THE PROCESS

By co-incident my friend Sue and I are completing our challenges today.  Sue started hers well over a year ago training and fund raising.  She is cycling through Tanzania and Zanzibar in aid of Genesis Research Trust, an organisation that are searching for causes of miscarriages, pre and post natal deaths.

We have been through a 'process' in order to get to where we are.  It is 'The Road Less Travelled' as written about by F Scott Fitzgerald.  The process takes you to places you can not imagine and is very difficult to describe to others.  It is a personal journey of self discovery.  The highs of achievements along the way outweigh the depths of the lows of struggle, slow progress, frustration and doubt.

I can only write about my process - Sue's has been so much longer and so much harder as intense blockages and obstacles have had to be grappled with, faced and overcome.  I have written of my ups and downs, mountains and valleys, but process is only something you recognise at the end of your challenge, or when you look back and see how far you have come, what you have mastered and what you have achieved.

I try to explain 'process' to people by the illustration of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly (see ENDINGS blog) or by reading the story of Yellow (see next blog).

Sue and I will be different because of our self-set challenges.  We will have learnt things about ourselves, about others and about the world we live in that no books or teacher could have taught us.  We will have brought about the very change and experience we were looking for/wanting but didn't quite know how it would work.  We threw caution to the wind, took risks, battled with our own heads and bodies, went against our natural or habitual inclinations and broke the mould of the person we were before our challenges.  Because of the challenge we will never be the same again.  A new person is crossing the finishing line, we may look the same but inside we have changed.

In wanting to hug my friend Sue at her finishing line and say a massive "Well Done" (will have to wait for our next visit to Lincolnshire) I offer myself that joy too.  I have not lost the stone in weight I set out to but 5kg is a good result.  I can feel my trouser and skirt tops are loser, my protruding tummy is softer and I am working on tightening the muscles by doing daily sit ups.  I enjoy shopping for food more, cooking meals from recipes and expanding my range of dinners in particular.  So in all of that I feel pleased myself.  If you don't enter a challenge and work within the process you don't get a result.

Sue & Helen ride for Charity