Not Just Reps, But Revival: 7 Stories of Finding Strength Within.
Fitness transformations are commonly perceived in the dramatic before and after images of all that is body weight loss and body growth. But there is another, greater tale than the figures, which you will hear should you lean a bit closer.And it is a tale not of bodies transformed, but of lives regained. It is regarding discovering a part of you that you believed was gone. And these are not tales of hard labor or boasting. They are tales of generosity, bravery and returning to self.
David: Man Who Walked Back to Himself.
David became a ghost in his own life because of thirty years in a desk. His bones were hurting, his back was paining, the world was now smaller than the distance between his chair at the office and his recliner. His doctor was talking about blood pressure medication and the name diabetes was passed on. It was not the fear of death, but it was the fear of the life of slow degradation.
He did not begin to change in a gym. It began with one, slow, stroll around the block one evening when he was especially embarrassed. His shins and his breath were sore. But he looked at the stars and he heard the silence of his slumbering quarter.The next night, he did it again and again. His refuge had been those short walks. He did not exercise: he simply moved, foot in front of foot. He began to notice gardens, greet other night walkers and feel stress of the day fading away with every stride.
Months later he walked longer. He found a trail in the woods. He began to anticipate this moment with his mind upon itself. The scale numbers began to alter yet that was not the victory. The triumph was sensing the power in his legs as he climbed up a little hill. It was the capability of playing on the floor with his grand kids without soreness. It was staring his physician in the face and telling him, "Wait a little longer on that drug.
David did not find a six-pack, he found his future self and he liked him.
Maria: The Woman Who Lifted her Grief.
When Maria lost her mother, the burden of the sorrow was a physical shoestring, and she was pulled to the couch. The world was too fast, too loud. She canceled plans. She concealed herself behind friends that told her to be strong. She felt weak, hollowed out.
One day cleaning in a closet, she discovered an old and simple set of dumbbells belonging to her mother. Her mother, ever utilitarian, had supposed in usefulness and strength. Maria picked one, on a whim, too sad to think.
She did a few clumsy curls. The muscles were aching with a clean, honest pang, which was not in the least like the deep throbbing in her heart. During those several minutes, she was able only to think of the burn, her breathing, the mere process of raising and lowering.It became her ritual. She would go and pull those weights in the tranquility of her garage. It was not her body she was fighting, but using. Press by press, row after row she had a little agency back. She was not merely the ship of unhappiness; she was a human being able to do something. She could still be strong.
Gym was her holy ground to experience her sadness without being engulfed by it. She did not leave her sadness behind, she developed physical and mental strength to carry it. She learned that being a strong person does not mean not to feel pain but being strong enough to bear it.
Chloe: The Student Who Found her Voice.
The worry that Chloe experienced was like a balance of anxiety that is a persistent staticky buzz at the back of her mind. She felt as though she was acting a role that she did not know in college, under the pressure of deadlines and social expectation. She kept on apologizing that she ate space.
On the last day, her sweet roommate pulled her to a yoga class. You need not speak to any one, she vowed.
It was an eye opener to Chloe during that first class. The teacher did not talk of trying harder, but listening. Fine find an edge that isn't too tough, but nice, she would say. "Your practice, your rules."
It was the first time when Chloe was allowed to turn off all the noise and tune on to herself. Was she tired? She could take a child's pose. Did she feel strong? She might have a go at that arm balance. Competition was not there, just curiosity.
At the mat she had learnt to stabilize her breath, and in so doing, she learnt to stabilize her mind. Physical training of making a pose, taught her the mental training of just sitting in the discomfort without panicking.
It appears to be an intense change but in fact it was profound. The shy girl who used to whisper the order on her cup of coffee began to speak during seminar classes. She did not become loud, extroverted, but she became grounded. She had discovered in herself a centre of composure, which not all the hurly and burly of the world could disturb. She now could speak her own voice, and it was firm and clear.
Ben and Sarah: The Bridge building couple.
