Last updated on November 12th, 2020 at 04:22 am

*Alexa play cranes in the Sky*

“I tried to run it away, thought then my head be feeling clearer, I traveled 70 states, Thought moving ‘round make me feel better.”

When this song came out, I felt it deep in my soul. I wanted to run. Escape. Move. Feel free, be free.

I didn’t want to deal with my shit, that baggage that comes from living life. The trauma I felt I couldn’t heal. What else could I do besides run? From state to state, from country to country.

Many of us are running.

You can catch us drinking it away to escape the despair. Or using sex to have an out-of-body experience. Shoot, people are smoking just to get through the day. We all have our own vices that can also be disguised in the form of overworking, or staying busy.

Just anything to outrun our inner thoughts and avoid the heaviness.

But it’s not effective, and it doesn’t work. The day will come when our consciousness catches up to our physical body. While you’re sprinting to outpace whatever you fear, it will show up in other ways.

Like through friendships, relationships, how you interact with others, how you treat yourself.

This is a safe space, I’m not here to judge but to simply shed light on the truth. As someone who’s tried to suppress what I was going through, and had multiple vices to “cope”­—I can relate.

I enjoyed myself at one too many happy hours. I stayed on Cloud 9 laughing through the pain. I had relationships so I could fill voids, but there comes a time when you have to be brutally honest with yourself.

What are you scared of? What is it you are afraid to sit with? To work through? To heal past? What are the ugly parts of you, that you fear won’t be accepted?

Think about it. Go to therapy and work through it. End the cycle and face whatever terrifies you. I promise there is gold at the end of this rainbow. There is truth and authenticity in who you are and why you are the way you are.

Your feelings are valid, but honey, you cannot keep running. You can’t keep distracting yourself from what your inner self is feeling. Because you deserve to work through the pain, to feel the totality of it so you can get to the other side.

You deserve to heal.

So I challenge you to think about what you’ve been running away from, and how it’s hindering you instead of helping you. And how you can use this moment to go inwards and face whatever is haunting you.