Search for my inner beast continues

"Attack the weights" he says. "Be aggressive" he says. "Be a beast." It sounds easier than it is. I see some people at the gym have the confidence to do it. I am trying, but it feels fake. Then I start to think about it too much and I feel like a failure. Can you fail at being a beast? If you can, I'm doing it. I hate failing because that means I am too weak to accomplish my goal. Then I start the negative talk that I have worked so hard to silence. What if I am just a big fake in the gym? What if I am not as strong as I think I am? Maybe I am getting to "sure" of myself and this is my "payback" -- falling face first and making a fool of myself.

I so desperately want to find a place where I can just fit in. Where I'm not the awkward person who is relegated to the sidelines. I want the gym to be that place, but I still feel like I am not doing it quite right. Whatever it is. I know that there will always be many stronger than me, faster than me, and better than me. No matter what I tell myself, I still find me comparing my performance to others around me. Mentally, I know that I am stronger than I was 6 months ago, but I am not as strong as I want to be. I know that it is a process, but what if I don't get any stronger. What if I can't move forward with my goals. What if I fail by not being able to be aggressive?

What's even worse would be disappointing my trainer. He has been my greatest support and guide through this new process. I don't have very many people who understand what I do at the gym and why I do it so I don't want to lose his approval and support. There is a part of me that thinks he sees something in me that I can't see and he wants to help me find that aggressive, confident person inside of me. Is there more to me than I can see?

He knows my history of being knocked down by life more than once. I have gotten back up and not stopped living, but it wasn't easy and I needed help from him to understand and know how to get past some problems so that I could have a happier life. I have not stood up for myself in a confrontation and come out unscathed and strong. In the past, I have shrunk away from direct confrontation, given in, and quietly regrouped. I find that I usually blame myself for not being strong enough to stand up for myself. I guess that is what I'm doing now. Regrouping and trying to figure out how to attack the weights instead of attacking myself when I am at a point that I need more energy or "oomph" to lift that bar. Instead of getting mad at the weight, I get mad at myself for not being able to do it. It brings up bad memories of blaming myself. Falling into a spiral of making everything into a catastrophe that is all my fault. Then, true to my past experiences, I shrink away and hide. That is a part of my life that I have packed away because it was so hurtful and destructive to me. I deserve to treat myself better.

So what do I do now? I don't want to fail at the gym. And I don't mean not being able to lift the weight. I mean what if I am not the strong, powerful woman who I want to be, who I imagine I am. What if I'm still the "ugly" duckling like I have been in so many aspects of my life. I want so bad to succeed at this. I need to be strong. I need to find some place where I belong. I need to be that confident, aggressive lifter. Please, Lord, help me find that person within me. Please don't let me find out that all of this is not real and that I am just a fake. I need this to be real. I need to be real. I need to find out that I can discover and use the powerful, raw energy to be a stronger version of me. I want to feel proud of who I am turning out to be. Failing just can't be an option for me. I like what I'm doing too much to give it up. I need to meet and learn from the stronger version of me.

Where's my inner beast?

I go into the gym and get my job done. I enjoy getting stronger and seeing the difference my work has made in my body. I also watch others attack their workout with an intensity that I have not found yet. That doesn't mean that I don't give it my all, I do with every workout. I just do it in a quiet, controlled fashion. Could I ever "unleash the beast" and just attack it? Do I have a beast to unleash? Do I have that aggressive side in me? Can I grunt and groan and make it happen in the gym? Can I find that raw energy that drives athletes to the next level? It is difficult to imagine me with those feelings and power that I can use in a positive and powerful way. Maybe I do and I just haven't found it yet. I imagine it hiding within me, just waiting to be discovered.

