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Doing the Hard Things: What Running a Ragnar Taught Me About Life
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We all face hard things—some we choose, like running an overnight Ragnar relay race, and some that choose us, like the unexpected challenges life throws in our path. In this episode, I share stories from my recent Ragnar experience and unpack the life lessons tucked inside the exhaustion, teamwork, and grit it demanded.
We’ll talk about:
· Why choosing to do hard things builds resilience for the challenges we don’t choose.
· The power of small steps when the finish line feels impossibly far away.
· How leaning on others (and letting them lean on us) makes the impossible feel doable.
· Practical tools to help you face your own “Ragnar moments” in life—whether that’s in your career, your health, your relationships, or just surviving the daily grind.
This is a conversation for anyone who’s ever felt tired, stretched thin, or tempted to quit. Because sometimes the biggest victories aren’t about winning—they’re about showing up, keeping pace, and realizing you’re stronger than you thought.
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Transcript
Introduction and Life Experiences
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to Exhausted Sparrows Unite. I am your host Krista Jones with my co-host Chantel Schaefer and we've decided that this week's episode really needs to be around one of our recent life's experiences. You know, sometimes life is just hard, right?
00:00:26
Speaker
You just show up and there's challenges some things we choose, some things we don't. And in those moments, it's when we find out what we're really made of.
Ragnar Race as a Life Metaphor
00:00:36
Speaker
So recently, Chantal and i did this really crazy thing called a Ragnar race.
00:00:40
Speaker
Ridiculous, right? An amazing 200 mile team race where you run through the night, you trade off legs with your teammates. It's sweaty, exhausting, hilarious, all those things. It's just right hard.
00:00:51
Speaker
And during those hard miles when I was out there, I was kind of like, this isn't just about running. This is about life. So today we're going to talk about that run, but we're really talking about why hard things matter, not just to prove that we can do them, but because the challenges actually shape us.
00:01:08
Speaker
They give us grit and connection and perspective. You've already got your own Ragnar. Maybe it's parenting or healing. Maybe it's that you're going through a really brutal week at work.
00:01:21
Speaker
Whatever that race looks like for you, this conversation is something that you don't want to miss.
Humor and Miscommunication
00:01:32
Speaker
So we did a thing. We did a thing. it was a Ragnar. We did our thing. and we, I kind of got suckered into the thing. I didn't realize that Chantel all along wanted to do the thing.
00:01:46
Speaker
It was just one of those, i want to do it one time. Right. So a bunch of our friends were talking, a bunch of our fit friends, and they were saying like, hey, let's do this thing. And so I didn't know Chantel already kind of knew about it. They were going back and forth in text and...
00:02:01
Speaker
One of the ladies wrote me on the side. She goes, please do this with me. It is going to be at the beach. It's Virginia Beach. And I was like, oh she was like, yeah, you're you're running on the boardwalk and it's free.
00:02:17
Speaker
and like, it is going to be amazing. And i was like, all right, like Virginia Beach. Like, I think, you know, we are here in New York. Welcome New Yorkers and not New Yorkers. And we are taping the podcast in September when it's starting to get a little bit chilly. So I was like, I would love to be at Virginia Beach. And then very quickly, like within two weeks, she wrote me back and she goes, it's not Virginia Beach. It's Vermont.
00:02:41
Speaker
I had the wrong And And I'm like, oh, all right. So I'm telling my family and my friends that I'm going to Vermont to run along the beach. And everybody's like, where is the beach in Vermont? And I'm like, I don't, I still don't have any idea. And then the week of the run, somebody started saying New Hampshire.
00:03:05
Speaker
I was like, am I going to New Hampshire? Because it was originally Virginia Beach, which I was really down for. and then Vermont, I was like, I don't know. I think I could be down for this.
00:03:16
Speaker
And then I was like, New Hampshire, I feel like that is just a mountain. And let me tell you, we discovered that Krista's allergic to the entire state of New Hampshire.
