Today, I went for a run.

For the first time in three weeks, I went for a legitimate run. In the great outdoors and everything. Downhills and everything.

My bone felt like it was falling off my leg after every downhill. Much of it was uncomfortable.

On one side of the coin, I could walk away from this run feeling hopeless, and like I’ll never be ready for my next race.

But if I flip the coin, it was the best running attempt I’ve had in three weeks. While much of it was uncomfortable, I had clear indications that my body was healing up nicely – moving more freely than I have in weeks.

There’s always two sides to the same coin. There’s always two ways of looking at any situation. Any equation. Often times, even more than two.

This is a useful rule for life. One that I need to apply more. Every time I’ve been faced with a difficult situation, I don’t think I’ve tried hard enough to look at it from the bright side. To look at it from the other side of the coin.

It takes much in the way of intentionality. It often takes a complete reframe from how you actually feel.

But if you can move past the instinctual, emotional response to any situation, you can often reframe your emotions into a positive direction from where you first started.

In three months, you won’t be thinking about the pain in the same way. So why not start now?

“Without the pain, how would you know what things to change, what stays the same and which parts of you still have to grow.”

– Ingrid Andress, Pain

This doesn’t mean that you should continue running past the point of pain (I paid attention to my body signals throughout). But that the pain might not be as bad as it seems. The circumstances around the pain might not be as bad as they seem. And one day, you might be grateful from having gone through that pain.

What I’m often being reminded of lately is that things could be way worse. Whenever any bad experience happens, at least I can be thankful that I’ve had good experiences along the way leading up to the bad.

The sky isn’t falling. That’s just the rain. So next time you pick up that coin in the rain, look at it from both sides.