The Gingerbread Man

I first wrote this blog in 2015 and was reminded of it again after pretty badly hurting my ankle 10 days ago and being very limited in what I could do.

Today once more I am so grateful for the journey that I have been on and the well being options I have access too.

“Run, Run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man”

Earlier this week I saw the very cute Gingerbread Lane products in Millie Fiori in Camlough and the line above from the Children’ book instantly came into my head. I couldn't remember exactly how the story went but the words resonated on a deeper level, and perhaps even more so when I looked up the whole story. The shortened version is that The Gingerbread man ran away and avoided getting caught by The Little Old Lady, The Little Old Man, The Cow, The Pig, The Horse but eventually a fox outsmarted him and he got caught and eaten (so much for happy endings)

Reading it reminded me of a time a number of years ago when I was at a very emotionally difficult time in my life and like most people I tried various different things to help me feel better and to try and manage what was I feeling. One of the first things people often suggest is exercise and I agree it is definitely one of the best things for helping to keep you physically & mentally healthy but I also knew that it wasn't going to be the only answer for me, I remember thinking what if some day, “I can't run fast enough, pedal hard enough or swim for long enough to stop the emotions and feelings catching up with me”? I knew that whilst I needed tools to use and things to do that helped me manage how I was feeling, I also knew I didn't want to live with the fear that someday just like The Gingerbread Man, I would get caught. I feel very blessed that somehow I just knew that as well as dealing/treating the symptoms I also needed to go a deeper, I needed to get to the root of why I was feeling how I was feeling.