00:03:27
Speaker
And we will get to that in just a moment. We will talk about those challenges in just a moment. Let's not get
Embracing Challenges for Growth
00:03:32
Speaker
ahead of ourselves. So we decided that we were going to do this run. Should we start with you signed up to be a driver?
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't planning to run anything, but I didn't realize that signing up, that just meant that was my role in the van. i also had to run. So I thought I was just driving you guys around.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, no. And that's like, that did not happen. And then our captain, you know, we love her. um She has done a Ragnar race before. So she very organized, kind of had these lists and spreadsheets and things. And I felt really good had any of this happened.
00:04:12
Speaker
than what we needed on the trip of a lifetime, which it wasn't. But I wanted to talk about all of this because um doing signing up for this right originally felt like madness, right like um and saying yes to something that I was completely unprepared for.
00:04:34
Speaker
And I'm like, we're doing a podcast on this because that's life sometimes. Sometimes you get a choice and you take a risk. And sometimes you don't get the choice whether you say yes or no. You just, you have to do it, right? So you are not ready, but you're thrown into it.
00:04:50
Speaker
And that was absolutely this weekend. I don't think anything could have prepared us for what we endured. Yeah. So first we said yes, which is great. And I think i want to capture that.
00:05:05
Speaker
That is where growth happens. We talk about this all the time. It does. i know that like we were miserable in the moment, guys, in the moment we were like, this sucks. How can we get out of this? Like in the middle of the mountain.
00:05:18
Speaker
But Growth does not happen without challenge. And we were completely challenged that weekend. we were It was 35 hours of challenge. Yes.
00:05:31
Speaker
Which, by the way, we'll give you guys a little bit of background on this, right? We did not realize going into it. We thought that every day people do this stuff. Right. We, and we were so proud of ourselves as we were going through this run because we thought it was going to take us about 36 hours to do. It took us 35 hours to do.
00:05:50
Speaker
And we averaged 10 minutes and 30 seconds a mile, which if you really think about 200 miles of that, like I was like high-fiving Chantel, tapping us on the back.
00:06:03
Speaker
I mean, just the elevation gain alone, the mountain, literal mountains that all of us were running up and that we maintained that pace.
00:06:13
Speaker
They didn't go down. I think that's important to talk about. I can't tell you how many people have said, well, once you go up, you have to come down. I said, no, we did not go down. no That was, that was the other van. That was not our van.
00:06:25
Speaker
We just kept climbing and climbing. And we were like, this is amazing. We are doing this a whole hour before we're supposed to. We got to the finish line.
00:06:35
Speaker
We were one of the last teams left out of 3,500 people, mostly some three hundred and sixty teams of twelves mostly some sixes We were like, literally they were ready to shut down the streets.
00:06:49
Speaker
I was happy we got a hamburger. But like when the rest of our team got in, they literally were shutting everything down. We were like last. The people that won were like six minute mile. That is the average they kept.
00:07:04
Speaker
And they did it in like 30 hours. Yeah. Insanity. And so I think that was important too. Like, yeah. Like, right. Being proud of wherever you are, that there are always going to be people that are going to be in front of you. And we had a team of really strong one runners. We had women that were in the nines, which I consider an amazing mile, but even for them to be passed by people that were just so much faster, it's such an amazing experience. And the fact that, man, that stuff humbled you really quick. Very quick.
00:07:34
Speaker
Really quick.
Resilience and Perseverance
00:07:35
Speaker
And then in the middle of all of this, you know, we were we were teasing about this a little bit, but it reminds me of life. We were talking about that flight or fight instinct.
00:07:45
Speaker
We could not fly. There was nowhere to go. So we really, in our van especially, we really had to like... I mean, honestly, I think we just like put, you know, our hoods over our heads, dug deep and just went because there are times in life, not just this Ragnar, like this really is a metaphor for life that you don't have a choice, but to go through it and you've just got to grit your teeth and go. It's it's a growth mindset.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there were points. I mean, I think one of your legs was a, it's called a non support, no van support, meaning your van of other runners can be nowhere near you. You're running on a trail. You're in the woods.
