It's been a few good days. I'm starting to feel really motivated again about my journey. However, this re-motivation comes after some despair and lack of enthusiasm...as you know! It seems I am not the only one feeling this way. I spoke about Kelly and her recent struggles in my last blog.
Enter new victim...my friend, Heather. For those of you who don't remember, Heather is the one who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro last year and is organizing the Inca Trail for May 2010. She kicked butt in preparation for climbing Kili, losing alot of weight and working out like crazy! She was quite proud of her achievement and there were several of us who were equally proud of that.
I met Heather for lunch yesterday and, it seems she's suffering from the same downward spiral of self-loathing that Kelly and I are facing. I told her about my conversation with Kelly and how we each set one-week "refocus" goals. This seemed to work for Heather, who self-diagnosed that she needed to increase her level of activity to get her mojo back. So, here's her goal:
- Heather is committed to walking one way to work each day for one week; that is she will walk 5 days/week at least one way to work.
This is a great goal for Heather because, when she was prepping for Kili, she walked both ways. So, one way is totally doable and enough to getting her feeling she's accomplishing something. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say.."Go Heather, Go!!!"
My conversations with Kelly & Heather got me thinking about how many of us would rather focus on the things we have still to achieve vs. what we've already accomplished. Guilty as charged, by the way. I was verbally "chastised" by Evil One at my workout Thursday as he kept pointing out how far I'd come in my strength training and how much weight I'd lost. He was clearly getting frustrated with my lack of enthusiasm. My "brick wall moment", however, came at the end of my workout. Here's what happened...
Usually I stretch my back by holding myself on bars, forcing me to carry my entire weight while hanging from said bars. I'm sure there's a more technical term for the stretch, but you'll have to visualize me with my feet up, hanging like a monkey from two bars. This contraption from which I hang, has two sets of bars - thinner bars with rubber grips and thick bars with no grips. Mostly the guys use these bars to do lift themselves, often with a belt around their waist that enables a big 'ole weight to dangle between their legs while doing their chin ups or pull ups or whatever. I'm sure there's something Freudian about that...but I digress. Me? I use the bars to just hang out and stretch - nothing between my legs, for the record. Now, I'd done the stretch before using the thinner, rubber bars, but have never been able to do it on the thicker bars. It's challenging because I can barely get my hands around the thick bars, and without the rubber they're very slippery, especially if your palms are sweaty...and mine are AWAYS sweaty! Also, truth be told, I'm scared shitless of falling onto Werner in an embarass-myself-by-flattening-him-to-the-ground-squishing-the-breath-out-of-him way, instead of a falling into-his-open-arms-where-he-giggless-and-gently-places-me-on-the-ground way. So, although I'm not carrying a dangling weight between my legs, I AM carrying alot of emotional baggage as I approach the adventure of hanging from the thick bars. Can you see why success has eluded me so far?!?
Well, Thursday, after listen to Evil One remind me of how far I'd come, I decided to check my emotional baggage at the door and just hang myself from the thick bars...just friggin' do it, know what I mean?!? I did have a moment of temptation when Werner said "Have you tried the thick bars yet?"...do I take advantage of this momentary lapse in his memory or try out my newfound courage?!? Well, I went for it and dang it if I didn't hang from those thick bars...TWICE! The "brick wall moment" came when I realized the only thing preventing me from doing this, besides my overactive, melodramatic imagination, was my own fears. I know, it's kind of basic, but at the end of the day, isn't that really the barriers to any of our successes?!?
BTW, I did not fall on Werner squishing the breath out of him. On the contrary, I shocked the hell out of him when I, without hesitation, grabbed those big ass bars and dangled! My reward? I got a "Very good, Yvonne! I'm so proud of you" from The Evil One... icing on the cake, baby!
Well, it's time for me to sign off. This is my birthday weekend, so I will be spending tonight in the company of good friends celebrating the glorious weather...and me!
Speaking of "celebrations", shout out to Joanne who has hit the 50 lbs mark...right on! She was simply GLOWING with pride when she was telling me of her success. Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!
Cheers, poppits!
(a)yt xox
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