Working Through Week 4

I'm a little late on my midweek blog, but not for lack of trying.  See, I sat with the blog window open for about 45 minutes last night, and just couldn't decide what to write about.  This has definitely been a better week for me.  I've been challenging myself more, feeling sore again, and feeling some great success.  I've come to regard soreness as a badge of honor, my little pat on the back saying "yep! You worked hard on that one."  Things like having jello legs and feeling a bit shaky with exhaustion are strangely satisfying.  I am working hard, and it's starting to show.

This week, I've focused on pushing my limits.  Last week wasn't as intense as I could have made it, and I needed to step up my game this week.  Results change when you start internal arguments between the "oh, I can't do that" and the "oh, you're going to do that, and you're going to do it hard" parts of your brain.  I struggle greatly with the "I can't do that" part of my brain when it comes to things outside my comfort zone.  I realized in my leg workout on Tuesday that even the body doesn't like to be moved outside it's comfort zone.  Like I said, I've been pushing myself this week, and my body isn't used to not getting it's way.  It's been spoiled for far too long by sitting, laziness and not-so-great food choices.  Just like a bratty child, it's taken a lot of retraining to overcome some of the perceived obstacles-soreness, for example.  Weakness for another.  In pushing myself, that includes pushing my thinking into a different pattern as well, and finding what works to silence the "I can't" of the moment.  Some times, it's focusing on a spot on the floor and half-listening to the count.  Some times it's finding a rhythm and sticking with it for the duration of what we're doing.  Some times, it's gritting my teeth and telling myself "NO!  I am going to finish this!"

After my workout tonight, where I very proudly used harder resistance bands for a good portion of my exercises, I was reflecting on this week, when the song "You are Loved" by Josh Groban came on the radio.  As I listened, the line "Don't give up. It's just the weight of the world," played for the second time, and it really hit me what I have done for myself.  How many times have I stood up under the weight of the world, pushed beyond what I thought for sure was the worst of the worst, and realized, this isn't so bad?  How many times have I done what was hard, what was right, what was necessary?  How many of those times were so much worse than jumping up a color band or punching the bag as hard as I possibly could?  So many times I've been down, broken, exhausted, didn't know how I was going to pull myself through another day of hell.  But I did it.

I had a discussion with a good friend about times that make you want to live rather than just exist.  Something awakens the passion within you that for whatever reason has dwindled.  Thinking about these moments, they are always painful, facing unhappiness, reevaluating your circumstances, contemplating how you've defined yourself, wondering if you're ever going to be happy again.  Even in the uncertainty and the pain, there's a glimmer of that passion rekindling itself.  It's these moments that define who you are, define what kind of life you're going to lead.  It's the moments that you think you can't possibly take one more step, and yet your feet take 3 more.  You think you can't take one more bout of bad news, get that phone call, and collapse in laughter because what else can you do?  As my bands coach says, "it's the reps that hurt that matter most.  Pushing through the pain is how you get strong."