00:08:28
Speaker
There are no cars. You're, you don't have any option, but going through it. And ladies and gentlemen, just remember that was my leg. And that is where I think I stepped on a nettle. And we'll talk about that later.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. But, you know, people say, and there is research that backs it up, that you will develop skills through effort and you will be more resilient when hard things show up. So if you don't challenge yourself, if you don't go in these things where you grow, you are going to be the person that maybe be littler things, you know, have you falling a apart at the seams. yeah And so that was a great way to look at it. Like, that's just what I kept telling myself, like,
00:09:08
Speaker
Somewhere in the side must be growing somewhere. Something must be happening. And the brain resists discomfort because it's craving um us to be predictable, right?
00:09:19
Speaker
So if we're predictable all the time right, we get into this, I don't know, lack of a better word, like calmness. We get into this comfort zone and life really isn't comfort.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, you get complacent. You get complacent. And there are times in your life when... ah Sickness comes, you know, that's what we do here at Sparrows Nest. We feed people through cancer.
00:09:43
Speaker
There are times when a parent dies, a friend gets sick, um a divorce happens, parenting doesn't go the way you need it to go. um You know, there are things in life that you just can't control and believe it or not, forcing yourself to do hard things at different times of your life by choice help you when you have no choice.
00:10:07
Speaker
I did not realize that. But it's true because, right, you have to get these coping mechanism skills together. You got to figure it out.
Parenting and Life Skills
00:10:17
Speaker
So if if you're never challenged, when you really hit something that you don't have a choice with... You really could fall apart. You don't have the tools. And so I feel, do I feel I should do a Ragnar every six months?
00:10:30
Speaker
No, I do not. But I think like, that's how I was looking at it. I was like, all right, we chose this. It's really hard. Get these coping mechanism skills in here because you can't get out of it.
00:10:41
Speaker
What are you going to do next? You know, it's interesting. I read a book called The Anxious Generation and it must have fallen out of my head. But you talking about it made me remember that part of that book explains that um we need to stop helping our kids so much and letting them struggle for a bit because our kids are growing up without those problem solving skills and the coping mechanisms because we're so quick to fix it so they don't suffer.
00:11:10
Speaker
and And this is the same thing. Like I could have called the van at mile three of my last leg and said, come get me, I'm done. But I never would have learned how to push through that wall. It's true.
00:11:22
Speaker
And that's, I think that's such a great analogy that you used our kids with this, right? I think that we are in a society that coddles our kids. You know, I mean, my generation is a little bit before your generation, but my generation was the one that really had those commercials that said, do you know your kid is at 10 o'clock at night? Like, like my parents were like, you know, I'm locking the door. See you, you know, when the lights come on, it's time for dinner.
00:11:46
Speaker
So, you know, that did help me to go through some hard things, but our parenting, that is a really great point. You know, how we parent also teaches our children and we want our kids to have common sense and There are some things, you know, like my kids are like, I don't know where the doctor's office is. I'm like, you are on social media 24 hours a day. Google it, find the phone number, talk to a human being. But you are so right that if we are not making things uncomfortable for others in our lives at times, they're not learning lessons.
Metaphors of Darkness and Uncertainty
00:12:20
Speaker
No. um So like at the beginning of the school year, my kid's bus stop got moved and it got moved onto another street. And at first I was
00:12:27
Speaker
I was mad. I was angry. My kids shouldn't have to walk that far. And like after a week of school, I went, my kids are nine and 11. They can figure out how to get themselves from the bus stop to home. I need to stop making it safe and comfortable all the time. And they have to figure these things out.
00:12:43
Speaker
And guess what? They get off the bus and they walk themselves home. I don't know why I was so upset about it. Well, I mean, that's us as adults, right? And we live in a society now where, you know, everything is just so crazy and there's just so much drama and you're not a good parent.
