Run in the rain – choose yourself as air to breathe

The rain caught me by surprise

This picture was taken in the Netherlands, in one of those small moments that life places in front of us without prior preparation. I went running as I do many times, but half way the rain caught me by surprise. I didn’t plan to get wet, I didn’t go out looking for a symbolic moment, and I didn’t think anything special was going to happen. I just ran.

Then, right in the rain, a rainbow appeared.

I stood there wet, smiling, with wild hair and drops on my face, and I suddenly felt how little it sometimes takes to remember that we are alive. Not just functioning, not just enough, not just answering messages, having a house, job, family and expectations. but real animals. Presence in the body. breathing Feeling the air, the water, the light that suddenly enters through the clouds.

There are simple moments that bring us back to ourselves more than any big plan. running in the rain Hot coffee in silence. Walking without hurrying. A deep breath before the day begins. One look at the sky. These seem like small moments, but sometimes they actually remind us that there is a woman inside us who is not just meant to hold everyone’s life. There is a woman inside us who also has to live her own life.

choose for yourself within life itself

Many women grew up understanding that giving themselves space is a matter that needs to be justified. As if every hour they take for themselves is taken from someone else. As if rest, pleasure, movement, silence or personal time are luxuries that can only be requested after everything else has been taken care of.

But life teaches otherwise. A woman who does not give herself space slowly begins to disappear from her life. she is still there She works, cares, remembers, functions, holds. From the outside everything can look neat. But inside something is moving away. The voice becomes weaker, the body is more tired, the joy is less available, and the woman who was there before all the roles begins to be forgotten.

Choosing yourself is not giving up on others. To choose yourself is to stop giving the world an exhausted and reduced version of you. It is the understanding that your giving should not always come from emptying yourself. that you too are allowed to be a source from which life springs, and not just someone who pours it out to others until there is nothing left.

Putting yourself first doesn’t mean stop loving. He says to also love yourself within your love system. Understand that you are allowed to want, to rest, to go for a run, to sit quietly, to meet a friend, to write, to pray, to drink coffee slowly, or to choose one hour of the day when you belong to yourself. This is not a weakness. It is a deep responsibility towards yourself and towards the people you love.

The body knows before the head agrees

During that run in Holland, the body realized something even before the head could formulate it. He just kept moving. The rain fell, the clothes got wet, the air got cooler, but inside me there was a feeling of expansion. As if something in me remembered that I don’t have to wait for everything to be in order to feel alive.

Sometimes our body knows what we need long before the head agrees to admit it. He calls us through fatigue, through contraction, through restlessness, through pain, through a sudden longing for something we didn’t know how to name. We can continue to ignore it for a long time, continue to run through life without noticing that we are no longer really breathing. But the body knows. And he asks us to come back.

Sometimes this repetition does not require a revolution. She starts with a small step. go outside move. look up feel the wind get wet in the rain To remember that life is not only a list of tasks, but also a place where you can meet yourself.

The rainbow in the rain

The rainbow I saw did not stop the rain. She didn’t say I didn’t get wet, and didn’t make the road more comfortable. She just appeared inside him – and precisely because of that there was something so soothing about her.

There is an almost ancient meaning. It is not just colors in the sky. For many of us, a rainbow is a sign of promise. A reminder that even after rain, even in the midst of uncertainty, even when the road doesn’t look the way we planned – something is saved. Something wants to tell us that everything can still be clarified.

At that moment in Holland, when I stood wet in the middle of the run and saw the rainbow unfold above me, my heart relaxed. It was a magical sight by all accounts, but more than that – it was a deep inner feeling. As if life itself stopped for a moment and told me: you are on the right path.

Not because everything was perfect. Not because it didn’t rain. But precisely because a sign of light appeared in the rain.

And this is perhaps one of the most beautiful lessons of that moment: we don’t have to wait for everything to work out in order to choose ourselves. Sometimes precisely when we go out on the road without knowing exactly what will happen, precisely when we agree to move, get wet, breathe and be present – something appears that restores our trust.

You don’t have to wait for the house to be perfect, for work to calm down, for the children to grow up, for the tasks to be finished, or for life to clear up by itself. Life will not always clear up for us. We have to make a place for ourselves in them.

Right now. in the rush. within the requirements. within the imperfect period. in the rain

Choosing ourselves is not a big one-time event. It is built in the small moments when we stop pushing ourselves to the end of the list. At the moment when we ask: what do I need now? What will bring me back to myself? What will allow me to breathe? What will remind me that I’m not just a role, not just a responsibility, not just someone that everyone is used to that is always there?

Sometimes the answer comes as a run in the rain. And sometimes, if we look up in time, it comes as a rainbow.

The best version of you

We are used to thinking that the best version of ourselves is the one that is more sufficient, more successful, looks better, functions better and gives more. But perhaps the best version of us is actually the one that comes back to be present. The one who feels her body, listens to her voice, recognizes when she is tired, understands that her joy is not a luxury, and does not apologize for her need for time.

When a woman regains herself, she does not become less good to others. vice versa. It becomes more real, deeper, calmer, more alive. Her giving varies. It no longer comes only out of duty or pleasure, but from a place where there is breath again.

Maybe this is one of the truths that many women need to hear over and over again: you don’t have to disappear to be good. You don’t have to empty yourself to be generous. You don’t have to put yourself last to prove love. Sometimes the best thing you can do for the people around you is to reconnect with yourself.

One moment a day

A rainbow may not always appear mid-run in the Netherlands. There may not always be time to run, stop or go out for a whole hour. But you can always start from one small moment a day. ten minutes walk. A cup of coffee without a phone. A song in headphones. Short writing in a notebook. A quiet shower. prayer deep breath One look at the sky.

The simple things are much more available to us than we think, but they require us to agree to choose them. Agree not to reject ourselves again. Agree to see our needs as a part of life, not as a hindrance to it.

In this picture I see a woman wet from rain, smiling at life without prior preparation. I see a moment when I didn’t have to prove anything, not to be enough, not to possess, not to be strong for someone. just be

And maybe this is the blessing I want to leave to every woman who reads: that you choose yourself before you forget the way to you. May you find simple moments that take your breath back. Remember that the rain is not always a hindrance – sometimes it is an invitation. And that you know that you are allowed to be first in your life, to return to the world more complete, more alive, more yours.

This article is part of the content world of Fentay Around women, voice, presence and the courage to take a place.