All in a Day's Words

Tag: fitness

The Quest for Greatness

My quest for greatness collapsed into twelve-week increments. Eating enough calories for satiation and preserving muscle, balancing sugar levels, while exercising muscles vigorously, was my prototype for change. To eliminate the weight, reveal the underlying muscle, and heal the emotional turmoil, were pieces of a puzzle left incomplete. The journey to find the holy grail of weight loss, weight maintenance, and fitness took work, and required a paradigm shift in the way I view food, exercise, and well being. Building this foundation began long ago in what seemed a galaxy far, far away. Tools scattered, solutions abundant, and follow-through short lived, searching for the magic pill, the pot of gold, and the silver bullet proved especially challenging. Yet the search ended when I stopped searching. The truth lay dormant in my heart and soul, awakened by readiness, desire, and effort.

Hard work is not something you can bypass; emotional healing cannot be hidden, squashed, or swallowed. Gathering the broken pieces of our bodies and hearts is a prerequisite for change. One without the other limits success, and typically resumes to initial equilibrium, unhealed, strength diminished, and pounds returned. Doing the work, focusing on the day-to-day, and utilizing community support in the process, conjure weight loss and empowering transformation. Like an everlasting Gobstopper®, the colors might keep changing, but eventually if you remain committed, you will reach the core, the great sweetness of arrival. There are no shortcuts to the center, no biting through to shortchange the journey. Lessons along the avenue of change are vital for achievement, maintenance, and increased strength. Eating for fuel, weight bearing exercise, and psychological healing, are works in progress. Without the journey, the end result is short lived.

Finding a man behind a curtain with all the answers, only to realize they were with you all along is an age old story. Yet seek the truth and you shall find the will, ability, and motivation, to carry yourself over the rainbow and back home again. Within our hearts and bodies lives the holy grail we sought to find. There stands our strength, our noble steed, awaiting an awakening into wholeness of being. Through the journey, winding roads, and obstacles there to teach resilience, lessons of forgiveness, and great understanding, we reach a pinnacle unlike anything experienced prior. These lessons build courage, knowledge, and fortitude for the lifelong journey that continues long after each of my twelve week destinations. They fill in the puzzle, putting pieces in place where gaps had stood, resulting in wisdom, healing, and courage for a lifestyle of maintained sustenance, strength, and wholeness of well being. This quest for greatness continues over a lifetime, no ending, no beginning, but a journey to the holy grail within.

When the Shift Hits the Fan

External transformation causes an internal stirring of emotions. On the periphery we alter our bodies and environment: reduce inflammation, cleanse the closets, release toxic friends, clear the clutter, and eliminate consumption of artificial ingredients. Inevitably an emotional shift occurs when we lose significant weight. Clean food choices, exercise, and community support change our energy, physically and psychologically. Deadened, dormant pieces of ourselves arise from their slumber and shift our awareness. Deep-seated, internal, heartfelt secrets emerge from the soul, awaken for healing, retrieval, and release. Speaking our truth, illuminating the untold stories and guarded spaces of ourselves, ultimately sets us free to live an enlightened existence of self-love, peace, and happiness.

When we physically change, the sacredness of secrets hidden within awaken our senses. Releasing imprisoned emotions requires courage to bare the bones of our hurt, alleviate our pain from the past, and shed the stale crusts of our core, ignored, buried, and shut out from the light. These shadows deter life’s full potential, limit possibilities, and diminish self-worth. Shielding ourselves from truth, we fear its existence and the vulnerability that lurks with possible exposure. Yet that vulnerability is the exact necessity for strength and healing. The hidden pieces of ourselves must find light, awareness, and visibility in order to heal, mend, and alleviate buried pain. Without this nakedness of being, we lay injured, in disrepair, and immobile. Love, worthiness, and healing are the precepts for change, strength, and connection.

Hardwired for connection, vulnerability, truth, and empathy are its foothold. To have a sense of belonging, we must feel worthy, illuminate our authentic selves through truth, and access the deepest depths of our hearts. Mutual exposure with others forms human bonds where empathy lives. Accessing “me also” from another strengthens vulnerability, an empowered feeling and weaving of connection. Even if our experiences are different, we walk in the other’s shoes in our mind’s eye to share the sacred space. Taking the risk to reveal our inner selves to entrusted friends, therapists, or relatives, has rewards. Exposure to those who do not have our backs, may warrant some falls in the process. While failed connection may occur, entrusted confidantes holding your story and pain with safety, empathy, and love is worth the risk.

As the body transforms into a stronger, thinner, and exposed version of our old selves, so, too, will our insides shift. A supportive network of people is necessary to carry our truth, healing, and pain. Aloneness, independence, and sole survival were never meant for humankind. Delving into our past reveals our true selves, alleviates the wounds, and stirs inner change. Although an internal process, community rises up in support. When the shift hits the fan, life happens. It spins, sputters, and spits out the dust of life experiences, awaiting cleanup. Should we allow the dust to settle upon the sills of our lives, it remains untouched until stirred by the winds of change. Body transformation is the ultimate in unsettling our dust. Worth exploration, worth risk, and worth pain to heal the inner wounds, we enable true worth of our existence to rise from the ashes with the support of community. We are worthy of this greatness!

Thought I Was Cured

It is simple, I thought I was cured.” Like all the other get-fit and weight loss programs, at the final weigh-in,” I am cured,” or so I believe. Yet hauntingly it is untrue again. No cure for an addiction, only a commitment to sobriety continues the journey past the finale of my twelve-week challenge.

Knowing which triggers activate failure is beneficial, as to thwart the nasty beast from our backs as it is attacking. Through the journey, which emotions do I attempt to numb? What aspect of self-worth am I not feeling? Can I re-frame the metaphors surrounding me to understand more? What ingredient crept into my system that physically affects my decision making process? What tools honed under my belt exist ready for active-duty in my arsenal?

To embrace imperfection, acknowledge and mend the kinks in armor, and persevere in the face of adversity, are desirable results. Transitioning from one program into the next begins. Change requires strengthened resilience, and empowers with acceptance rather than resistance. Lean into the tension and release the emotions in order to excel with clarity and purpose. To reframe the ending as a new beginning, energizes and enables setting new goals while receptive to feeling the fear and courageously moving forward.

This is still my time; nothing stands in my way when I maintain self-worth, self-respect, and self-love to empower self-care. Tools of journaling, community support for recipes and emotional upheaval, and books, research, and experts guiding with nutritional information are critical. Teaching others strengthens my resolve and reinforces learning. Gratitude naturally occurs from an inner circle of support.

Sugar infiltrating my body is temporary and will release its hold within 72 hours when its energy depletes and sugar blood levels balance again. Its withdrawal will contain a short-lived hold that tempts, weakens, and tricks me into negative thoughts, low energy, and resistance from what is healthy. Sugar’s trickery cannot last on its own; it needs a weakened, unmotivated mind to shovel additional sweet edibles into the station, encouraging addictive survivability.

Though my vulnerability affected my last few days, I continue to strive towards my goals, reminded of my tools and social support, inner strength, and resilience. I return protein-filled and happy. Watching out for the craving, the suppressed emotions, the physical and mental addiction to the big C’s as cookies, cake and candy, and know they are simply a mask of trickery lurking, attempting to lure me back to addiction. I am worthy of sobriety. Thought I was cured. I know better, and now I will do better.

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