00:12:58
Speaker
If you know, you're not baking the beautiful mermaid cape. I keep going back to my mermaid cake, which was awful. Can you please bake a mermaid cake for the Ragnar Mermilers? Oh, I will. That was the name of our team, the Murmilers.
00:13:11
Speaker
didn't even talk about that story during this whole run, but it's all about the growth, right? And going through something that is hard. And then running in the dark. I want to talk about that because a lot of times you're running into things or away from things that you don't, you can't identify, you can't even see.
00:13:31
Speaker
I... was not able to run my night race. So really and truly, it is funny. I don't know what happened. i had to run through a state park, my first leg.
00:13:43
Speaker
And the second, if any of you have ever been in a Ragnar, um there's two vans, six and six, usually in a van. So I was the end of my vans, right? I was the person that did you know the last. I was the sixth person.
00:13:56
Speaker
I then, you know, was the person that handed it off to the next van, the next runner. The minute that I gave her this slap bracelet, so much fun, um I started sneezing and then I didn't stop sneezing.
00:14:08
Speaker
And then I ended up with a fever and I had to run that night at midnight, which actually turned into like 11 because we were ahead of a schedule and And i was going to do it.
00:14:20
Speaker
And then I wasn't sure. And then in the back of the van, everybody was like, you don't have to do this. And then I'm like, I'm going to push myself because that's my mentality. But I knew i had more to do.
00:14:34
Speaker
Right? So sometimes too, you have to make decisions for what's going to happen later. it was probably the hardest decision I ever made.
00:14:46
Speaker
It was okay. They take your average miles. You're allowed to do that for one leg. So that was all fine. But for me, i was watching women run seven, eight, nine miles. I was watching them do an 11 mile and I thought, my gosh, I couldn't do you know six in the dark.
00:15:01
Speaker
So I was kind of kicking myself. But while you guys were all out there in the dark, which by the way, was he dangerous And it was amazing to watch you guys get through that. You guys were all like in the evening, there was very little shoulder, you know, you had to have all your running gear on and pay attention to cars.
00:15:19
Speaker
It just made me realize that like a lot of times you don't have to see the whole path. You just have to see everything. whatever the headlight is showing you in front, right? You got to see the steps are in front of you. Some of us get so caught up as to, is there going to be a bear down the road?
00:15:39
Speaker
What in the world is in the dark waiting for me? Like, you just got to see what's in front of you. That's what you have to deal with. Whatever's in in front of you. So like when you guys were out there, like I was thinking of all these things, you'd be proud of me. i was having profound moments or I was delirious from the 104 degree fever. I don't know.
00:15:55
Speaker
But I was thinking like of all that, like that's life. It is life. How many times do we get ourself so Twitterpated over things that we can't see? We did an episode on anxiety. How many times do we make this whole thing because we're looking out at what we think is going to be out there and then it's never that anyways?
00:16:18
Speaker
Well, I got myself quite twitterpated on that run because I could hear the rustling in the woods. Exactly. But you saw nothing. I saw nothing. So that's good. It made me run really fast, though.
00:16:32
Speaker
And I think, too, when we're looking so far out, we miss what's right in front of us. And that's dangerous. That's how you fall in a hole. That's how you fall in a hole with anything, with parenting, with your marriage, with, you know, sometimes we are thinking so far into the future.
00:16:48
Speaker
We're not dealing with the here and now. And I say that to my kids and I'm sure you say to your kids all the time, like even at the dinner table, like stop being the present moment. yeah Well, why do we say that? Because we don't know what the future is.
00:16:59
Speaker
So why are we thinking about the future and trying to predict a future when we're even giving our kids these life lessons, like put your phone down, be in the present, make the memories here. So I was kind of thinking about all that when you guys were out there.
00:17:12
Speaker
You really were having some profound moments. I was because there was a lot of lessons in that to me that were life lessons. Do any of you want to do a Ragnar?
