are you a walker or a runner?