The Pathway

To start my year, I'm playing with a website called Journal52. Each week the site gives you a prompt that may help you to start writing. It seemed like a good idea as I've been spotty at best writing my blog.

This week the prompt was the pathway... It strikes a cord being that it's the beginning of a new year and my life for the last decade has been a circuitous path to say the very least. Lately, my path is more of a question. Who am I when there's no one telling me who I should be? What do I want for myself and how do I get that for the life that I want to live.

Standing in the shower this morning I started asking that question. It seems like too much time reading status updates or perusing Instagram makes me feel this weird anxiety about where I am in my life. Visiting with my dad seems to trigger these sudden feelings that I haven't done enough, achieved enough, lived enough, saved enough to be exceptional.  While I do agree that I'm not living the life that I had in mind when I set out I can't say that it's at all an unsatisfactory life. I've wasted a lot of time not enjoying the good things that are around me in this frantic, uncomfortable push to be more. What would happen if I stepped back and tried to enjoy the journey? Not just the process toward the next degree or next career, but the WHOLE picture, the little daily joys that go along with simply allowing myself to LIVE THIS life I'm in.  It wouldn't mean that I'd have to stop the pursuit of greatness that seems to be part of my blood and bones.  It would make me more pleasant to be around, though. It would give me the freedom to feel things and laugh easier.

One thing I can say for certain, is that I know there is room in my life for more joy. I know that my path forward absolutely must include less "should do's" and infinitely more "why nots!". Fear is crushing. Fear is like a special forces operator. It sneaks its way into my life and strangles my ability to just take risks. This path forward has to be more vigilant. This is the year that I want to learn to breathe again. I want to learn to love with my whole heart.  It's the year that I want MY passions to drive me, not my responsibility.  Ultimately, my path leads West and without learning to live free I fear that that path will slowly grow over.

                               

HAZMAT Tech reality...

Ebola.

It's everywhere right now, and for the first time since I joined the HAZMAT team I'm actually thinking about what I might be asked to do. When the first victims were brought back to the CDC in Atlanta for treatment a Pandora's box was cracked open.  Since then there have been cases in Dallas, Spain, and North Carolina.  Certain strains of this virus have a 70% fatality rate.

I know that when I signed on for this that I wanted to make a difference.  I wanted to help people in their worst moments of fear and illness. With the Ebola outbreak I may actually get that chance and I wish that I could say I was feeling gung-ho.  What I'm feeling is scared. I feel undereducated. Though I realize that treating someone with the virus would give me the chance to help someone when they are the MOST afraid I worry about what that could mean for my own well being.

There is so much living that I want to do. There are places I haven't been, things I haven't done, and things that I haven't said.  Wearing the appropriate protective gear is one thing, but it's in the removal that health care workers are getting sick.  I know that my training has taught me how to remove that gear. That should give me comfort... If God wants me I should be willing to go, but frankly, if I said I were then I'd be lying.

Still, I'm not writing this to say that I'm not willing to go.  I just need some place to express my fears. IF, and that's a really big IF, we get that call to go help someone with the Virus then I will. I'll volunteer to go in first, suit up and assess which ever patient needs my help. In the meantime, I'll be washing my hands, practicing my doffing procedures, memorizing the bleach solution mix method and hugging my husband extra hard before I leave for my station.

Trust the Process

As anyone who knows me is aware balance is NOT a skill that I have much of.  I have always  been an all or nothing kind of person.  In every arena, I give 110%.  Whether I'm pursuing a new hobby, training or having a good time there is very rarely middle ground.

With most things, this tendency has not had a negative impact on my life.  Quite often it's been the very reason I've succeeded.  My intensity made me a good student.  It has made me drive to always be better.  It kept me focused in the practice room in college when all the other college kids were drinking their lives away.  My drive to be perfect gives me an edge when it comes to completing tasks and reaching goals that I have set for myself.

On the other hand, my pursuit of perfection has fed a lifetime of neurosis, and the need to always work harder even when my body, spirit and mind are clearly NOT in the place to do so.  This neurosis has fueled my curiosity and my interest in sports nutrition.  I need to know how to fuel the demands that I place on my body, or at least, that's what I try to convince myself as I chew through research about macros.  More often than not my obsession is fueled by the voice in my head that tells me I'm not presenting the body that I think that I should to my clients and myself.  I don't "look the part", and I'm reading everything I can get my hands on so that I can restrict the diet that is supposed to fuel my ridiculous training schedule.

Happy Place Weight...But.. could be leaner...

I say all of this to shed light on the other reason that I started this blog.  I want my clients and anyone who stumbles upon this blog to see that trainers don't always trust the process that we ask you to.  This "whole 30" experiment was a test on me to find out if I could.  As it happens, I did, almost to a fault.  I'm proud of that fact, but I realize that my all or nothing attitude with it came at a cost to my training.  It crippled my running, and my recovery.  My cardio health faltered and my lifts dropped.  Additionally, my body comp has begun to change in ways that I'm not excited about.  BUT, I gave it the 30 days.  I trusted a process, even if it wasnt' the one I should've.  Going forward, I'll be continuing to stumble through the process of gaining balance between my training and my diet, my trainer persona and the human who loves to entertain, and my spirit and my lizard brain.   I'll be trying to feed my body what it needs 90% of the time, and what my mind wants 10%, so I can recomp properly.  I'll be trying to train, so that I am as fit, strong and lean as I NEED to be for me, without over doing it and wearing myself down.

Thank you to anyone who reads this blog, and has a comment or two.  If it strikes a cord, I'm glad, but most of all I'm thankful I am still trying, at least, to trust the process.