00:17:23
Speaker
You should. Like you should, you should push yourself. Maybe don't do the New Hampshire one. That's for an ultra elite group. who Lots of hills. Yeah, that's true.
00:17:35
Speaker
But training yourself not to know everything, right, builds resilience. And I'll tell you what I did. And I think you did it as well until really the race.
00:17:48
Speaker
We didn't look at our elevations. We didn't look at anything because I know for me...
Information vs. Uncertainty
00:17:55
Speaker
If I'm looking at things that might make me nervous, I'm going to dwell on that and I'm going to really talk myself out of something I need to do.
00:18:03
Speaker
So sometimes research is important, but some you have to know what type of a personality you are as well. Because sometimes you'll talk yourself right out of that big thing that is going to be an amazing thing.
00:18:17
Speaker
So sometimes I feel too much information is not a good thing. That's true. So for me, I didn't look before the run. Me neither. But while I was on my last leg, which was eight and a half miles with over 500 feet of elevation up and down and up and down. and And you were doing that in the direct sun. It was like 11 o'clock. It was pretty hot.
00:18:38
Speaker
I did pull up that elevation map. So I knew when i was going to get a break. So I knew, all right, I'm getting close to the top of this. I'm almost done. I'm almost there. It's almost over.
00:18:51
Speaker
Because you were in the moment. Yes. So you were just, what's what's right ahead of me? But if I looked before we loaded up in that van, I would not have been in New Hampshire. For sure. Right.
00:19:02
Speaker
I would have, I would have failed. Right. hundred percent. Sometimes if you look into that job and all the criteria and you know what I mean? Like, like a job interview, like anything, if, if you want to do something in your life and you want, sometimes you look too, too deep and you're like, oh Well, I've never really managed those projects before that are specific to, you know what I mean? Sometimes you're looking so deep yeah that you talk yourself out of something. And if you would have just gone through it, you have enough that you would have gotten that job.
00:19:32
Speaker
It would have been your personality. It would have been something that would have compensated for something maybe that you lack. And like in that moment, while I was watching you guys out there running, I was like, we are afraid of the dark.
Breaking Down Challenges
00:19:43
Speaker
We are often afraid of what we can't see.
00:19:45
Speaker
But at the end of the day, most of that works itself out. And honestly, you can't even control most of it. Absolutely. So you just got to get in the middle of it. So I was like, okay.
00:19:57
Speaker
And you know what? Like you said, it makes a lot of sense. You were breaking it down like into smaller tasks, smaller pieces. Like, all right, I have a mile left or two miles left.
00:20:10
Speaker
So you know what? I can look at that map now because now it's just going to get me to the end. ye So you were knowing where you were feeling comfortable because you were more than halfway through and you knew, all right, now let me see it.
00:20:22
Speaker
Like, I love that, you know, and even, even as important, what do I know right now for sure? I know right now in front of me, the path is clear. i know right now in front of me that a lot of these job skills I have, I know right now in front of me,
00:20:38
Speaker
you know, whatever it is with your marriage, with whatever it is, you know, here's the things that I can control so that, you know, they don't escalate to get to something bigger. So it's always about doing the hard things, but yet in the middle of doing those hard things, how much can you handle?
00:20:55
Speaker
Right?
Support Systems in Challenges
00:20:57
Speaker
Yeah. Without overload. Fair. And then the power of having a team.
00:21:05
Speaker
You ladies, it was really cool because while we were out there on the path, the van at most legs could pull up and cheer in multiple spots or they would drive by ringing cowbells and screaming and you got this and what do you need? Like priceless.
00:21:23
Speaker
Priceless. We all need van people. Yeah. Y'all need to find your van. You need to find your van and it's probably going to be smelly and cramped and tired, but you need a van full of cheerleaders. Yes.
