CranioSacral Therapy- the tools that helped decrease Self-Doubt & build Resilience through the London Marathon

“You’re in.”

The words I had been waiting 10 years to hear. But when the email arrived, alongside the

excitement was an equal sense of doubt and dread. I have been a very sporadic runner, with nothing consistent since my last marathon eight years ago. Now eight years older, slightly creakier, and marginally wiser about the demands and struggles of not only race day, but all of the training leading up to it.

As a Craniosacral Therapist and Counsellor, I am used to supporting other people through anxiety, self-doubt, pressure, and uncertainty. Training for and completing a marathon required me to confront many of those same experiences personally rather than professionally.

So what did I learn about myself and how I manage stressful and anxiety-inducing situations?

Comparison is a killer

Having done a marathon before, there was a self-imposed pressure to match or beat my previous time. Everyone’s first question is, “What time are you aiming for?” so you already feel like you need to meet other people’s expectations, and comparing myself to others on social media added to that pressure.

Running is one of the most unpredictable things I have done. It throws you into a constant state of turmoil, from extreme highs to lows filled with self-doubt, niggles, fatigue, and mental exhaustion. There are so many variables. Sometimes it feels like you’ve just done the hardest 5k of your life, followed a few days later by the most joyful 20 miles.

In a clinical setting, we’re always meeting people where they’re at. We let go of judgement,

pressure, expectations, and ego, and just see what happens in the present moment. I had to learn to approach running in the same way. What do I actually have the energy and capacity for during this run? The watch may be shouting “go faster”, but what is my body realistically able to manage?

It became a lesson in managing disappointment, expectations, and self-judgement.

Stress is speed

During my training I was also moving house, while dealing with general life stress, and I started to think about stress as speed. Stress is a racing heartbeat, quicker breathing, hypervigilance, overactivity. You hold tension, you become flooded with thoughts. We all know the feeling.

Stress speeds everything up. Thoughts arrive quicker than we can process them. We begin

anticipating conversations before they happen, rehearsing worst-case scenarios, scanning for

problems before they even exist. The body joins in too. Jaw clenched, shoulders raised, shallow breathing, restless sleep. Even when we are sitting still, internally we are moving fast.

Reflecting back, it’s interesting how familiar that state had become. I realised I often only noticed stress once it became overwhelming, because a certain level of internal rushing had started to feel normal. The body adapts and normalises repeated patterns. Hypervigilance can begin to feel productive. Anxiety can disguise itself as motivation. Constant mental movement creates the illusion that we are staying in control.

Running interrupted that pattern, but not in the way I expected. I thought it would simply exhaust me further. Instead, it changed the speed within my body. My breathing deepened, my heartbeat found a different rhythm, and my attention shifted towards physical sensation rather than looping thoughts. I became flooded with completely different information: the impact of my feet against the pavement, changing temperatures, tight calves, sweat, fatigue, thirst, the sound of my breathing. My awareness narrowed into the immediacy of the run.

For an hour or two, the stress outside of me became less dominant because my body was occupied elsewhere. The source of the stress had not disappeared, but my relationship to it had changed. I was no longer trapped entirely in anticipation. I was back in the present moment.

There was also something important about the stress of running being chosen. Training was

difficult, uncomfortable, and at times physically overwhelming, but it was voluntary. I had entered into it willingly. That choice created a sense of agency which felt very different from the helplessness that often accompanies anxiety.

The sensations in my body, elevated heart rate, sweat, tension, exhaustion, resembled stress, but my mind interpreted them differently because they existed within a context of safety and purpose. It made me wonder how often we confuse bodily sensations with danger itself. A racing heart can mean panic, but it can also mean excitement, effort, anticipation, or joy. The body produces similar physiological responses for very different experiences. Sometimes what changes is not the sensation itself, but the story we attach to it.

Similarly, slower activities such as yoga, walking, knitting, or socialising can also alter our internal speed. They interrupt familiar stress patterns and remind the nervous system that it does not always need to exist in a constant state of urgency.

Thoughts, feelings, and perceived reality

Thoughts become feelings, and those feelings can feel so real, as if they are actually happening.

Leading up to the marathon I spent time watching videos on YouTube. What-to-expect videos, tips and advice, people celebrating completing the run. I would watch them and feel myself slipping into panic.

I could feel physiological sensations that I associate with fear, dread, excitement, and self-doubt. My heartbeat would start racing, my mouth would go dry, my breathing became shorter, and my shoulders tensed. Sometimes it would happen at expected moments, and it would also arrive in random waves. I had to stop what I was doing, notice the sensations, and respond to them.

“This isn’t actually happening right now. This isn’t your experience right now. Breathe. You are safe.”

I can imagine many people live with this kind of unconscious and embodied response constantly running in the background, left over from past experiences, while believing it is happening in their present reality. When people find it hard to cope, when people overreact or under react, often there is something deeper happening underneath the surface.

Marathon day

On marathon day I was probably the calmest I had been throughout the whole process.

I completed the run in 5:10, which was slightly slower than I had hoped. I have to be honest, there was still some disappointment there again: comparison, expectations, judgement. But I did everything I possibly could to prepare for the run.

I am incredibly proud of my effort because I genuinely tried my absolute best. You helped me raise an incredible amount for Wisteria Cat Rescue. I am a Guinness World Record holder for being a participant in the largest number of finishers in a marathon, and I got a fancy medal.

As a Craniosacral Therapist and Counsellor, I often sit with people in moments that feel overwhelming, uncertain, or out of control. This marathon reminded me that it doesn’t always take a huge, obvious challenge to bring us to those edges. Life has a way of doing that on its own, through stress, change, pressure, loss, expectation, or simply the everyday demands of being human.

I must highlight the importance of slowing things down enough to notice what is actually happening, rather than what we think is happening. We don’t always need to override those experiences or push through them alone. Sometimes we just need support in finding a different relationship to them.

And that is often the work, whether in running or in life, learning how to meet ourselves in the middle of it all, and finding a way through that feels more safe, steady, more connected, and a bit less alone.

By Kiran Chudamasa (CranioSacral Therapist, Counsellor & Massage Therapist at Southcote).

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