Relaxing Into Instability

“You don’t find your ground by looking for stability. You find your ground by relaxing into instability.” - Cory Muscara

I started this blog as a way to track my journey into bodybuilding. What I didn’t realize is that documenting my journey would turn into so much more than just tracking my progress and stats. Something happens when you make a conscious decision to be more mindful and attentive to your life and your goals. Something happens when you actively work towards moving away from dissociative and numbing behaviors and CHOOSE to be present in the here and now.

At some point during my previous marriage when it started falling apart and after many exposures to the harsh realities of my job, I began actively numbing my pain. There are several ways that I did this. Some of them involved destructive behaviors like drinking and eating way too much pasta after work while others of them were more subtle. I learned how to live my life in silos and how to compartmentalize the different parts of my being. I learned how to be one person in one situation and a totally different person in another. I slowly fractured myself into tiny pieces. I was literally living on autopilot. I knew that it was happening. But it was as though I was an outside observer watching a different person live my life. My spirit often dissociated from my body and even from my mind. It’s hard to conceptualize this but that’s the best way I can describe it. I didn’t know how to reconcile all the parts of me into one and still be able to handle everything that was happening within my space. And the impact went well beyond just me. My children didn’t understand it, but they definitely felt it.

Fast forward to today. I have new goals. Hard goals. They go beyond just the physical stuff like lifting heavy shit and eating on a specified plan. My goals incorporate different things that will hopefully teach me to be me and only me and the same transparent genuine version of myself all the time. I have listed many of my goals in my previous blog entry for you all to see. And I have additional ones that are more around relationships and mindset that also are in alignment with my words for 2023 - Light and Fly.

Part of my fears around going down this path is that bodybuilding is an extremely regimented sport. It requires an intense amount of dedication to both exercise and nutrition. I was concerned if I had a ton of rigidity around food and exercise that it would slowly turn into another form of numbing or compulsive behavior leading me to fracture again just as I’ve been rebuilding my new life with adult children out of the home, a new husband (since 2020), and a new home (since Summer 2021). And that is the last thing I want to happen.

It isn’t the rigidity alone that’s the problem. It’s the possibility of losing oneself in the process and negatively impact those around us. Building new habits - whether they be good ones or bad enough - essentially creates a new identity. As I mentioned last week, the brain is indeed neuroplastic and has the ability to rewire. Therefore, we need to be mindful of what habits we choose to engage in. Because the more we engage in them, the more our brain is rewired to fall into these new habit patterns.

This new place of open, honest, and unabashed transparency is scary. And I’m not talking about my transparency with all of you. I’ve pretty much been an open book my whole life. Rather, I’m talking about transparency and honesty with myself. It’s easy to look outward and blame others when things aren’t going well. It sometimes feels impossible to look inside ourselves and see a gap. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I’m married to someone who is willing to be a mirror for me. I love him for being my mirror despite the fact that in the moments when he is reflecting, I will be anything but loving.

This past week has shown me that if I’m to be truly free, I need to learn how to feel everything without attempting to numb it up, dissociate, or hide away. And holy hell did I ever cry this week! I beat myself up so much just for being me. For feeling incredibly intense emotions both positive and negative. For thinking so deeply. For wondering if I can or even want to do this. Or if I would rather just have a couple of drinks, a burger and some chocolate when life got hard and just be done with it. Throw in the towel. Give up. Then I beat myself up for beating myself up. I cried hard. I cried often. I cried ugly.

And…then I reflected. I didn’t cry and want to give up because I was scared of the hard work involved with this bodybuilding goal. Rather, it was because by working towards this and my other goals in a mindful manner, I’m literally forced to feel. I’m forced to be present. Present with my emotions and with how my body physically feels as it does hard stuff. I have to face the turmoil and demons that exist inside of me. I have to work to communicate effectively and to be present in my relationships. It would be so much easier to be like Anakin Skywalker and push away pain and replace it with avoidance and anger. Anger is a much easier emotion to tolerate. It’s powerful. It’s dominating. It fuels action. But we all know how that one turned out...

Instead I want to embrace the concept of quiet determination. To be reflective and mindful and to consider all parts of my life and not just one slice of it.

So I meditated and decided that I want to meditate more. And not as yet another item on my never ending to do list but rather as a way to stop and take pause FROM my never ending to do list. I don’t plan on tracking my meditation. Not right now anyway. I don’t want this to be something I judge myself on or even monitor. I just simply want to add it in slowly and steadily to move more towards my value words of the year - light and fly. 

I already have so many things that I track and monitor. My food. My water. My weight and body stats. My weightlifting. My cardio. My horseback riding. My habit for the month. My expenditures. My debt. My savings. And…finally…my reading. If you look at that all in one paragraph as it is, it looks exhausting quite frankly. 

Just know that ALL of this tracking and targeting these goals have been progressing over a long long period of time and some of them are even just ingrained habits now. Yay! If you have goals like this for the year and you have any steps backwards, know that this is NORMAL! And the way that you move closer to your goals isn’t always a linear progression. It’s one step forward and two steps back. I did not start here. I started with one and then added on bit by bit by bit. It’s about crying or screaming when life or relationships or goals are hard. And then wiping the tears and beginning again. It’s about learning how to build resilience. And this was a resilience building week for me.

I eased up on some of my goal directed behaviors to make room for other behaviors that needed to be the priority. If we go back to my last blog and see that all roads lead to Rome, each of my goal behaviors play a role in helping me to achieve my goal values. They each are important and they all are important. I hope to share more on this soon in the context of energy expenditure - both mental and physical.

Despite it being an emotionally challenging week for me, my body fat stayed the same and my lean muscle mass went up slightly. This was after 3 days of not going to the gym to care for some much needed time and attention to things at home and not being perfect on my macros. Not too shabby.

You will see below that I’m not perfect. I didn’t follow my plan exactly. I didn’t get in all of my sprints. I didn’t get weekly photos but I’m still making progress. Because I’m still doing work every day. The work outlined below. Inner work. Regular work. Reading work. (Yo! I finished one book already! Thank you to my son for giving me a short book to start my year off!) The work of my goal of organizing all my belongings. And the work of rest and just being. Ya dude. That last shit is the real work right there…

Have a great week my friends!

Current Plan Details:
Average actual macros last week:

P = 126 gms - (goal = 135)

F = 43 gms - (goal = 30-35)

C = 197 gms - (goal = 175-185)

Workouts completed this week: (Jan 1-7)

Legs x 2

Push x 1

Pull x 1

Abs x 3

Sprints x 1

End of Week 3:

115.3 lbs = Average weight this week

27.125 in = Waist

34.5 in = Hips

40 in = Shoulders

InBody Stats: (Done on Jan 9)

116.3 lbs = Weight at gym with clothes after coffee and small meal

13.6% = Body fat %

100.5 lbs = Lean body mass

56 lbs = Skeletal muscle mass

15.8 lbs = Fat mass

A little poem I wrote

Hubby knows how to make me smile

The peaceful power of a tidy space

Spent some time rejuvenating with friends

InBody stats on 1/9/23

Grateful I was working when my friend’s daughter came in