00:21:34
Speaker
That's what you need in your life. You need not only to find people that are cheering for you as you go by, you need to find people that cheer for you when you leave a room. That's important. And I think that was great. You know, our captain Carleen had us in two different vans and, you know, um, the way that she worked it out was amazing. The other van was the type that went, went, went, um, most of them a little bit younger. i mean, Chantal was the younger, the youngest in our van, but you know, there, she had us in, I would say a more reflective van, a more
00:22:10
Speaker
maybe subdued van, but like we wanted to get a couple hours sleep. You know, there were things that were important to us that maybe weren't as important to that other van and it was perfectly placed.
00:22:22
Speaker
So it worked exactly the way that it was supposed to work. And we both had experiences that were completely different from each other, but it's because we were with people that, that really helped our personalities.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah, it was just everybody complimented each other really nicely. Right. it just it I don't know. It was like soul feeding. Yeah. And we weren't alone. And like, you know, I mean, we talk about that all the time, like the science behind that. We always talk about like adrenaline and cortisol and like all this stuff.
00:22:51
Speaker
And when you are around people, that social connection actually lowers your stress hormones. Even if you're the kind of person like you say you're an introvert.
00:23:03
Speaker
It's still nice to feel the hum in the in the room, to hear the the talking in the back. Even if it's not like you're hugging somebody and you're, you know, crying and having a kumbaya moment, it's, it's, there's a comfort in just knowing that there are people there that are ready to pull you up ye and to clap for you. Right.
00:23:22
Speaker
And, you know, i think that is so important for all of us. and and And that's something that we need to know. And they say, you need three people. Three. You only need three people in your van.
00:23:33
Speaker
three people that you can call it to have. So that's my homework. If you're listening today, who are those three people for you? Cause that's really important. And I think it changes sometimes with the seasons and that's okay. You may outgrow people, new people come into your life and the three people could be three completely different people in three completely different situations.
00:23:52
Speaker
Like I might have a group that would be my Ragnar group. I might have a group that would be my marital group. I have a spiritual group, like whatever that looks like for you. Who are those three people that at 2am that you would be calling that have a supportive relationship that builds you up? Right.
00:24:09
Speaker
And then asking for, for the help of it. Cause we, we talk about that in some of our episodes too. We, you know, talked about that early on and those of us that have such a hard time asking for help, but like one of the tools really is that you need to be able to say to people, Hey, can you talk?
00:24:27
Speaker
Hey, can you sit with me? Hey, you know, do you mind if I kind of just run something by you? Who are those people in your life? Who are the people that are part of your team?
00:24:38
Speaker
That's important. Yeah. And then getting through your wall and experiencing your breakthrough.
Facing the 'Wall'
00:24:47
Speaker
In the running world, right? We all hit a wall. We say in the half marathon world, that wall is somewhere around mile nine, not mile nine.
00:24:56
Speaker
If you are a much better runner than Krista Jones, you might be like, think it's like an 11 and a half. Krista Jones at mile nine is like, whoa. I want my mom. But like, I'm just a mess usually at mile nine.
00:25:08
Speaker
Like, where are your legs burning, right? Your mind is screaming that you want to quit, but you're pushing yourself through anyways. Where is your wall? And then how do you get to your breakthrough?
00:25:20
Speaker
That is important because in the middle of the hard things, in the middle of anything that challenges us to grow There is a wall that we have to scale and there is a breakthrough that we need to make.
00:25:35
Speaker
And how do we get there to do it? Especially in a situation where you can't go back. Right? Because the wall, i think people feel...
00:25:47
Speaker
Oh, I hit the wall. The wall means like, that's the end. Like I need to go back. The wall's not the end. The wall is the block that you need to get over. You can scale a wall. Like there's, you know, I mean, I can't scale. I mean, I don't know.
00:26:00
Speaker
Gosh, that mud run we did. I was not scaling anything. i was like, this is a lot of ridiculous things this year, haven't we? have done some ridiculous things. I think it was in the last three months. But like all of that is so important because...
00:26:13
Speaker
Here's the thing. The brain is telling us to quit before your body is actually depleted. That's how it is on a run. Your mind quits in anything you do before physically you are ready to quit, right?
