A Beautiful Work In Progress Quotes

“There is still a beauty about simply doing the difficult thing that I will never be good at, for the pure pleasure of having engaged in the process.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“I realized that I was fortunate. To be able to run freely and unencumbered on difficult trails in Appalachia was a gift. “I am living the dream. I am living the dream!” I screamed to any tree that would listen. Here I was, huffing, puffing, and whining inwardly about something I had chosen to do of my own volition, about something I had the physical ability to complete. I made a silent promise to all my family members who had mobility issues, and to those who had heart disease and diabetes, that I wouldn’t forget this. I was able. I was strong, and this little bit of suffering I could stand—for their sake.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“I learned to accept not finishing a particular event as a mode of self-care and injury prevention.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Running is a cleansing, life-changing, and deeply fulfilling odyssey that continues to bring me to new heights and new lows.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“What we are now can be vastly different from what we want or need to be. But each individual journey is a process—a unique way of being in the world, an exclusively human undertaking that is fraught with back stepping, stagnation, plateauing, and, perhaps most importantly, moving forward on the continuum toward greatness.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Acknowledging and welcoming your self-worth, your own extraordinary power, is incredible. You become unstoppable.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Nobody ever achieved anything epic without doing the requisite work, even if the work itself is humdrum, boring, run-of-the-mill kind of work.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“This body is fierce, beautiful, and unapologetic. It’s meant to move through the world as it wishes: lifting, walking, and running, rolls and all. Love handles, bouncy boobs, curves, tummy, butt, back fat, and all. I honor her by continuing to move along the spectrum of health and wellness, and in turn she honors me by living vibrantly.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“be”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“I despised the book from the first page, but unfortunately I was at a point in my life in which finishing what I started reading was an absolute necessity. I’ve become wiser since then.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Joann Taylor’s thick legs are the legs from which I come. I can only hope to honor the gift of her legs as I run, carrying myself, the memories of those who are gone, and the weight of the next generation for which I am responsible.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Those legs bear the scars of the entire family, the burden of having been born into a poor family, the psychological weight of not having a high school diploma, and the onus of worrying about wayward members of the extended family.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“I love the experience of digging deep, pulling layer after layer off the onion that is me, discovering the most profound parts of myself over and over again.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Lean into the discomfort. To my diversity brain, the phrase means to embrace what is difficult so that you may progress. Welcome what makes you frightened and what makes your heart rate rise. Greet that sense of uncertainty into your life so that you may explore yourself more deeply.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“I love myself unconditionally right now.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Running was my meditation. It allowed me to empty my mind and focus on my own footfalls, my breathing.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“What else was there to do? Keep moving and improving.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“fitness is for all bodies, for all people, and for all hearts.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Honoring the human body by moving through nature as it is meant to do.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Your body is acceptable just the way you are. No matter your age, if you’re in your forties like me, or ten, fourteen, thirty, or even sixty, your body is a beautiful work in progress.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“But I have to run. I know that if I don’t run in the morning, I’ll have only limited opportunity in the afternoon or evening. If I don’t run, I will perseverate about it all day, thinking and talking about it constantly. My son will notice a change in my demeanor: “Mom, did you run (or work out) this morning? Because you’re, like, really cranky.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“This body isn’t meant to stagnate or cease moving. When we stop moving in mind, body, and spirit, we stop learning. When we stop learning, we stop living. Therefore, when we stop moving, we stop living. We stop evolving toward being the humans we are destined to be. This body is fierce, beautiful, and unapologetic. It’s meant to move through the world as it wishes: lifting, walking, and running, rolls and all. Love handles, bouncy boobs, curves, tummy, butt, back fat, and all. I honor her by continuing to move along the spectrum of health and wellness, and in turn she honors me by living vibrantly.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“We embrace the suck so that we can fully embrace what doesn’t suck, to fully receive it.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Unplanned DNFs, as I gather many are, are especially hard to swallow. They remind runners that we are only human, that things don’t always go as meticulously planned, despite physical and mental preparation—”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Running is a cleansing, life-changing, and deeply fulfilling odyssey that continues to bring me to new heights and new lows. During this journey, I approach the human being that I am meant to be.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“Instead of being ashamed of doing what you do or being what you are, I ask two important questions: Why not celebrate it? Why not be proud of the fact that the body you are in can do great things?”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“No matter your age, if you’re in your forties like me, or ten, fourteen, thirty, or even sixty, your body is a beautiful work in progress.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“My message for anyone who is in middle school or who knows someone in middle school (please share this with them) is simple: Your body, whatever its size, whatever its hair color and hairstyle, however its height, whatever its age, is acceptable. Your body is acceptable just the way you are.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“My real friends were books and adults. Books didn’t care that I could hold an interesting conversation with adults. They also didn’t care that I wasn’t quick-witted. They did care that I knew the entire anatomy of the pancreas and how to pronounce “islets of Langerhans,” or that I could quickly find logarithms at the back of my math book (calculators do that now). Books thought I was cool for having read the entirety of the V. C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic series in fifth grade and for having already determined that I was going to be a gastroenterologist. Hence, I hung out with them”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress

“In the midst of doing what I loved to do and being what I thought I wanted to be—busy, outwardly calm and collected, doing everything and being everything to everyone—I had forgotten one important person: me.”
― Mirna Valerio, A Beautiful Work In Progress