Spending twenty years of marriage, Ben and Sarah become very professional. They handled children, time and chores but their relationship was sunk beneath an avalanche of everyday living. Discussions were logistical. They were in love, yet they were out of sight.
The change started as a joke. Sarah replied in frustration that we are wasting the majority of time watching television. In my defense, I answered, Well what do you want to do? Run a marathon?" He then a month later, a little embarrassed, registered them on a beginners Couch to 5K app. It was not really a question of fitness but an apology.The early ones were humorous. They moved slowly, were breathless, and whined. Yet they were united, and had no children, no cell phones. They began discussing more than who was picking up the children. They reflected, they fantasized on holidays, they ranted about work.
Evelyn: The Dancer Who learned to Stand.
Evelyn was a dancer in her whole life. The movement of her body, its flexibility, its grace was her identity. A car accident took that away out of her. The back injury was chronic and this meant that she could no longer leap, no longer twist, no longer express the joy in her heart through movement.
She plunged into utter depression. Her body, life long friend, was a prison of pain and constraint. She hated it. The physical therapist was her turning point when she said, "Perhaps we cannot dance now. But can we learn to just stand? Without pain?" The lowliest ambition they had ever heard. Treatment was tedious, time-consuming and exasperating. It was of small, isometric positions. In respect of breathing into a muscle. About stability, not flow. Something changed, however, gradually. She started to admire her body not on its capacity to perform, but on the experience that it had gone through. She began to perceive its strength.
She learned the Yin yoga, which is the practice of passive poses that last minutes at a time. It was the opposite of dance. It was not struggling but yielding. On the mat she was taught to be quiet. To listen. To show benignity to her own shortcomings.
It was a change of point of view. Evelyn began to view her body as an instrument broken and began to view it as a healing partner. She discovered a new, great sort of grace--not in a great jump, but in the silent stature of a body which had struggled to recuperate. She rests in the quietness.
Marcus: The Chosen Father of the Yard.
Marcus was the "fun dad." It was he who would go down and do the Lego castles. But this all changed as his forties sneaked in and he was excusing himself. "I'm too tired, buddy." "My back hurts." He would sit on the porch and look over his son playing with a knot of guilt and exhaustion in his stomach.
He knew he was not only deprived of play, but deprived of self. He desired to become the father who would not only look at the bike but also ride it. He wanted to be there, fully. He didn't join a fancy gym. He used his son as his gym. He began with simply playing soccer in the yard twenty minutes a day. He was humiliatingly breathless. But nothing inspired his son more than the laughter of his father. They began to take weekend hikes of adventure. Marcus would bring snacks that are healthy and they would go hiking. He would test his son to a race to the next big tree. He was not exercising, he was creating a legacy of health and play to his boy.
The pounds were lost and his strength was up. It was on a chance Tuesday, though, that he got the real victory, and the son looked up at him and said, "Dad, you are the fastest team a runner in the entire world. He wasn't. In the eyes of his son, however, he was a super-hero once more. And that was everything.
Anya: The Society in which she was carried.
Anya has gone to a new city to work, not knowing anybody. She was all alone, and the long dark winters were going to feed a sadness she could not get rid of. She felt invisible.
One desperate Saturday she entered a tiny, innocuous cross-training gym because she noticed a sign that read, Free First Class. She almost turned around. Everybody was fit and well known to another.
But the coach called her by name. The woman beside her presented herself. And when it came to the workout a miracle occurred: nobody was staring at her. All were too busy complimenting one another. "You've got this, Anya!" a foreigner shouted, as she strove with the final pull. People were her reason to go back. They remembered her name. They saw when she became stronger. They asked about her week. The exercise was nearly incidental. She had found her tribe.
Her soul was changed. The gym served as a source of her presence in a new city. The iron was certain and foreseeable, but the community was life-bringing. She did not only get physically stronger; she developed a circle of friends who rejoiced with her victories and who were beside her in defeat. She passed through feeling invisible to being viewed, appreciated, and adored.
She discovered more than fitness, she discovered a family.
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