00:26:28
Speaker
Your brain is telling you, i can't possibly save this marriage. I can't possibly do this job any longer. I can't possibly lose this weight, right? Your brain is telling you that way before your physical body is ready to give up, I can't possibly get through this death.
00:26:46
Speaker
I can't possibly discipline my kids and be a single mom any longer. Your brain is already tricking you into believing you have failed before your body is ready to give up. Wow.
00:26:58
Speaker
But it's true. It is Think about that in our running world. my'm i mean, right? You know, when you're out there on those long miles and like you're just going up and then you hit this crest and then we had to go back up. We didn't go down. We just went back up right there. There were so many defeating moments for me.
00:27:16
Speaker
And you know, what's interesting is that wall moves every time. It's not always in the same place. I can go out and run six, seven, eight miles and not hit a wall. But on that third leg at mile two, I was done. I was about to pick up the phone and call my husband and say, send help, talk to me. I'm in tears. I'm done. I cannot possibly make it another single step. And that's, I've never hit that wall at two miles. Sure.
00:27:41
Speaker
But it's all the situations that have led up to that moment. I mean, we were in the most imperfect of circumstances. We were, we were underfed, under rested, Sleeping in a van. we were cranky. Waking up way too early. We were cranky pots. We were very cranky. We were cranky. And I started that run saying, this is going to be awful. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
Because you're already thinking that, right? You got this preconceived notion. yeah You know, we're in the middle of gala here at Sparrow's Nest. We do this big farm to table gala and we have had to do a bunch of things and hard things and millions of things just in the last two weeks.
00:28:16
Speaker
We really kind of run this $250,000, $300,000 with like two hundred and fifty three hundred thousand dollars event with like Five of us, like a skeletal crew. And I've been pretty good. And then today, i just, within five minutes of being here, like snapped at pepper jelly because that was my wall today.
00:28:35
Speaker
Two weeks, I've been great. Today, my wall is pepper jelly, which is so silly and dumb. But you know, you're right. Depending on your circumstances and how tired you are in the middle of whatever it is, this hard thing that you need to do, that's where your wall is for that day. And that's okay.
00:28:53
Speaker
Right? That's okay when you want to quit. A lot of times you have to say like, why am i here? Why here? Or if I quit, what happens? Like really not quitting. What, what do I really need to get to? Like, why am I doing this?
00:29:09
Speaker
You know, because our brain is going to go. So there was a point in the run where, you know, the van i think came up on me in one of my last legs and I must've looked ridiculous. I don't know what it looked like from the back. Cause I didn't expect you guys. I did.
00:29:23
Speaker
am a hand in the air ye and I was praying I really was because i was already tired and now I was a mile in and I was like, okay, all right, why am I here? And that's what I did.
00:29:34
Speaker
And I was like, I know why I'm here. I know I got to get it done. That is my tool to get me through something. Whatever your tool is, doesn't have to be my tool, but like write it down. You have to override all these false stop signs because that's what they are.
00:29:49
Speaker
It's your brain going, and you can't do it when we all know you really can do it right? Right. you know And you have to just take a minute or two and give yourself the pity party. But we say it in a lot of episodes. Then get out of it.
00:30:01
Speaker
Yep. Stinking thinking. Get out. Because it doesn't do anybody any good any any good. You know, these emotional walls, trauma, grief, burnout... They all operate the same way. It's the brain trying to protect yourself, but there's no proof that you need that protecting. The brain is just, your cortisol is so crazy. It's like we're in trouble when really it's just a stress indicator.
00:30:27
Speaker
You're not in trouble yet. You need to keep going. You need to plow through. I say that and I'm really passionate about that because I think a lot of times we want to just stop.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah. And it's easy to stop. and We don't give ourselves credit for how amazing we really are, how uniquely you unique you are, how important you are to this world, how you shouldn't stop metaphorically, spiritually, mentally, your physical being.
