I am awful at processing emotion. Or maybe I don't know how to process it. Or maybe I just don't process it in what I would consider normal fashion. Hell, I've never been to a therapist. What I do know is that my version of processing emotion has always involved sport. For the last 20 years of my life, sport has been my outlet, my refuge.
Growing up whenever I had a hard time I always wanted to go for a walk or go play basketball. When my cousin died during our senior year of high school, after I visited family I went to basketball practice. Nothing else made sense so I did the only thing that did make sense, playing.
Last Christmas I went home to see family for the holidays and the day I got in my brother came to the airport with my dad to surprise me. About an hour later when we were on our way home in separate cars he got in an accident that totaled his truck along with three others and landed him in the hospital for a day and a half. The day he was released from the hospital I went to the gym to lift. A couple of days later he had a seizure and we took him to the ER for an overnight stay. (He's completely happy, healthy, & fine now.) I got home from the holiday trip and the next day when I stepped on that lifting platform all hell broke loose. I lifted with a vengeance, an anger, a complete pouring of all emotion into the lift. I was pushing for weight, for reps, for absolutely anything. I felt like crying the whole time, not because it was hard or because I was hurting, simply because I needed to cry.
I know it sounds extremely selfish to go to practice or go to the gym when I should be with family. It's just how I process things. Even in times where it's not a major emergency, a bad day, a bad mood, upset about anything, I want to get a work out in. It's a physical punishment to process whatever is on my mind. It is my refuge when things get tough.
Lately my refuge has provided no solace. I enter a work out hoping to blow off some frustrations. I step on the platform with high hopes but by the end I leave the platform worse off than when I started. There has honestly not been one single workout in the last few weeks that has not ended up in tears before, during, or after the lifting, or at least a bit teary-eyed. My frustrations have been off the chart and I'm a stubborn girl. I have kept trying to beat the lifting to death, hoping it would finally submit and once again become my refuge. I have often heard the definition of insanity as doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome. Well I have definitely gone off the deep-end in terms of sanity.
I don't know how to "turn off." I don't know how or when to give up. I keep pushing and pushing and pushing until I am broken. I keep going until I end up on the platform in tears, defeated. I have to be told to stop, take a break, take time off. This time around I was told I need to take a week off, step away from the platform, not touch a bar.
It has now been 10 straight days without touching a bar. I can't say its been easy but it has been nice. I also can't say that I was able to completely shut my brain off when it comes to thinking about weightlifting. I did try though.
It is time to get back on that platform and get back to work. I am hopeful that it will all return to normal. I need that platform. I need my refuge, my comfort, my solace.
Growing up whenever I had a hard time I always wanted to go for a walk or go play basketball. When my cousin died during our senior year of high school, after I visited family I went to basketball practice. Nothing else made sense so I did the only thing that did make sense, playing.
Last Christmas I went home to see family for the holidays and the day I got in my brother came to the airport with my dad to surprise me. About an hour later when we were on our way home in separate cars he got in an accident that totaled his truck along with three others and landed him in the hospital for a day and a half. The day he was released from the hospital I went to the gym to lift. A couple of days later he had a seizure and we took him to the ER for an overnight stay. (He's completely happy, healthy, & fine now.) I got home from the holiday trip and the next day when I stepped on that lifting platform all hell broke loose. I lifted with a vengeance, an anger, a complete pouring of all emotion into the lift. I was pushing for weight, for reps, for absolutely anything. I felt like crying the whole time, not because it was hard or because I was hurting, simply because I needed to cry.
I know it sounds extremely selfish to go to practice or go to the gym when I should be with family. It's just how I process things. Even in times where it's not a major emergency, a bad day, a bad mood, upset about anything, I want to get a work out in. It's a physical punishment to process whatever is on my mind. It is my refuge when things get tough.
Lately my refuge has provided no solace. I enter a work out hoping to blow off some frustrations. I step on the platform with high hopes but by the end I leave the platform worse off than when I started. There has honestly not been one single workout in the last few weeks that has not ended up in tears before, during, or after the lifting, or at least a bit teary-eyed. My frustrations have been off the chart and I'm a stubborn girl. I have kept trying to beat the lifting to death, hoping it would finally submit and once again become my refuge. I have often heard the definition of insanity as doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome. Well I have definitely gone off the deep-end in terms of sanity.
I don't know how to "turn off." I don't know how or when to give up. I keep pushing and pushing and pushing until I am broken. I keep going until I end up on the platform in tears, defeated. I have to be told to stop, take a break, take time off. This time around I was told I need to take a week off, step away from the platform, not touch a bar.
It has now been 10 straight days without touching a bar. I can't say its been easy but it has been nice. I also can't say that I was able to completely shut my brain off when it comes to thinking about weightlifting. I did try though.
It is time to get back on that platform and get back to work. I am hopeful that it will all return to normal. I need that platform. I need my refuge, my comfort, my solace.
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