Through the Floor and Towards Myself
Muscles and Mindsets
Welcome to Love + Travel or welcome back if you know your way around the place.
Check out a poem and reflection in last week’s A Change is Underway or the entirety of my writing, here.
Research is my favorite part of the 13 Weeks of Adventure series. It’s easy to learn more about the things I’m already interested in. What doesn’t come as easy is getting out of my head and talking to people. I’m the introverted type and would much rather visit a place, document a few things and leave, but that never feels enough.
This series challenges me to introduce myself and ask questions. To learn more than what can be found on a search engine and share what I find with you.
I’m becoming the person I want to be in real-time.
It’s a beautiful thing. Thank you for being a witness.
R.
No part of me thinks I can go through the floor.
The gym I visit is on the seventh floor of its building.
I hope I don’t go through the floor.
But when doing a deadlift, my thought is very singular:
If I operate like I can go through the floor by driving my heel into the ground, then dormant parts of myself will be awakened. That’s the idea. That’s the reason why I go to the gym - to build a stronger connection with myself.
The physical results are self-evident, but if you ask any true gym rat, someone who has fallen in love with the process, they’ll let you know that the gym is more a mental game than a physical one. The weights seem like the obvious challenge - the villain of the story - but, they’re not. The challenge is internal. The mind quits before the body does.
And so I go to challenge my mind.
I need to challenge my thoughts.
To practice standing up to the things that isolate me from myself. Things that hold me apart from my heart’s desires. It’s a lesson with life-altering effects.
We hear and watch ourselves.
We’re both the observer and the observed.
I need to be seen trying for my own good. To prove that effort won't kill me, and that the only limit to my success stems from my thoughts about myself.
I need the constant reminder that I am a creation of my own making.
The poetry of it all is becoming known.
Gaining a fresh outlook on something familiar.
Spending enough time with myself to notice I shift my stance away from standing squarely on both feet. Or in realizing I routinely angle my chin down and away.
These new perspectives are part of me in the same way a line of poetry pulls the air from my lungs or causes me to think on it long after I’ve closed the book. The wonder of being surprised by an arrangement of words, or muscles, is the equal.
It’s romantic really.
Lovingly getting to know myself in ways unseen.
Prodding to see what the idle parts are hiding.
Believing there’s something worth knowing.
Allowing myself to be surprised by the unknown.
The stacking of weights and the clank of a bar being reset is the signal of a new beginning, no different than birds welcoming dawn.
The seventh floor is where I meet ground I’ve never touched before. And so I think outside of the laws of physics and will myself to go through the floor. Because in the pursuit of the impossible, no matter where I end up, I am further than where I began.
If this opened your heart or mind, help it open a few more, I invite you to like, share, or comment to help it reach those it’s meant for. You can also upgrade your subscription, buy me a coffee, or add a book to my library to support me in spending more time creating and connecting with you.
TODAY’S TIDBIT
This evening at the Brooklyn Heights Library Yrsa Daley-Ward Discusses The Catch with Zakiya Dalia Harris.
I loved her poetry book, Bone, which is what inspired me to pre-order this debut novel about twin sisters, estrangement, and self-actualization. Although it sits on my shelf unread (I’m in the middle of The Mayor of Maxwell Street1) this seems like a chill event for a Monday night.
LET ME KNOW
How do you romance yourself?
Introvert or extrovert?
How do you move your body? Do you walk? Jog? Run? Shake your butt in the mirror?
Have you read Bone or The Mayor of Maxwell Street? Is The Catch on your TBR?
Thank you again to whoever decided to gift it to me anonymously. It’s so good!
As beautiful a reflection as ever. 💛
I had a hard time getting to movement that was for me rather than against me, but I’m so glad I did. It’s been a game changer for my mental health and confidence in what I can do, what kind of discomfort I can ride through. My number one movement is long walks, but I also do Pilates and strength training/cardio classes. I feel like im finally in a place where I do it more because it fills me up not because I’m trying to change how I look, although that is a natural consequence.
I lift weights for the same reasons you do. It’s one hell of a mental game that happens to be good for you in many physical ways too.