Reflection and Inspiration
00:30:56
Speaker
There is no reason on this earth that you should not be here doing all the things, even the hard things. And I think sometimes we feel defeated. Yeah. Yeah. But think about how amazing it feels when you make it.
00:31:11
Speaker
That's true. Right. That is kind of where it all comes in. Like once you get to whatever the finish line is, and that's kind of, i think what we talk about is the finish line crossing whatever it is that you had to do off your bucket list. You're exhausted, but what you're, you're proud Right?
00:31:33
Speaker
You feel a sense of accomplishment yeah and you can look back at all you did and say, i did that. Like, I just did all that. It's been so cool to just bask in that, you know, so...
00:31:47
Speaker
Just to sit back and say, 12 women just ran 200-ish miles. Really without training, let's be honest. We are all at the gym and stuff, and we do some runs, but we really didn't realize there really is no sleep and there really is no food.
00:32:05
Speaker
and And how much climbing there was. Right. So, you know, to do things like that and to say I wasn't even prepared for what was thrown in front of me and I still pivoted and I still figured out a way to get through it.
00:32:17
Speaker
That is pretty cool. Coming out of hard seasons, like the research shows, it really does give us, you know, greater strength. It gives us deeper purpose, um usually closer relationships.
00:32:31
Speaker
And it's not despite the pain, it's because of it. It's because of what you endured that you can talk to other people, that you can now preach to other people, that you can motivate other people.
00:32:43
Speaker
and and And really like I try to do that all the time because I'm not in any way bashing myself, but I don't think that people look at me and just say things like, you could do that and it will be easy for you.
00:32:57
Speaker
So I love that. I love that because physically you might not feel that way about me. But if I can say to you, I was able to do this thing and I was able to get through this thing, just like the charity.
00:33:08
Speaker
I mean, my gosh, I had wall after wall after wall. And people were like, yeah, you're probably not meant to do it. You know, you're not that far in the journey, just give up. But to get through it and then to say to people,
00:33:19
Speaker
I remember when that door was closed behind me. I remember when people laughed at me. I remember when I lost friendships to be able to give somebody that experience. Cause you've done it. Like think of what a mentor you could be for somebody else in whatever the hard thing is that's going on in your life.
00:33:35
Speaker
Right? Yeah. That's the thing. Yeah. That's the takeaway today. I like that takeaway. How you feeling about it? What's the t-shirt? What's the t-shirt? What's the t-shirt for the week? I don't know. don't even know.
00:33:46
Speaker
Squink. We're tired. The t-shirt is squink. We were making up words at the end of this Ragnar because we couldn't think of words because we were so tired. So I don't know. We were trying to say squishing and we said squink or something like that. who's in your van?
00:34:01
Speaker
Who's in your van? That is a good shirt. That's an inspirational shirt. Our graphic designer, Chris Lemieux, we're going to have a work on that. Hard things matter, not because we love the pain, but because the struggle actually rewires us.
00:34:16
Speaker
Saying yes to hard things reminds us that we're braver than we thought. Running in the dark proves that the light Always will return. I could cry. Finding your team teaches you that life was never be meant to run solo.
00:34:31
Speaker
Pushing through the wall, that's where your resilience is. Your finish line, it's messy, it's imperfect, but it's glorious. Here's my invitation for you this week. What is your Ragnar?
00:34:43
Speaker
What is the hard thing that you're facing? Maybe it's massive. Maybe it's tiny. Maybe you don't want to do it. Either way, honor it when you hit the finish line, whatever it is. Look up.
00:34:54
Speaker
Don't rush. Enjoy it. Celebrate it and say to yourself, I did this hard thing because the truth is you did. And that's how you grow. Thank you so much for spending time with Chantal and I today. If this resonates with you, share it with somebody that's in your van.
00:35:11
Speaker
We want you to learn more about our beautiful charity at sparrowsnestcharity.org. And until next time, take care of yourself and each other.