Tri Something New

Newsletter March 11, 2024 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

This past weekend, I tried something new- the Triathlon (3 miles running, 9 miles bicycling, and 150m swimming). Though I had competed in the Duathlon 5 years ago, I knew this would be a new personal challenge.

I spent a couple months training which involved tuning up my old bike, swimming at the Pasadena Aquatics Center (a legit Olympic sized swimming facility built for the 1984 Olympics), and a bunch of trips to the Will Rogers State Beach bike path.

I committed to this challenge after having turned 45, as a kind of expression of gratitude to God for my health. Forced to focus on tweaking the angle of my knee, the bend in my neck, and most importantly, the rhythm of my breath during training, I was again reminded of the brilliant design of the human body and the preciousness of being spiritual creatures embodied in this way.

And, I met a great community of volunteer members of the Pasadena Triathlon Club who equip newbies like myself with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to compete. Their example was a great lesson in how human beings can support one another in facing difficult challenges.

As I trained, I realized how connected the mind, spirit, and body truly are. Each step on the trail, every cycle of the gear on the path, every flutter kick in the water helped me move forward in the race but also made me realize how stuck I have been feeling. Stuck in grief and trauma accumulated throughout the past 5+ months. Repeatedly going the distance 12 miles and 150m gave me the time to ruminate over the atrocities in Israel and Gaza. I thought a lot about the powerful geopolitical forces keeping the war machine raging, and my ability or inability to make a real difference in the lives of friends and family, and family of friends, all over the region.

Sometimes, it is helpful for big mental and spiritual moments to be processed through ambitious physical challenge.

Though mentally and spiritually I feel stuck in the endless cycle of awful news reports that I can’t effect, at least in the physical space I can find progress forward.

Though I get wrapped up in waves of terror over what the future holds for children affected by this violence everywhere, at least for a few hours a day I was forced to concentrate on my breathing here and now.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the violence in the Middle East can make us feel stuck and taken for a ride that we never wanted to get on, and committing to the triathlon helped me get back into my own sense of power and ability to move forward. Spiritual and mental blocks can sometimes be worked through in the physical space.

Now the challenge will be applying that reconnection with my own power to the work of building the future I’d like to see. It won’t be easy. It will be a challenge, but with a newfound confidence that I can, of course, rise to the challenge of difficult things. There are things I can do, and things we can do.

We are a community that holds space to mourn and lament the feelings of being stuck in hard places, but then we also help one another move through those kinds of feelings of despair and helplessness to reconnect with our own collective power to make a positive difference. This experience didn't solve world peace, and it wasn't healing for me, but it did help me get unblocked.

May we each try something new and find our own way out of the stickiness/ out of the stuck-ness and back into our own power for good.

Together, we’re #keepingitsacred...

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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