It’s been a tough spring personally. A lot of changes all at the same time have made everything feel like it’s not quite stable. Much of it has been good – but it’s draining me energetically and physically.
Somehow that seems mildly ironic as in February my glucose was averaging around 400-450 and now it is down around 140-160. I’ve lost and kept off 30 pounds since January. My blood pressure is great.
But, along the way, self-doubt has crept back in insidious ways. I can feel its paralyzing effects and am doing the best I can to fight back. Literally. I am finally back doing taekwondo. Almost 4 years ago Steph Stowe dragged my out of shape tush and extremely depressed brain to Zumba®. I fell in love and said I wanted to do that to get back to TKD.
Along the way I started to TEACH Zumba®. I had two classes a week that I taught using a chair. People from 4-86 came each week and loved it – and I loved them. It was a personal challenge to teach. Almost every class I walked in wondering “Who the heck am I to be teaching a fitness class? I’m fat, out of shape and far from the fitness ideal.” I did it for them; I did it for me.
In February, I started back to taekwondo. More than a decade since I had stopped training. I’d forgotten the patterns. But remember the feelings. How much it challenged me, how much it let me get moving physically and mentally, how much it let the emotions I didn’t want to admit were there move.
I am back at it again. 50 pounds heavier than when I stopped. I’m in my 40s. The drills are different, and the students are different and my instructor is different. The kicks are the same. The patterns, rusty and dusty from lack of use, are there and will slowly come back.
One thing that has remained the same in deeply personal way for me is the fact that the sparring partner who challenges me most in this is me, my own brain.
I leave class tired, sweaty, proud. And more often than not experiencing a flood of feelings that truly have nothing to do with class other than that the movement and focus allows them to come out of the tidy cubbies I want to stuff them into. Some nights its pride. Some nights it is just an overwhelming sadness. Some nights it is feeling strong.
Tonight, it is sitting with the question that has haunted me the past few weeks… “Can I keep up? Can I do this? How do I do this?” It has shown up in so many places and ways – both large and small. This is where I must exercise my indomitable spirit – keep persevering… lean in and lean on where I can.
There goes a fighter….
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