With all my first time clients I am ask them the same thing. Why are you here? I am not talking about physical goals. Of course we all want to lose a few pounds or gain strength and muscles. We want to look more defined or feel more in shape. That's great but that is not enough to ensure you will stick with it. Eventually you may lose that weight or meet those goals so what will keep you in it? It's all mental of course.
For me it started over 16 years ago. I was 23 and my best friend died in a car accident. She wasn't just my best friend but she had been my roommate for 3 years in college. We had worked at all the same restaurants together, mostly on the same schedule. We had gone to school together. Our bond became even more unbreakable as we watched the WTC crumble before our eyes from our alphabet city studio roof top. We shared that moment in history and all the horror that went with it together. It was also my 19th birthday. 4 years later she died on Easter.
I remember when I first heard those words The ringing in my ears. the feeling that rushed through me. Everything in me changed in that moment.
For the next few months I was existing. I was in a deep depression that I didn't want to shake because somehow that meant that I wasn't sad anymore. I didn't want to laugh or have fun or spend any time not thinking about her because it would be a betrayal. I didn't want to get up. Everyday when I opened my eyes, all I could think was, I have to get through another day. I did not want to live. This is very different from wanting to die. I never wanted to die or harm myself in any way. I just didn't want to live because I didn't want to live in a world without my friend.
No one really knew what to do with me and no one I knew had ever really lost someone at a young age so I felt like no one could possibly understand. My mom had lost her father about 10 years prior and someone had suggested she join a gym to help with her depression. She did and it did but it was the last thing I wanted to hear. What depressed person who basically just wants to sleep and drink all day wants to be told to go for a run? No one. And yet...this would be what saved me. 4.5 months after she died I asked myself what I was doing. Do I want to die? No. I don't. Then I need to start living again. I cannot drink the pain away forever and I cannot live like this anymore. So I did it. I joined a gym and I started running. Not to sound all Forest Gump about it or anything.
That is how it started. Running. then there was pilates, weights, a trainer, boxing, spinning, etc etc. It became something I did 7 days a week. I would wake up and go and then I would start to feel less dead inside. It's been 16 years and almost one month since I joined that gym and I have never looked back. I have changed gyms, changed the type or work outs I did. I moved, I fell in love, I fell out of love, I quit jobs, started new ones, got laid off, got married, got separated, got a dog, held her when she died, lost money, lost my home, lost friends to suicide. There was so much I could not control over the years, so much taken and changed but the one thing I could control was that first hour or two of my day when no matter what, I would work out and know that this too shall pass.
Exercise gives you endorphins. Everybody knows that. Those endorphins can save you. They can get you through the worst and the best. It sounds over the top and crazy but joining that gym saved me. It gave me strength and it gave me something I had control over when the world around me crumbled. When life makes me feel weak, I pick up those 25lbs and remember just how strong I really am. Ultimately we all need to feel strong inside and out.
I work out everyday to feel in control of my life. To remind myself I am strong even when I feel weak. I have fluctuated between 115lbs and 147lbs. I never stopped working out. I got older and I have struggled with medications and over indulging in food and booze and known that working out wasn't going to be the solution to that most of the time but it was the solution to keeping me strong throughout all the moments of my life. So ask yourself, what is your reason? How do you want to feel about you? When you want to the least is when you need it the most. So do something today that makes you feel strong. If you feel out of shape and struggle to get through it, remind yourself that you did get through it and next time you will struggle less. Each time you will get stronger inside and out.
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