It wasn’t the city I was running away from
Hello everyone, I am Jess Frost. After a 10-year hiatus, it is time to dust off my running trainers for the Leicester Half Marathon on Sunday 26th October. Eek <palms start to sweat>.
I genuinely thought my running days were over, but after completing the Nacoa Big Walk two years in a row, I felt it was time to mix my fundraising up a little.
Am I a natural runner? HELL NO. Am I nervous? ABSOLUTELY! Will it hurt, oh my word YES! Will it be worth it, 100% Will I devour a huge Sunday roast afterwards? You had better believe it!
Fundraising for Nacoa is VERY close to my heart. I grew up in a chaotic and dysfunctional environment with alcohol dependent parents and the devastating heartbreak of losing family members to suicide.
I can only imagine the sense of relief and support I would have received had Nacoa have been around when I really needed it.
To know that I was not alone in my pain, confusion, panic, and grief, and that I didn’t need to shoulder the experience in silence.
I think back to the little anxious girl sitting at the top of the stairs, wishing I could give her the biggest hug and kiss.
To contribute now in any way possible so that others can receive the support and hope from Nacoa means the absolute world to me.
I hadn’t even heard of the term ‘COA’ until approximately 3 years ago when I discovered Nacoa and the wider ‘family’.
It is safe to say that I shed a thousand tears as I was able to finally validate my own experiences that I had spent decades dismissing. Accepting the huge holistic effects that growing up around addiction and dysfunction caused me.
Running the half marathon in my hometown of Leicester feels incredibly poignant to me. For years I tried to run away from Leicester. I even hated the city at times.
I now realise it wasn’t the city that I was running from and disliked, it was the painful memories and pure heartbreak held there.
It was the darkness I had to face each time I set foot off the train and ambled my way across Victoria Park towards my home of Clarendon Park and Knighton.
It was the unhealed complex trauma of my history clipping at my heels. I was running away from the version of me I had to become to survive.
I am so grateful to the people and spaces over the last 8 years that allowed me to face the darkness. Where I could access the COurAgeous Confidence to stop running away and start leaning in. To find the ‘me’ underneath the trauma and survival, and finally begin to heal and empower myself.
I type these words today as a VERY proud trauma-informed business owner and coach for adult children of alcoholics, whose professional years are now dedicated to helping ACOA’s come home to their unique power within.
Allowing them to reclaim their authentic voice, emotional power, and inner wisdom after subconsciously absorbing the family rules ‘Don’t Talk, Don’t Feel, Don’t Trust.’
Pounding the streets of my hometown on the 26th will be a tiny fraction of the emotional pain that children of alcoholics carry.
I will be running for every person affected by a loved one’s addiction, as well as the inner children inside of me. Those little inner children who would not believe where I am today, doing the soul-led work that we do in the world.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if you are able to sponsor me, you can do so here. It means more than any words I can type right now.
Big love legends, Jess
LET’S DO THIS!
