Lessons Learned and Letting Go

So sorry I haven't written in a couple of days.  It has been an unbelievably busy week and I have used all my spare mental and physical energy to remind myself that I will not regret getting up to run even when everything in my body says stay in bed.  None the less, I am mostly winning that battle this week.  Tuesday I had to take a rest day.  I just wasn't feeling it.  We all have days like that.  I try not to have too many and then I try to forgive myself when I do.  I think that second part is particularly challenging for women.  Maybe it is just me but men seem a lot more accepting of their limitations and women seem to see it more as a personal failing. 

I would like to be more like a guy that way.  You know they take it in stride look at it like "hey things just did not come together today.  Give it a shot tomorrow.  Do you want a beer?"  Me, I will analyze and think if I didn't exercise today and yesterday was hubby's birthday and we ate out and I had some fries I probably need to run at least 25 miles this week to burn that off and stay where I am.  Or I just short hand it and end up with some generic flailing, "you have no focus.  You are so lazy."  It may not be very specific, but it assuages that need I have to recognize my shortcomings, while still being a time saver and bonus: math free. 

I think for the most part we are probably too hard on ourselves, but what always lingers in the back of my mind is something my Dad told me when I was a younger.  "If you don't admit your mistakes and evaluate them, won't you just repeat them?"  Now I realize my father has been gone for nine years in May and I am well in my 40's but certain lessons just stick with you. 

Maybe just because you remember them though doesn't mean you should be doomed to live them out.  I guess sometimes we need to let go of things that may no longer serve us.  There was definitely a time in my life when I needed to pay strict attention and do penance for mistakes, that time was probably chronologically closer to when my Dad actually told me that.  He probably never thought I would embrace it as a way of life.  I mean I did not embrace everything he said.  I certainly still stand in front of the TV from time to time even though he always said "Move. You make a better door than you do a window even though you are a pane." 

Yeah it is probably time to go a little easier on myself.  I have done pretty well this week and I plan to get out everyday for the rest of it.  I even have a women's only 5K on Saturday.  That should be fun.  What do you hold onto that you should probably let go?