☀️Good News Alert!☀️ A piece I submitted is included in The Sun magazine’s Readers Write section (Sept issue)! Readers Write is perhaps my favorite feature in The Sun. This year I challenged myself to submit something every month and had to chuckle at the cosmic timing: I received word about being included on the topic “Endurance” just days after I ran my latest marathon.
Running has taught me a lot about myself. I can see directly how early experiences of confidence in running have catapulted me to where I am now, personally, physically and creatively. Here are the medals I’ve received from running full and half marathons (and one ultra marathon!), and, perhaps most special of all, the one from the first 5K I ever ran in 2013. Never dreamed I would be this person, but here we are.
More so than endurance running, this piece describes the dynamics I endured in my last relationship — one with a verbally and emotionally abusive man. Most of my friends had no idea the degree to which this was happening, mostly because I was embarrassed to tell them (file under: signs you’re in a toxic relationship). The piece describes merely the quaint tip of the iceberg of what it was like to be with him. I remember viscerally the internal conflict I felt between my self-worth wanting me to stand up to his bullying and the inherited lifetimes of conditioning telling me to stay quiet and small. These days I am stronger and have more tools but this is still a work in progress for me.
Pain that is not transformed is transmitted. No one is immune from this. Today I am speaking directly to my cis male friends: Men who have not healed their own trauma cause harm to others. FULL STOP. That harm has a daily impact on womxn, children, folks with marginalized identities. Harm takes MANY forms. Even good guys cause harm. Men, if someone tells you that you are causing harm, literally the least you can do is listen. If you had any idea of the infinite ways womxn twist and bend themselves to prioritize your comfort, it would/should make your heads explode. Centering men’s comfort has been a survival skill for generations. We need your help to disrupt this.
Here is the piece. Thank you for reading!
Mara Thomas 