Rest, Recovery & Heal.

I get it.

Not being able to do what you love. I feel your anger, frustration, resentment, pain. All of it.

We're in a seriously tough situation right now. Nose-deep in our second wave, leaders of the world in our frightening statistics.

We say: I want my kids to go to school, I want to fill my home and Sukka with guests, I want to go to work and travel and see my parents and eat in a restaurant and hang out at the beach and watch my nephew play basketball, no hugs. I get it. Not being able to do what you love. Again.

Lockdown says: stay home, no gatherings, no travel, no school, no conference and workshops, no public entertainment - our little country needs to heal.

The world needs to heal.

I get it.

In my own little world, I'm in my second wave too.

In January whilst training for the Cyprus Marathon I injured my knee. I was afraid and bitter. A weekend away with some girlfriends, my first run overseas and all the excitement came to a sudden halt. Little did I know everything would shut down everywhere and no marathons or trips would be happening at all. But I was in my own subjective running "lockdown". I was 100% unable to do what I love and start my day in the best possible way! and if you are familiar with this world and this routine, everything is impacted.

And while I couldn't change the global pandemic, I could work on my knee, rest and recover.

Intense physical therapy helped tremendously and slowly after 3 months, I was able to build up over time to successfully run, certainly not my half marathon distances, but without a doubt, a reasonably comfortable 10km.

Until my second wave, which arrived "unexpectedly" about 3 weeks ago and on one of my morning runs, I felt stinging pain.

Sadly my friends, hope is not a strategy. if it was, I have plenty of it. I couldn't just hope it would go away - and neither can we just hope Corona Virus will disappear or the current mess within the fabric of our society will just unravel itself.

I knew I had to stop. And lock-down. Properly.

Walking home in tears, I realized it's time for rest and recovery and some serious healing - both my head, my heart and my daily habit.

Back at physical therapy, I realize the knee is not the problem, the source is somewhere else entirely and I am working hard to heal.

I share this with you because I know this situation completely sucks and feels so hopeless right now and I use the metaphor of my injury and running because it makes sense to me and nothing else does in all this craziness. I could sit here and so easily blame leadership, irresponsible people who act before considering the consequences, politics, selfishness, lack of common sense - the list is endless. I also sit here and could so easily blame the running shoes, the sidewalk, my speed, the heat, the uphill, the downhill, the red lights, the distracting podcast, my gym pants, my sports bra - the list is endless - and even if there is legitimacy to everything at fault here, blaming isn't going to help me and doesn't activate any creative problem-solving, it just keeps me miserable and powerless. Trust me, I've tried it.

There is plenty we can do differently.

There is plenty I can do differently.

And right now, I am in lockdown.

We are in lockdown.

And it's time for rest and recovery.

And we will heal.

And I will.

But to get there takes massive effort and truthfully, every time I have to do my therapy, it's agony. But I know it's worth it and I know it's the right thing to do.

But to get there takes massive effort, each step, combined with new thinking, a fresh reframed mindset and attitude, changed habits, transformed behavior, collective leadership, a grounded optimism in a vision and values that are finally honored with integrity and smarter choices based on a genuine systemic responsibility.

It's a tough long uphill ultra marathon.

But we aren't called a human race for nothing and it's time to focus less on the race and more on the human.

It's time to focus on what matters most right now: love, empathy, consideration, accountability, helpfulness, connectedness, kindness, integrity, morality, principles, values and self-leadership and thoughtfulness. If we each lead ourselves by focusing more on our humanity and less on the race, this marathon might take our breath away, but we know from running than even when you think you're done, you can always give a little more.

You can't sprint a marathon. You can't rush an injury to heal.

We are creatures of passion. And running through this global pandemic is not just a physical achievement, it's also a state of mind. And just like on your run, there are ultimately no shortcuts. When you train, it changes your life. This will change our lives too. We haven't lost our passion, we haven't lost our resilience and even on the worst runs when you hit those walls, and your legs feel like lead and you can't move, I also know we can still finish strong. And we will cross that finish line again!

But for now, it's lockdown.

Rest, recovery & heal.