I have an aggressive voice in me, but I don't think it is the "beast" that will help me in my workout. It has been the voice that has worked against me and degraded me in the past. It is the voice that has criticized me and pointed out my failures before others could. That is not a voice that will help progress me in my workouts. It is the voice that I have turned off so that I could be good to myself and learn to love myself. It was replaced with a kinder, encouraging voice. That voice has helped me be brave enough to try new things, including the gym and lifting.  "Beast" mode is a new way to think of my inner voice and power, using it to attack my workout instead of attacking myself.

"Beast" mode to me is like living on the wild side. I have never felt like I can just "let loose" and see what happens in any part of my life.  That is living too much on the edge. I have lived my life staying in the safe zone. For the past two years I have worked hard to set new goals that I work towards. Each time I clear a hurdle and reach a new level that I didn't think possible I find something new to master. So I am on the hunt for my "inner beast" and work with it to make me more powerful, inside and out.
Who knows.... I could be that person tearing it up in the gym, lifting heavy weights and not caring who hears me succeed! I'm on the hunt for my beast mode. Ready or not here I come!!!!

Do you have a weekly treat for yourself?

I work out with a personal trainer every week. Does that sound decadent or frivolous?  The first time someone commented that I must be rich to afford a trainer every week I was taken aback. As a nurse, and now as a teacher, I can assure you that I'm not rich. I budget every week to make ends meet and get my family what each person needs. One thing that I budget for is my family's gym membership and my husband's and my weekly appointment with Bryce at www.bryceatkins.com. It is a treat that I need and enjoy each week.

When the comment of not being rich enough to afford a trainer was said, I thought about it. Was I being frivolous? There are many things that people choose to spend their money on as a "treat" instead of a "necessity" -- fancy coffees on the way to work, happy hour drinks on Friday nights, sport tickets, concert tickets, enough shoes to fill a closet, weekly housekeeper visits, and other smaller sweets and treats that sneak into our lives and homes without much thought. These are not things that I spend my money on, but I make sure that I have put aside money each month for my trainer.

I don't consider my weekly training session as a splurge (something I might feel guilty about spending the money for), but as a treat. It is something I do for myself that makes me feel good and that feeling last through out the week. I can workout on my own, and do 2-3 times a week at the gym. But for 1 day a week, I have someone who knows me very well, mix things up in my workout routine, pushes me past my comfort zone, and checks on my form. Working out with Bryce also gives me a different kind of accountability. I want to use the workouts between our appointments to continue what I do with him in order to workout that much harder the next week.

Everyone should give themselves a weekly treat that they don't feel guilty about, but makes them feel better or makes them enjoy their week just a little more. I highly recommend investing your "treat" budget for at least a few sessions with a personal trainer. It will help you set up some routines that help you meet your personal fitness goals or grow more as an athlete as you set up new, more challenging goals, or prevent getting in a rut  of monotonous or mundane workouts. I choose to spend 1 hour a week with Bryce challenging me in ways that I can't do on my own. What is your own weekly treat?

Does solo mean alone?

When I first started working out I wanted to do it alone. I didn't have the confidence to share it with anyone except my trainer. I felt very vulnerable and awkward, as if I was pretending to be an athlete. As I got more comfortable with myself and my physical efforts,  I found that I wanted to share my experiences, good and bad, with someone else. The most obvious person would be my husband, but he was avoiding working out at all costs at that time. He didn't want to share in my experiences as much as I wanted him to. My family and friends were supportive, but I could tell that some of them couldn't understand the change that had come over me.

Fast forward a year and I have created a network of support with those same friends and family. I still enjoy working out alone most of the time. It is my time to sort thoughts out, conquer demons, and push myself beyond what I am comfortable doing. I look forward to my training sessions with Bryce once a week, but beyond that I do my runs and training sessions solo. But I don't feel alone in the process. My husband has ventured into the gym and now goes regularly 3 times a week. He is reluctant to work out with me. Instead of feeling resentful about that, he and I share time outside the gym. Comparing and talking about our workout sessions has become a typical dinner conversation over the past few months. I was even able to come up with a monthly challenge that Brian agreed to do with me -- 1 minute planks every day for the month of September. That is a new venture for us to do together. We both understand and support each other's separate and personal fitness journey. Our journeys are different, but our healthy outcomes are similar. We share and support each other, even though we workout separately.

