Bright Side - No Jellyfish

Last night I watched the Diana Nyad documentary (yes, we are WILD on Fridays). Talk about inspiring!  Diana Nyad is a woman who would not take no for an answer. Someone who had more faith in herself than the world had in her. She knew what she was meant to do and she was meant to swim from Cuba to Florida. No. Matter. What. 

On one of her attempts, Diana Nyad was stung by jellyfish as she swam. Not just any jellyfish, but the box jellyfish which is one if the most venomous animals in the world. And she wasn't just stung once, it took her two stings and a near death reaction to give up her goal. 

 

After she had to get out of the water because of the jellyfish, Diana was disgusted that her dream was taken away by something so out of her control. She felt completely prepared and strong physically and mentally and before the jellyfish, looked well on the way to reaching her dream. She couldn't believe that something so outside of herself and her journey caused her to quit. It was truly heartbreaking to watch. 

As we were getting into bed, my husband asked if I was getting nervous for my run in the morning (you know, because 14 miles is really far and you don't even get a medal at the end). After thinking about it for a minute, I replied, "No. There won't be any jellyfish."

And that was my mantra for the whole 14 miles. As I ran, I kept repeating, "There are no jellyfish."  Knowing that nothing outside of journey was going to stop me and that the run really was just about me and my preparation was empowering. Knowing the only thing that would stop me was me kept me going even when it was hard. 

Here is the thing, we are going to face hard things in our lives (harder than 14 miles), but those things are rarely going to include the most venomous jellyfish in the world. And as long as there are no jellyfish, we can do anything. 

Me after 14 miles and not a single jellyfish sting.