Lessons from the Road: Presence, Practice, and the Long Game

Over the past 4–5 years, I’ve been on a journey. Actually, I’ve been on many (some intentional, some unexpected) but one in particular has been deeply physical and surprisingly spiritual: I’ve been working to lose weight and reconnect with my body in a new way.

Like many of you, I’ve tried all sorts of experiments. I didn’t have a clear goal, just a sense that something needed to shift. I tried all sorts of experiments: the blood-type diet, intermittent fasting, even one-meal-a-day. I got into road biking (a fun but pricey phase). Last summer, I started walking 10,000 steps a day, five days a week.

Then a few months ago, my doctor pushed me to keep going. He encouraged me to drop another 20 pounds. He even suggested I aim for my high school weight (I still think this is absurd). But his concern was real, and I knew I had plateaued. So I did something I had been avoiding: I started running.

Now, let me be clear—I hate running. It’s miserable to start. Every time, I dreaded it. My body hurt. My brain resisted. I had all the reasons not to do it. But I knew something from my somatic work: when we’re up against something that feels overwhelming, it’s not willpower we need—it’s resourcing.

So I got resourced. I reached out to friends who run. I asked them how to make it sustainable. I wanted to know how to make it not miserable. The advice I got was clear: go slow. Build capacity. Start with short stints and expand from there. That advice felt like a gift, not just for running, but for life.

In Somatic Enneagram work, especially as a 5 in the 8-5-2 harmony triad, I’ve learned that for me, transformation moves from body to heart. That opening the heart (at 2) means engaging the body (at 8). And that means moving through resistance, not bypassing it. In running, it’s the same: to increase my heart’s strength, I have to start in the body. Slowly. Deliberately.

Another lesson also emerged: where I focus matters. When I fixate on the moment I get to walk again, I move into the future—and lose the present. But when I focus on just the next step, something shifts. I become present. Aware. Not at some imagined finish line, but here. Breath by breath. Step by step.

This is the heart of spiritual practice. Of contemplative and somatic work. It’s not about fixing ourselves or powering through. It’s about presence. Practice. Resourcing. And choosing, over and over again, to stay with what is.

If you’re in a season of change, or if something in you is longing to move—emotionally, spiritually, physically—I want to remind you: you don’t have to do it alone. Whether through spiritual direction, coaching or the Somatic Enneagram, we go slow enough to notice what’s happening, and we build capacity for more life, more clarity, more wholeness.

We're not meant to go alone.
And we’re not meant to go fast.
We’re meant to go resourced - together.