There might come a time where I find a training partner who has similar workout methods and goals to train with, but until then, I am content finding support away from my training sessions and my runs. My friends and family are there to celebrate my victories with and commiserate in my frustrations and sore muscles. I work out solo, but not alone.

Preplan to overcome desires

My reward for working an hour after school on Friday was a cold, rainy afternoon. Life is ironic at time.  It would not have been that bad, except that I had a 4-mile run scheduled. After a long week of school, it would have been so easy to just scrap the run and enjoy the evening with my husband. But I had scheduled my run and so I treated myself to run on the trail where there was some tree coverage from the rain. If I had not purposefully planned not only the run, but the distance, I would have had an easier time of skipping it altogether. Not that I didn't think about it on about mile 3, but I knew that I had already written down what I was doing and I didn't want to go back on my own schedule. I was faced with similar temptations on my 5-mile run before an early football game on Saturday morning and a bench press session on Sunday afternoon when a nap would have been greatly enjoyed.  I have learned that I have to do more than just plan a time for my runs and training sessions, I have to decide what I am going to accomplish each time. I write down the length of the run or the exercises I plan on doing, including weights, reps, and sets that I will accomplish. It is a contract with myself that I will do. Taking out the guess work takes out the negotiation with myself. Instead of planning on doing a workout .... I plan it, write it down, and then I do it. It sounds easier than it is and it takes practice and planning on a daily basis just like any habit. The goal setting and positive mental chat is something I have had to learn from my trainer this past year. The payoff is that I feel good about following through with my plans that will get me closer to my goals. And running 9 miles in less than 18 hours and having a 90 minute lifting session makes me feel productive with my weekend. Taking care of myself takes time to plan and do, but it is worth it. I am worth it.

My anniversary to my beginning

This week marks my one year anniversary of starting strength training with a trainer. I was lucky enough to know my trainer because he was also my counselor. His philosophy was to have a healthy body, mind, and spirit. Bryce was starting his new life journey by setting up his life coaching business, Legacy Life Training. When he shared this news with me I knew that one of my prayers had been answered. I had prayed for a person to show me how to get stronger physically after I had spent one year getting emotionally stronger. Bryce opened that door for me and I walked through with some conditions. My main condition was that I wanted to have him show me a 20 minute all-body workout that I could do in my own home so that no one would see me. I didn't think that I could do more than 20 minutes 3 times a week. And I knew that I could never workout in front of others. I felt safer doing it all by myself. I smile as I type this because one year later I have made my way into a gym working out in front of others, although I realize that no one is watching me because they are busy with their own workouts. In March I ventured into the gym to use heavier weights than I had at home. I had never squatted, dead-lifted, or bench-pressed with free weights.  Earlier this summer Bryce challenged me to set some goals that were big enough to scare me. So after some thought and wavering back and forth with myself, I decided to train and compete in a local power-lifting competition in July of 2015. Boy is that a change from a year ago. Now I am reading power-lifting books and watching videos from other female lifters to learn the correct form and rules of competition, and using Bryce's training and my research to write my own training plans for the 3 lifting disciplines I am training for.
I realize that writing is not my passion, but keeping track of my journey is something that I want to do so that I can see my own progress, physically and emotionally. During my training session with Bryce today he suggested that I blog about this leg of my journey. So here I am writing my first post in my very own blog. I want to track my mental workouts, as well as my physical workouts, as I train for my end goal, the Show-Me Games in July 2015. I expect that I will use this blog to work through my "blocks", vent through my frustrations, and celebrate my successes. I invite whoever has worked for a challenge that scares you so much that you get queasy just thinking about it to check in with me every once in awhile. As I get started in another new venture, blogging, I see new fears popping up, but I feel that this will be a good challenge to tackle too.